Irene Schweizer/Pierre Favre
Ulrichsberg
Intakt
Schweizer has been one of Europe’s finest improvising pianists for decades now and yet her visibility has never been as high as those of her contemporaries. Aficionados know, however, that she’s been at the keys for some of the most invigorating piano/percussion recordings (with Bennink, Cyrille, Moholo, Sommer, and a previous one with Favre) since Cecil’s triumphal stand in Berlin in 1988. This rambunctious live date from 2003 has Schweizer with longtime friend Favre (usually found these days in highly structured contexts like his European Chamber Ensemble, who have recorded excellent work for Intakt) cranking out the kind of free-flowing but utterly cohesive playing for which they are known.
The two must have been feeling particularly joyous that night, since they dip regularly into not just the waters of free improvisation but those of blues, swing, bop, and other formative influences which they clearly relish. These are the kinds of sources that for years Europe’s free players kept suppressed or masked, but have recently (think Parker, think Schlippenbach, think Johansson) been unashamedly exploring. Sure, Schweizer’s heavy touch, her interstellar Tristano lines, and her punchy rhythmic cells are all here, as is her wonder-to-behear structural imagination. But there’s a real playfulness and lyricism to these improvisations that lifts this recording a notch or two above others like it.
On “It’s About Time,” for example, the two somehow work their way into a space which recalls a lost Monk composition of some sort, with a ragged dissonance and fractured rhythmic sense that lingers in the memory. And the swaggering “Nomads” even borders on freebop, thrashing away with abandon.
Though they play with form, they don’t do so in a predictable fashion: for example, I love the fact that the piece dedicated to Peter Kowald isn’t some tritely reflective affair but a raging, head-first barrage filled with the spirit of Kowald’s music. Favre opens it with a solo turn filled with tom-tom thunderclaps which are soon joined by sheets of pianistic sound in a crazed romp that recalls the intensity (but thankfully not the excesses) of Willi the Pig. Elsewhere, the inside-piano clatter of “Unwritten Messages” isn’t always convincing (though I enjoyed the Tippett-like harpsichord imitation), but when this piece evolves into a textural essay it becomes compelling. And finally, it’s only with the closing “Waltz for Lois” where you really get a chance to savor the musicians’ reflective side, with Schweizer coming up with some engagingly chromatic playing.
Taken altogether, there might be nothing particularly revelatory about this recording. But that’s no knock. Roiling, energetic, propulsive, but nonetheless filled with subtleties, this is duo music of a high order.
Posted by bivins at March 28, 2004 9:35 AM