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Collaberations - Live at Nya Perspektiv Festivals
A couple of weeks ago I asked in passing in an email to the Bliv if he had any recommendations since I was in very bad need of one. He mentioned this and I jumped on it. When he rec'd it he used Marilyn Crispell's name as the artist and she receives top billing on the lineups on this unusual disc, featuring a quartet from the 2004 festival and a quintet at the 2007 edition. Crispell and Paal Nilssen-Love are the only constants in both years; the quartet is fleshed out with Atomic's Fredrik Ljungkvist on clarinet and tenor sax and Palle Danielsson on base while the quintet features Atomic's Magnus Broo on trumpet, Lars-Goren Ulander on alto sax and Per Zanussi on bass.
If JCB hadn't mentioned this there's a good chance I would've let this pass. First of all it's on Leo which regularly flies under my radar. Second, since Crispell has cast her lot with ECM she's ceased to pique my interest by not playing with the fire that drew me to her initially. That's ok because it gave me time to concentrate on the *great* Irene Schweizer. But whether it's because of playing with lineups of Atomic bombers or just a general change of scene, Marilyn is back and smoking.
The 2004 set starts things out with Ljungkvist on clarinet and everybody else in fine form for a 15 minute collective improv that cooks the whole way through. It's really hard to single anybody out for specific kudos because everybody is on a high level of sympatico to the others. Maybe the percussive interplay between Nilssen-Love and Crispell stands out to me now but maybe the next listen will highlight something else. The second song is a Daniellson composition "Aros" that might be the highlight of the entire disc. Ljunkvist switches to tenor on this and brings his characteristically brawny sound as things get off to a torrid pace until following an intricate Nilssen-Love solo, Daniellson plays a solo that reminds you why an acoustic bass can provide the X factor that separates a superior small group performance from a mediocre one. Crispell then plays a lyrical solo that keeps building and building until the group tails off as nearly 23 minutes pass in an instant.
The 2007 performance is immediately marred by the sound level being significantly lower than the earlier one, forcing the listener to crank the volume just to be able to hear things. The latter recording was done by Swedish radio but there's no excuse to not adjust the volume level to a comparable level as the earlier one on a commercial recording. I've heard better bootlegs as far as maintaining the consistency of sound and this is an insult to the musicians. Having said that the first two collective improvs continue the high level of the earlier set, again with the interplay between drums and piano but Broo brings some scorching trumpet play. Zanussi is fine on bass, albeit not as completely masterful as Daniellson but that's a hard act to follow. Ulander plays fine on these cuts and the results maintain the high level of the rest of the disc.
The last cut, a Crispell composition "Silence Again", ends things on an unfortunate note. First of all, Broo is buried in the mix and Ulander is way too high, blaring out Crispell even. Plus it sounds like Ulander is playing in a different key from everybody else. An extremely awkward and disappointing ending.
Despite the abundance of caveats, I strongly recommend this disc. In fact the strengths of it make it the best I've heard this year. It's very unfortunate that most of the problems aren't related to the quality of the playing. [edit]Looks like I spent as much quality control on this review as Leo Feigin did on the production; the title is obviously "Collaborations".
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Last edited by Captain Hate; August-5th-2009 at 10:29 PM.
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