Tõnu Kaljuste Conductor
Tõnu Kaljuste Conductor
The new batch of ECMs this autumn broadly speaking has one thing in common given that it sticks to chamber jazz in a number of guises following a range of often divergent European approaches.
The pick of the entire spread, French player Louis Sclavis on clarinet and bass clarinet, is one of the world’s masters on bass clarinet particularly. I recall seeing a mind blowing one-off duet he did in Bath three decades ago with US master David Murray (whose own new album Francesca proved so inspiring this year).
If new to the Lyon born Sclavis – one of the icons of European jazz – we reckon 2019’s larger group Characters on a Wall is one to hear as soon as possible and on which fellow countryman pianist Benjamin Moussay, 20 years Sclavis’ junior, also appears.
Recorded earlier this year, at the same studio in France as Characters, this latest can be appreciated by both classical and jazz fans. It probably leans nevertheless more to being unaffiliated in terms of niche adherence but seems if pushed quite classical in its idiom and discipline more than most new jazz that I have listened to recently. I am always baffled by what is or isn’t on New Series (the classical sibling label of ECM’s). Certainly if this was on New Series I think it would be heard by a whole different niche of music lovers beyond the usual suspects of us diehard jazz lovers.
You might think this doesn’t matter – perhaps it doesn’t as those who really know will find this anyway given how significant both players are. Mostly Moussay originals and some by Sclavis it’s serious music making, serious in a sober and very ascetic way that is, the pieces often largo and plangent, the sonics beautifully capturing the deep resonances that the bass clarinet plunges to.
Moussay’s piano lines have a pristine almost translucent quality – the pieces are admirably concise, the longest – the title track at the beginning at just over 6 and a quarter minutes while the tumbling ‘Siete Lagunas’ is well shy of and under three minutes.
Sclavis on ‘Siete Lagunas’ reminds me of John Surman just turned 80 and whose own vibes, guitar & drums accented album Words Unspoken has a bigger canvas and is more obviously jazz rhythmically. ‘Somebody Leaves’ is probably for want of a better word the ”jazziest” track – you get an Ornettian flavour to some of the free-ish language which is great and also happens in passages elsewhere. SG