Search - Paul Giger :: Alpstein

Wow

p940e | Novato, CA United States | 06/18/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"So I'm here in Switzerland, just visiting some people and falling in love with the mountains. One day a friend plays this CD for me and tells me the musician is local.OH MY GOSH!! This is really good. So inspiring. If you are a fan of improvised music, get hip to this CD."

Brilliant, sometimes monotonous

Marius Cipolla | 07/12/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This interesting album is a thematic suite celebrating life in an Alpine village, complete with the sounds of cowbells clonking, milk squirting into pails, butter being churned and other melodious rural activities, quoted by Giger and Garbarek on violin and sax.



Garbarek's usually richly melodic inventiveness is muted here and the majority of his fans may be disappointed with this. Giger is a brilliant technician but on occasions both instruments (and the percussion) are put to prolonged scrapings and clankings which, while they may accurately evoke the sounds of industrious Appenzell village life, also make for passages of boredom and irritation. I speak here as a tourist, rather than a denizen.



What save the album for me are the moments (luckily frequent) where Giger and Garbarek's lyricism escape into melodic flights that evoke the magnificent scenery behind the cow-sheds. Then this recording becomes sublime."

Need to be in the Mood for the Alpine

John D. Dooley | Southern California United States | 07/19/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"All day on a certain Saturday I was going through some of Jan Garbarek ECM collection where I found this CD in my Jazz section. Paul Giger on violin is the featured musical artist, Jan Garbarek on tenor sax, & Pierre Favre on percussion. It was now late at night so I decided to give this CD a spin after years of gaining dust. Reading the inner notes the music is describing Paul Giger's childhood where he lived in the Swiss Alps far up in the country side. Sure enough there are cow bells ringing with the violin going up & down the scales, at lighting speed yet calmly or dreary, maybe dreamily? Jan Garbarek picks up his sax & joins in to fill in the gaps either with painful or free jazz expression. There are a few times his sax sounds like a trumpet. I wonder how he did that? Pierre Favre percussion is there for atmosphere or sound effects, rather than jazz. I agree with Marius Cipolla review that there are moments of greatness in this experiment but lots of wasted space. You will have to be in the mood to go through this CD from start to finish. I did this night & I am now writing this review. It must be good because I gave it a 4.



A question to myself: Why is this CD in my jazz section?"