The NY trio of Stephan Crump on acoustic bass, Ingrid Laubrock on tenor & soprano saxophones, and Cory Smythe on piano follow-up to their "Planktonic Finales" album with this live album recorded at the Unerhort!-Festival in Zurich in 2017, in a lyrically free album of solid compositional structures that result in warmly creative and singular jazz.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2019 Country: Switzerland Packaging: Jewel Case Recorded live at unerhort!-Festival 2017, in Hamburg, Germany, on December 1st, 2017, by Martin Pearson.
"For me, free improvisation is nothing more than composing - spontaneous composing from the moment," says bassist Stephan Crump. In this trio, three ideal-typical partners come together who bring along thinking in compositional structures. Saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock is active as a composer in her countless projects, always swinging playfully between composition and improvisation and moving light-footedly between harmonic and rhythmically bound jazz and free improvisation. The pianist Cory Smythe (decorated with a Grammy for the recording "In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores" 2015) originally comes from new serious music and, is a lust-walking border crosser between new music and jazz improvisation. With Stephan Crump, who, in addition to his engagement in the Vijay Iyer Trio, is also often on the road in chamber music formations, the three of them provided a festival highlight with their filigree art of improvisation: enjoy these sonic subtleties, most of which are drawn from tranquillity, and expansive arcs of tension in which, according to Crump, "every note becomes a planet".-Intakt
"Brooklyn-based German saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock initiated the grouping, pulling together two rising talents on the New York City scene, bassist Stephan Crump and pianist Cory Smythe. A first meeting quickly ascertained compatibility and led swiftly to a recording date. Laubrock's tale, moving from London to become one of the key figures in her adopted hometown, is well known. Crump too is beginning to stretch out on his own having established himself as an integral part of pianist Vijay Iyer's Trio, while Smythe hails from a contemporary classical background, but has come to greater prominence as part of drummer Tyshawn Sorey's various projects.
In consort they generate eleven on-the-fly selections which demonstrate deep listening and keen interaction where nothing is off limits. Though they largely transcend expected roles, there's a chamber sensibility inherent in the instrumentation, and the overall feel is intimate and for the most part introspective, with at times as much silence as sound. Only four cuts break the five-minute barrier, allowing different combinations and moods to emerge.
"Tones For Climbing Plants" provides a good example. After a start involving Crump's resonant pizzicato, saxophone sustains and piano flourishes, the bassist enjoys a passage replete with richly booming notes, latterly accompanied by Laubrock's soprano splutters. That's followed by a series of dramatic exchanges, seemingly surging from nowhere, capped by an eruption of clipped piano runs, completely changing the dynamic of the piece.
Another instance of ostensibly telepathic communication comes on "Sinew Modulations" where a percussive prologue of wooden tapping and hoarse exhalations suddenly shifts to a more conventional give and take. It's the most expansive track, in which the exchanges turns more angular in response to Laubrock's perky staccato, almost conjuring up a jazzy tinge.
While there is an egalitarian ethos, that doesn't mean everyone partakes equally all the time. The title of "Three-Panel" may acknowledge the triptych nature of the interplay where the spotlight swings from Crump's expressive bent notes, which wouldn't seem out of place in something by his sometime employer Iyer, to Laubrock's careening soprano saxophone narrative, and finally to Smythe's exclamatory outbursts in one of the most high energy sections of the album.
As an improviser, one of the special things about Laubrock is how she melds both cool school and fire music tropes into one unique voice. Although on this set it's the former which predominates, she does let off steam on the brief "Bite Bright Sunlight" where the free jazz bravado of her skronk-fuelled tenor bursts into the drawing room.
It's left to the concluding "Inscribed In Trees" to doff the cap towards the tradition, sounding like a modern-day reboot of Jimmy Guiffre's Free Fall. Like the rest of the disc, it's a supreme case of empathetic music making in which respect doesn't cow either adventure or surprise."-John Sharpe, All About Jazz