Toward the margins
| Toward the margins | ||||
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| Studio album by Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Edition of Contemporary Music | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
12 |
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running time |
60:40 |
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Location (s) |
Gateway Studios, London |
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Toward the margins is the debut album of Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble , recorded in May 1996 and published in 1997 by ECM.
The album
Evan Parker, who, as a member of the Music Improvisation Company, was one of the first musicians to record for the ECM label, founded in 1969, has since been regularly involved with electronic music . In 1992 he founded the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble to explore the potential of live electronics in improvisation after the technology had developed further in this field. The musicians in the ensemble came from the fields of free improvisation , jazz , contemporary music and computer music , with most of the members being active in more than one of these idioms. After touring in Europe and the United States, the debut album Toward the Margins was created in May 1996 . Parker worked here with the two members of his longtime trio, bassist Barry Guy and drummer Paul Lytton , the latter also doing live electronics. Then there was the violinist Philipp Wachsmann and the two electronics and sound processing specialists Walter Prati and Marco Vecchi .
According to Cook / Morton, in their performance in relation to jazz tradition , the musicians “ advance a long-term exploration of the limits of time signature . With regard to contemporary composition, they refer to the rejection of linear processes in favor of simultaneity , the physical presence of music as a crowd. ”Producer Steve Lake sees Toward the Margins
- “The logical extension or culmination of a chain of Parker projects that reach back to the Music Improvisation Company via the Parker-Lytton duo , as well as the early experiments with Walter Prati and the saxophonist's solo multi-track recording Process and Reality , but this is more than [the previous]. "
The Hundred Books is named after a story from the anthology Thinkers of the East of Idries Shah about a wise Sufi .
Track list
- Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble: Toward the Margins (ECM 1612)
- Toward the Margins (Barry Guy, Evan Parker, Philipp Wachsmann) - 4:34
- Turbulent Mirror - 5:54
- Field and Figure (Guy, Parker) - 7:06
- The Regenerative Landscape (For AMM ) - 3:36
- Chain of Chance (Marco Vecchi, Paul Lytton, Walter Prati) - 4:19
- Trahütten (Parker, Wachsmann) - 6:20
- Shadow Without an Object: Engagement / Reversal / Displacement (Guy, Parker, Vecchi, Lytton, Wachsmann, Prati) - 6:02
- Epanados (Guy, Parker, Vecchi, Lytton, Wachsmann, Prati) - 4:29
- Born Cross-Eyed (Remembering Fuller) (Lytton) - 2:52
- Philipp's Pavilion (Parker, Wachsmann) - 7:33
- The Hundred Books (For Idries Shah) - 4:09
- Contra Dance (Guy, Parker) - 3:38
- All other compositions are by Evan Parker
reception
Richard Cook and Brian Morton awarded the album the highest rating of four stars in The Penguin Guide to Jazz . For Cook / Morton, Toward the Margins was the "triumphant display of synergetics , stripped of the clumsy eclecticism of the Ulrichsberg project in September 1993". Here the electronics system brings "unexpected added value when the sound of Parker's long-established trio is now increasingly enriched with other voices." Without Wachsmann's presence, "one could assume that the increase in actual interaction appears to be of secondary importance to this music, but his highly attuned sensitivity is able to move the electronic elements from the periphery to the center without distorting Parker's instrumental role . ” Toward the Margins is“ a decisive step in Parker's development, superbly received and mastered, from start to finish Convincing at the end. ”The highlights include the authors Field and Figure and the final topic Contra-Dance .
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The Cadence Magazine wrote about previously taken place tour of the ensemble:
- "Orchestral music of a panoramic scope, full of spatial details ... cascading levels of transformations taking place ... the electronic manipulations charge the music with a sense of spontaneous invention".
Nick Smith wrote: “I bet if Ligeti had ever written a sextet for soprano saxophone, strings, percussion and electronics, it would sound like this music. That's almost perfect ... this record is a revelation. Even the pure group game is extraordinary and the electronics and the sound processing by Walter Prati and Marco Vecchi are built in and integral and absolutely essential. "
John Fordham, who named the album Jazz CD of the Week in The Guardian , said:
- “There are slowly evolving tone colors and space, whereby the opening title is almost textural and loaded with Barry Guy's sonorous bass. Dark gong tones echo behind Parker's wooing soprano saxophone, then there are ghostly percussion solos of slippery whispers that sound like buckets of broken glass being poured onto concrete, and the conductor's remarkable ability to play contrapuntal solo wins more votes than electronics throw back. Serious game in every way. "
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According to Will Montgomery in The Wire magazine , the electronics in the album are very subtle throughout. Parker, who has questioned the difference between composition and improvisation in the past, brings “the often grumpy academic world of computer music into contact with the empathy and spontaneous musicality of jazz-related improvisation” and, with his staff, creates “a powerful and open form of music ”. The title Contra-Dance, dominated by Barry Guy, is an impressive set of lingering bass notes in swaths of electronic textures, astonishing in its tonal expression, but brings to light old memories of a ballad performance. Instead of the dominance of lightning-fast interplay, the focus on this milestone-setting recording is both on the development of the music and on the possibilities of how the richness of the acoustic sound can be presented in new ways during the performance.
Steve Loewy rated the album in Allmusic with four (out of five) stars and wrote: “What makes [the recording] so interesting is the various occupations with electronics, in which Walter Prati transforms Parker's sounds, Marco Vecchi reassembles Lytton's percussion and Philipp Wachsmann processes his own acoustic sounds and those of bassist Barry Guy. All of this is fascinating stuff, and even if it doesn't swing or fit into some easy definition of jazz , it takes the concept of improvisation to a new level ”. Even if Loewy occasionally states a certain “aimlessness”, which may seem daunting, “concentrated listening can offer the patient consumer wonderful rewards.” The author sees Parker's role in this less as that of a band leader than as an instigator.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Information on the album at ECM ( Memento of the original from February 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 , p. 1157.
- ^ A b Steve Lake : Liner Notes
- ↑ The album of the concert recording was released in 1996 on Leo Records ( Synergetics - Phonomanie III ); see. Information about the album Synergetics - Phonomanie III at Discogs
- ↑ a b c Press comments on the album at ECM ( Memento of the original from February 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Review of Steve Loewy's album at Allmusic (English). Retrieved December 14, 2012.
