Koller, Hans with Bill Frisell

Cry, Want

Label: psi Country: UK

"[...] Like Frisell, Koller is an enigma with jazz roots but displays them more openly, particularly in references to the embracing brass textures of Gil Evans, and to Evans's imaginative, rock-inflected heir Mike Gibbs. Anyone who shivers pleasurably at the sound of an Evans brass section (going all the way back on this set to the Birth of the Cool sound) will be warmed by Cry, Want, and though Frisell fans might find their man's input rather modest, the guitarist's playing alongside Evan Parker's soprano saxophone on the mesmerising title track might well make the CD worth the investment.

Koller is a talented writer with patience foremost among his gifts, as the soft-shuffling "Farewell" shows, with its ringing guitar and beautifully voiced and layered brass, the rhythmic development gently pulling at the melody lines so the piece gradually transforms. The Evans feel is plain on the slow-turning guitar ballad "Estuary", and Parker's soprano and Robin Fincker's clarinet elegantly entwine among the wheeling horns on the anthemic "Hermetique". Frisell's solo playing is mostly a throwback to his early Jim Hall influences, as can be seen when he swings over Jeff Williams's brushwork on "Quasimodo", and when his ensemble playing enhances Fincker's gruff tenor solo on the jubilantly urgent "Reunion". But it's the quietly bluesy, tone-poetic title track and finale - with Frisell's pinging harmonics among muted trumpets and swishing cymbals, and Parker's soprano sounding as Wayne Shorterish as it ever has - that really carries the day."-John Fordham, Guardian UK