Berlin Art Quartet - live at MIM (uniSono, 2025)
This review picks up, a few years later, from where my colleague Martin
Schray's review of the Berlin Art Quartet's Live from B-flat,
released and reviewed in 2020, leaves off. The band is the same, though a
couple years more experienced, and the creativity and spontaneity that
marked the first release is just as delightfully present in this recording made in 2019
at Berlin's Musical Instrument Museum (MIM).*
Just for a little scene setting, the MIM houses a dazzling collection of
over 3,500 instruments dating from the 16th century onward.
Some of its show pieces are a travel-friendly harpsichord once owned by
Prussia’s Queen Sophie Charlotte (1744-1818), a Glass Harmonica designed by
Benjamin Franklin (apparently known for its ethereal sound) and the
Mixtur-Trautonium, an early electronic instrument designed in Berlin which helped shape the mysteriousness in film scores like
Hitchcock’s The Birds.
So perhaps the setting has something to do with the music that was made that
day? A day-time concert in a 200 person music recital hall that places the
audience around the musicians, who play on a raised stage in the middle.
Surrounded not only by an expectant audience but also by the history and sound discovery embodied in the instruments themselves, how could one not be a little bit
nudged by the creative spirits flowing through the halls? Whatever may be,
the group was certainly feeling moved. In fact, drummer and band-founder Reinhard
Brüggemann said, "Truly an inspiring place to make music! Not at night in a
jazz club in the basement on a small stage in front of greying fans, no, in
the Olympus of a museum for musical instruments ... in the centre of
Berlin." Ah, to have only been there. We, however, luckily now have the
sounds, plucked from the air and presented on live at MIM by
uniSono records.
The music begins without hesitation. 'Aufsturz' (collapse) is
introduced spiritedly by all four musicians at once. They follow up with a
tangle of lines, colorful and zestful, that within a minute-and-a-half begin
disintegrating into fraught interplay. The four proceed with wary
attentiveness, each note sure but every next one unknown. This charged
moment does not last too long, as soon the tempo is racing and the actions
and reactions brisk and relentless, taking them to the eventual end.
'Bewegung in Stille' (Movement in silence) follows and the approach
is opposite the opener. Anchored in the pregnant gaps between the sounds,
each strum of Matthias Bauer's bass strings or tumble of Brüggemann's
drums carries the music further, and the sounds of Matthias Schubert's
breathy blows through his tenor saxophone and Matthias Mueller's spluttering
saliva in his trombone add new tonal dimensions.
It is on 'Gegenseitkeit,' (Reciprocity) the album's center piece,
coming in at 13-minutes, that the group really has a chance to stretch out.
By the middle, the walking bass and pulsating drums give the two horns the
perfect setting for their simultaneous soloing, and the menacing bass solo
that follows, which is adorned with percussive sounds, is
ganz großes Kino
(particularly impressive). More follows of course, lively interplay and
reflective anticipation (the closing tune 'Hymnus' illustrates this last
phrase quite well).
To close, perhaps it is apt to quote Brüggemann again, who said, "It is new
music, but always also jazz - call/response as in the blues, collective
improvisation as in New Orleans shimmers through." Recorded live, capturing
the composition of the music in the moment of its creation is probably the
best way to experience the Berlin Art Quartet. Here we have that magic
bottled.
Unzeit Quartett - self-titled (Trouble in the East, 2024)
The Unzeit Quartett features a mostly different set of Berlin based
musicians, connected to the previous group physically by bassist Matthias
Bauer and musically in the spontaneity of musical creation that is at once
jazz, classical and uniquely a result of the four personalites involved.
Prominent in the foreground is saxophonist Frank Paul Schubert. His tone can
be spine-tingling at times, hitting extended notes that he tweaks and twists as they stream from his horn. The eponymous opening track is
charged with his pointed melodic statements from the gentle prod at first to
the dense motion that come later. Equally as impressive - or impression
making - is pianist Celine Voccia whose playing contains unresolving chord
voicings and emphatic melodic lines that intertwine with Schubert's. Joe
Hertenstein's drumming, along with Bauer's bass work, provides a
cohesiveness to the music, adding additional heft to the already excited
atmosphere.
The music throughout the generous set of tunes, all carrying a name related
to time or a time ... like 'Mahlzeit' (meal time) or 'Freizeit' (free time)
or even Steinzeit (Stone-age). Each one offers a diverse set of moods and
approaches and the musicians demonstrate an astute level of listening and
natural reacting. Just for a quick example, on the aforementioned
'Steinzeit', the track opens with Bauer bowing high harmonics and Schubert
pushing air through his mouthpiece, making both making "un-notes" (my term)
in echtzeit (real-time). These textures are accompanied by
Hertenstein's diverse percussive sounds and occasional interjections from
Voccia. As the end of the track nears, the music has changed, evolving in a
sense from the origins of sound to a reserved and melodic piece. The
following track 'Eiszeit' (Ice age) begins uptempo and active, Schubert
again delivering intricate and arresting snippets and Voccia filling space
with forceful and flowing tones.
A lovely album capturing four excellent improvisers in-tune and fully
in-time with each other.
0 comments:
Post a Comment