Common practice
| Common practice | ||||
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| Live album by the Ethan Iverson Quartet with Tom Harrell | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | ECM records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
11 |
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running time |
1:05:50 |
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Studio (s) |
Village Vanguard, New York City |
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Common Practice is a jazz album by the Ethan Iverson Quartet with Tom Harrell . The recordings that were made during a performance by the quartet in New York's Village Vanguard in January 2017 were released on September 20, 2019 by ECM Records .
background
On his first day in New York City in 1991, pianist Ethan Iverson listened to trumpeter Tom Harrell at Village Vanguard - which is exactly where they recorded this album together in 2017. After Iverson left the trio The Bad Plus after 17 years , he developed a wide range of musical activities. The album follows a duo recording with saxophonist Mark Turner ( Temporary Kings , 2018) and two releases with the Billy Hart Quartet.
Iverson and his quartet play eight standards from the Great American Songbook , a bebop classic and two original compositions. Iverson commented on the recording:
- “A lot of modern jazz is about deconstructing the story ... But at some point a lot of artists try to reevaluate the tradition and its heritage, and this album is about ... There was a list of songs and we played a couple of blues pieces ... it was about a common language ... After a week at Vanguard we had all agreed on what our roles in the ensemble were. "
Track list
- Ethan Iverson Quartet with Tom Harrell: Common Practice (ECM Records ECM 2643, ECM Records 778 3350)
- The Man I Love ( George Gershwin , Ira Gershwin ) 6:26
- Philadelphia Creamer (Ethan Iverson) 5:59
- Wee ( Denzil Best ) 5:46
- I Can't Get Started (Ira Gershwin, Vernon Duke ) 6:36
- Sentimental Journey ( Benjamin Homer , Bud Green , Les Brown ) 4:33
- Out of Nowhere ( Edward Heyman , Johnny Green ) 6:32
- Polka Dots and Moonbeams ( Jimmy Van Heusen , Johnny Burke ) 6:01
- All the Things You Are ( Jerome David Kern , Oscar Hammerstein II ) 5:51
- Jed from Teaneck (Ethan Iverson) 6:31
- I'm Getting Sentimental Over You ( George Bassman , Ned Washington ) 5:10
- I Remember You ( Johnny Mercer , Victor Schertzinger ) 6:25
reception
Iverson's album received consistently positive reviews; JazzTimes magazine included it in the list of the top 50 albums of 2019 . According to Doug Ramsey , Iverson has put together a quartet that shows himself, bassist Ben Street, drummer Eric McPherson, and guest artist Tom Harrell at a height of imagination and ingenuity that is breathtaking even by the high standards of this remarkable trumpeter .
Hans-Jürgen Schaal wrote in Jazz thing , on “Common Practice” Iverson was looking for “the reassurance of the good old jazz tradition” - with nine standards and two improvised blues numbers. In mainstream jazz he shows “how to set original punch lines. Even the introductory 'The Man I Love' has delicately dissonant, modernist tones. ”Schaal wrote that Iverson's improvisations found their own way throughout the album, Ben Street and Eric McPherson also set unusual accents on bass and drums. Tom Harrell's trumpet playing possesses "a naked, touching fragility". So swinging straight-ahead jazz could still be carried away in the 21st century.
Dave Gelly gave the album four (out of five) stars in the Guardian and said, "With Ethan Iverson at the piano, every session is a trip into the unknown, or at least into the unexpected." He has the talent to make quite unusual ideas seem perfectly logical. Trumpeter Tom Harrell, with his soft, dry tone and sudden moments of silence, gives much of his playing a strangely brooding quality. According to Gelly Gershwin's “The Man I Love”, which shows the quartet from its best and most characteristic side, the Latin-influenced “Wee” (derived from “ I Got Rhythm ”) and the “decidedly opposing treatment” of “ Sentimental Journey “- Doris Day 's first hit from 1945.
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According to Andy Hamilton, who reviewed the album in the Jazz Journal , the result of the meeting between Iverson and Harrell is "an artistic triumph". "Harrell's solos in particular are, in their apparent simplicity, pathos and melodic beauty, some of the best that one will hear among this year's releases," said Hamilton. "The bassist Ben Street and the drummer Eric McPherson are absolutely partners on the same wavelength of the project." Among the highlights of the album is the author Denzil bests "Wee" in calypso rhythm and "a wonderfully echoing, weird" 'Out of Nowhere' .
For Georg Waßmuth ( Südwestrundfunk ), Iverson's calculation of foregoing Harrell's own pieces and mainly interpreting jazz classics with the trumpeter worked out wonderfully. In contrast to the usual ECM sound aesthetics, where there is always “a small extra portion of reverberation”, the recording from the narrow Village Vanguard sounds as dry “like a shoebox”. “The audience couldn't be outsourced to the street either, they applaud and cough in a good mood. Precisely because of this, the CD “Common Practice” turned out to be a very good production. ”So the calculation works out wonderfully, wrote Wasmuth; Nobody plays down pieces there, but rather presents long, mature interpretations.
Bill Milkowski wrote on Down Beat , “The pianist's ethereal solo intros to mellow ballads are unique in their use of drama, space, and dissonance, and the relaxed groove of his slow blues Philadelphia Creamer has an old-school charm where Harrell takes his time before unleashing an indiscriminate burst of notes. ”The ensemble's impressionistic version of“ Sentimental Journey ”is accentuated with a touch of humor by McPherson's peculiar percussive statements and Iverson's almost ironic comping . Iverson's sparse, patient comping on "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" perfectly underscores Harrell's painfully beautiful game, says the author. The pianist's renegade approach to "All the Things You Are" is almost defiantly unconventional, and his jerky solo on "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" is particularly bold. During the entire program, Iverson offers a heartfelt love letter while he sprays his own label on it, Milkowski sums up.
According to Josef Engels (Rondo), “Iverson exercises strict restraint himself. His dissonant hatched reinterpretations of harmony can only be heard very rarely ”, for example in the intro and outro of“ I Can't Get Started ”, even more rarely does he let his“ parodic vein shine through. And if, for example, “Sentimental Journey” initially comes across as an old man with a damaged hip, that is more Thelonious Monk than clowning . ”What is particularly noticeable, Engels continued, is the pianist's extreme frugality. Many of his solos consist only of single notes with no chordal additions, several times the piano even remains completely silent when Harrell is improvising. Iverson takes himself back nobly, "until the fragile-looking, yet extremely clear lines of his guest star are in the air like the fading writing on an old postcard."
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Hans-Jürgen Schaal: Ethan Iverson Quartet with Tom Harrell: Common Practice. JazzThing, January 6, 2020, accessed April 17, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Ethan Iverson Quartet with Tom Harrell: Common Practice. Jazz Journal, December 5, 2019, accessed April 17, 2020 .
- ↑ Ethan Iverson Quartet With Tom Harrell - Common Practice at Discogs
- ↑ The Year in Review: Top 50 Albums of 2019. JazzTimes, February 27, 2020, accessed April 17, 2020 .
- ↑ Doug Ramsey: Iverson, Harrell And The Gershwins. Rifftides, April 14, 2020, accessed on April 21, 2020 .
- ↑ Dave Gelly: Ethan Iverson Quartet w / Tom Harrell: Common Practice. The Guardian, May 6, 2019, accessed April 7, 2020 .
- ↑ Georg Waßmuth: "Common Practice" by the Ethan Iverson Quartet and Tom Harrell. Südwestrundfunk, October 18, 2019, accessed on April 17, 2020 .
- ^ Bill Milkowski, Ethan Iverson Quartet With Tom Harrell: Common Practice. Down Beat, November 1, 2019, accessed April 17, 2020 .
- ↑ Joseph Engels: Common Practice - Ethan Iverson Quartet. Rondo, October 12, 2019, accessed April 17, 2020 .