There was a time, in certain jazz circles at least, when free improvisation was likened to playing tennis without a net\u2014a cheat, as if inventing form and content in the moment was easy. Partly to dispel such notions Misha Mengelberg started calling improvising \u201cinstant composing,\u201d and he\u2019d prove its value, by combing through tapes of his improvisations, in search of promising material to develop. Musicians all over Europe took to free play, and in time even mainstream jazz musicians would give it a go: Keith Jarrett\u2019s trio, Regina Carter and Kenny Barron, Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor\u2014and Lee Konitz, who\u2019d played free with Lennie Tristano in the \u201940s. Collective improvisation is a discipline that calls for good ears, quick reaction time, and abundant musical resources. It is often done best by groups that specialize in the practice. Which brings us to Achim Kaufmann, Frank Gratkowski and Wilbert de Joode.<\/p>\n
This sterling trio first came together in 2002, at one of the great laboratories of improvised music, the weekly Tuesday series at Amsterdam\u2019s legendary Zaal 100. But the band\u2019s roots go back to the mid-1980s, when pianist Kaufmann and saxophonist\/clarinetist\/bass clarinetist Gratkowski both lived in K\u00f6ln and played together often, sometimes in a trio with drummer Uwe Ecker. But then they drifted apart. By the late 1990s, Achim was living in Amsterdam, across the harbor from bassist Wilbert de Joode, and in 1999 those two first played together in a one-shot Michael Vatcher group at Zaal 100. By then Wilbert and Frank had clicked in a couple of Dutch pianist Michiel Braam\u2019s bands. And then Kaufmann and Gratkowski reconnected, and had the idea that a trio with De Joode might make for a fun evening.<\/p>\n
Some Tuesdays at Zaal 100, the interplay is a miracle: \u201cThis could be a band!\u201d And usually that\u2019s the end of it. But this time, it really was a band: they all knew they had more to say together. The trio recorded kwast (Konnex) on their first European tour in 2003 and then unearth (Nuscope) live in K\u00f6ln the next year\u2014nice records both, and like all the trio\u2019s music, all improvised.<\/p>\n
Gigs were not so very numerous in the early years. Achim Kaufmann picks up the story: \u201cIn 2006, things took off a little more. We played a number of concerts in Germany, Serbia, Holland, and France, and some of those recordings became the CD pala\u00eb, on Leo Records. I feel that around that time\u2014and pala\u00eb documents this quite well\u2014the trio really developed a special identity.\u201d He\u2019s right: that album is a stunner from its opening moments, where it may take you a minute to sort out who\u2019s playing what. Plasticity of timbre is one of this trio\u2019s hallmarks.<\/p>\n
More European tours followed. \u201cIn 2007, we did a two-week tour in Canada and the U.S.,\u201d Achim says, \u201cand another ten-concert tour in the U.S. in November 2009. Those North American tours really made us a band I think\u2014like a night in Edmonton where nothing seemed to work except for individual solos. Some live recordings from early 2010 became ge\u00e4der [on the Gligg label], and I hear our road experiences in there.\u201d Then came SKEIN (Leo) recorded in 2013, where the trio were embedded in a sextet with cellist Okkyung Lee, drummer Tony Buck, and timbre-minded composer Richard Barrett on live electronics.<\/p>\n
And now comes oblengths where each member of the trio dips into his own distinct repertoire of squeaky, percussive and abrasive sounds, among many other available sounds, including their instruments\u2019 customary ones. There are moments when each player can make his axe sound channeled through an amplifier with a cracked speaker cone.<\/p>\n
They have great command of ensemble texture, the sum of the band\u2019s individual parts. Frank Gratkowski has mastered the full range of once-unusual techniques that a contemporary composer like Richard Barrett might call for in a score; Gratkowski exploits the myriad tonal and timbral effects improvisers have embraced since before King Oliver picked up the wah-wah mute. Paradoxically enough, that broad range of \u2018voices\u2019 Frank can inhabit in short order defines his personal style, instead of obliterating it. It\u2019s not about style quotation, but having all the right tools at hand.<\/p>\n
Kaufmann loves Herbie Nichols\u2019s tricky jazz tunes, and can sound delicate as Schubert, but he\u2019ll slam the keyboard too. Much as he can make the big metal-and-wood box ring, he\u2019s never a bully who elbows the other players out of his way. He\u2019s also unusually adept inside the piano, where using various objects placed on the frame or the strings, he gets those squeaky, abrasive and cracked-amplifier sounds; he knows where the overtone-nodes are along the strings, to bring out prepared-piano bonks by hand as he strikes the corresponding key.<\/p>\n
Wilbert de Joode\u2019s violent pizzicato can make other bassists sound like they\u2019re barely tapping the strings; with a bow he can give the impression he\u2019s sawing the bass in half, or he can descend into an almost subliminal subterranean hum. He can quickly switch between pizz and arco in mid-phrase too. But De Joode can also stay the course: harp on one catchy figure for a good long time, perhaps until its rhythm insinuates itself into the ensemble, at which time he\u2019ll move on, as on \u201cTrash Kites.\u201d Or maybe he\u2019ll never quite let that catchy figure go, as on \u201cOf Time in Pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n
When things change fast, the players will shift direction by rounding a curve rather than making a 90-degree turn at a stop sign: no \u201cchannel switching\u201d jump cuts. Instead they may sneak up on you, literally. The players are so sensitive to dynamics, they\u2019ll play spatial games with your perceptions\u2014make one instrument sound like it\u2019s in the foreground, and the others far in the distance.<\/p>\n
Taking dynamics and texture as seriously as they do, they will get very quiet and spare, embracing wide open spaces\u2014the whole Morton Feldman\/AMM\/Wadada Leo Smith silence-is-golden esthetic. (That idea comes back with a vengeance on the final track). \u201cUnaccounted For and Inward,\u201d the shortest piece here at six minutes, hints at their expressive range; there\u2019s three-way counterpoint, something approaching improvising over chord changes, and an animated final episode, with a sublime little coda. You may fairly wonder who plays that last faint note.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo Doubt the Beginning,\u201d which seems to begin in cyclonic medias res, demonstrates the rhythmic complexity the most alert players bring to raucous free play. As the phrases keep permutating, the trio achieves some strange kind of swing feel. And then they come to an exaggerated fermata, taking a deep, deep, deep breath before carrying on.<\/p>\n
\u2014Kevin Whitehead author of Why Jazz? A Concise Guide (Oxford)\/Warum Jazz?: 111 gute Gr\u00fcnde (Reclam)<\/p>\n
Achim Kaufmann, Frank Gratkowski, Wilbert de Joode: Oblengths : Leo Records LR 748<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Achim Kaufmann, Frank Gratkowski, Wilbert de Joode: Oblengths There was a time, in certain jazz circles at least, when free improvisation was likened to playing tennis without a net\u2014a cheat, as if inventing form and content in the moment was easy. Partly to dispel such notions Misha Mengelberg started calling improvising \u201cinstant composing,\u201d and he\u2019d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2259,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gratkowski.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2274"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gratkowski.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gratkowski.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gratkowski.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gratkowski.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2274"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gratkowski.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2277,"href":"https:\/\/gratkowski.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2274\/revisions\/2277"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gratkowski.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gratkowski.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}