Diatom Ribbons
| Diatom Ribbons | ||||
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| Studio album by Kris Davis | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Pyroclastic Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
10 |
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running time |
1:00:56 |
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Kris Davis |
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Studio (s) |
Octave Audio, Mount Vernon, New York |
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Diatom Ribbons is a jazz album by pianist Kris Davis . The recordings were made in December 2018 at Oktaven Audio Studio in Mount Vernon , New York, and were released on Pyroclastic Records on September 6, 2019.
background
When Davis composed the pieces for Diatom Ribbons , she also dealt with diatoms (“diatoms”) and other topics from nature (e.g. the Golgi apparatus or rhizomes ) and science. On the album, Davis is supported by a band in changing composition, which mostly includes turntablist Val Jeanty and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington ; In addition to bassist Trevor Dunn , guitarists Nels Cline and Marc Ribot , Esperanza Spalding (can be heard as the singer in "The Very Thing"), vibraphonist Ches Smith and saxophonists JD Allen and Tony Malaby are involved in various places . In the title track, DJ Jeanty intersperses selected passages from an interview with Cecil Taylor , while Carrington creates a syncopated rhythmic counterpoint to Davis' repeating patterns of three chords and six notes.
Davis worked with Carrington, Jeanty and Spalding for the first time at ten tribute concerts in honor of the late Geri Allen , at which there was a great understanding between the musicians and the sparks immediately jumped over. They immersed themselves in Allen's world. Not long after, Cecil Taylor died and Davis began listening to her favorite Taylor albums again. Around this time she was also preparing to play some compositions by Thelonious Monk for his 100th birthday. Her preoccupation with works by Olivier Messiaen , Henry Threadgill and Youssou N'Dour also went into the compositions for Diatom Ribbons .
Responsibility for a few concerts at New York's The Stone in January 2018 allowed Davis to explore whether the base trio would work: she asked Carrington and Jeanty to join her in a completely improvised gig - the first ever for Carringtons. The game together exceeded all expectations. In particular the role of the turntablist, “her hip-hop influence and her ability to shape the music with words and also with 'natural' sounds and percussions,” opened up “a whole new palette” for Davis when she conceptualized Diatom Ribbons could use.
Track list
- Kris Davis - Diatom Ribbons (Pyroclastic Records - PR06)
- Diatom Ribbons (Kris Davis) 6:20
- The Very Thing ( Michaël Attias ) 4:54
- Rhizomes (Kris Davis) 5:19
- Corn Crake (Kris Davis) 5:06
- Stone's Throw (Kris Davis) 4:19
- Sympodial Sunflower (Kris Davis) 4:17
- Certain Cells (Kris Davis / Gwendolyn Brooks ) 5:39
- Golgi Complex (The Sequel) (Kris Davis) 7:43
- Golgi Complex (Kris Davis) 4:48
- Reflections ( Julius Hemphill ) 12:33
reception
The album received consistently positive reviews; Giovanni Russonello ( The New York Times ) and Chris Barton ( Los Angeles Times ) counted it among the ten best jazz albums of 2019. With "Diatom Ribbons" her skills as composer, band leader and improviser - basically a music author - come to the fore Wear it, says Giovanni Russonello. Davis builds her compositions on crooked patterns and splintered loops, which she and different musicians bring together to form a unit. Kris Davis is a proud descendant of Cecil Taylor's inside-out piano ventures ; their musicians, all in front the drummer Terri Lynn Carrington, created a stable, yet supple anchorage for such an unpredictable yet accessible record.
In the opinion of Seth Colter Walls (Pitchfork) said that the stylistically different results over an hour and ten tracks - all but two composed by Davis - flow so well, partly due to a band within the band. The album gains a sense of unity thanks to a trio of players who regularly make up the comings and goings of guest stars: veteran drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, aspiring DJ Val Jeanty and Kris Davis himself on piano.
Troy Dostert awarded the album in All About Jazz 4½ (out of 5) stars and praised: “With Diatom Ribbons , her sixth release on her own label Pyroclastic, Davis will undoubtedly further develop her position as one of the most adventurous and exciting pianists on the scene. It is certainly further evidence of her desire to push stylistic boundaries as she has put together one of the most fascinating staff schedules in recent times. "
John Sharpe also noted in All About Jazz that Davis' performance on the piano regularly shone in new splendor, but it is precisely in the overall concept that their influence is most evident. Jeanty brings novel textures and, above all, vocal samples, introduces the French composer Olivier Messiaen in "Corn Crake" and manipulates several piano tracks besides the real one from Davis, while giving depth and nuance to the ensembles elsewhere. Carrington gives Davis' melodies a strong rhythmic backbone and even puts the introspective "Sympodial Sunflower" in a ticking groove. "In its entirety, the content is so rich that previously overlooked details become visible with every run." With the changing cast between the titles and the vocals as well as the substantial ideas, the program is reminiscent of the style of Ornette Coleman's masterpiece Science Fiction (CBS, 1972). Thom Jurek gave 4½ (out of 5) stars to the album in Allmusic and said that Diatom Ribbons delivered intoxicating and physical music made up of kinetic fragments. Harmonious, rhythmic and tonal ideas that often do not go together somehow work in Davis' courageous compositional and improvisational languages. The core trio with Carrington and Jeanty laid the foundation for the interaction of the other players.
The (anonymous) reviewer from highresaudio stated: "The makers of this album deliver a jazz that is very free and deeply experimental and which, with its extremely modern pace, is certainly not for everyone." It is by no means free jazz , which is characterized by free and unbound music making. Here the music is characterized by clusters , samples and (allegedly even) by an extensive “standstill of the musical course”. “Even if there has already been something similar here and there , this kind of jazz has not been presented as radically as on Diatom Ribbons .” It is “an avant-garde crossover with so-called modern classical music, which is sometimes performed in a similar manner steps on the spot and, free from the appearance of any melody or conventional musical behavior, produces noises which ultimately, if everything goes well, become an abstract image of the composer's idea of a sometimes badly contrary to the grain conventional music-making to a kind of abstraction musical sequence. "Only those who like this type of music creation get their money's worth with Diatom Ribbons ."
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Supplement to the CD.
- ↑ a b Review of the album at Allmusic (English). Accessed January 1, 2020.
- ↑ Kris Davis - Diatom Ribbons at Discogs
- ↑ a b Giovanni Russonello: Best Jazz of 2019: Brilliance accommodates any form - and, as these albums show, sometimes lightning lands in a bottle. The New York Times, December 5, 2019, accessed January 7, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Chris Barton: Best jazz albums of 2019: A year rife with invention and resistance. Los Angeles Times, May 6, 2019, accessed January 7, 2020 .
- ↑ Seth Colter Walls: Kris Davis: Diatom Ribbons. Pitchfork, May 6, 2019, accessed January 7, 2020 .
- ↑ Troy Dostert: Kris Davis: Diatom Ribbons. September 27, 2019, accessed on January 7, 2020 .
- ^ John Sharpe: Kris Davis: Diatom Ribbons. All About Jazz, September 27, 2019, accessed January 7, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Review Diatom Ribbons (Highresaudio)