Search - Urs Leimgruber, Jacques Demierre, Barre Phillips :: Wing Vane

Quiet pointillism

N. Dorward | Toronto, ON Canada | 03/15/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The lineup for this disc--soprano/tenor, piano & bass--is identical to the Parker/Bley/Phillips trio that recorded two discs for ECM, & with Phillips present here again the resemblance is even more striking. & yet it comes out very different: the Parker/Bley/Phillips trio was highly melodic (unusually so for an Evan Parker outing), a continuous lyricism that was very much front-and-centre (Bley, however pensive, is no shrinking violet, & the ECM echo flushes out the least sound). By contrast this is a very oblique session--all three players choose to perform in a highly pointillist, nonlinear fashion, quietly but abruptly. Leimgruber's saxophone often delivers more unpitched hisses & sighs than actual notes; Demierre (whose musical experience ranges from improv to IRCAM) plays elegantly splintered chords with a surprisingly light & elusive touch; Phillips is often as percussive as melodic. One of the most astonishing passages occurs on the titletrack: whereas it's a cliche of free-jazz & free-improv that a long improvisation start quietly & build to a climax, then die away, this performance's central section is about 5 minutes of near inaudibility. The 3rd track, on the other hand, is unusually loud, an improvised minimalist ballad--over its 10 minutes I doubt the musicians collectively play more than 100 distinct notes.Not a disc for the casual listener, perhaps, but anyone who's responded to a disc like the Parker/Bley/Phillips _Time Will Tell_ or Giuffre's _Free Fall_ will find this absorbing listening."