ECM Jazz
Just four months before legendary drummer Billy Higgins died in 2001 waiting for a liver transplant, he reunited with his longtime, periodic collaborator Charles Lloyd at the latter’s California home to record Which Way Is East, an intimate and spiritually charged 2-CD set. The duets are, in fact, meditations ranging from the somber to the ecstatic. While there’s plenty of saxophone and drum pairings, there’s also ample use of various exotic string and percussion instruments, as well as voicings that give the sessions a primitive and distinctly “world music” flavor. A single disc of potent material would’ve sufficed, but there’s no denying the electrifying context of two lifelong, adventurous musical compadres communing for the last time. Pianist Marilyn Crispell, a recent visitor to Austin, initially modeled herself after Cecil Taylor and spent several years with Anthony Braxton, but her latest albums, including the new Storyteller, eschew the pyrotechnics of her mentors in favor of a dynamism that’s far more controlled and meditative. Supported superbly by drummer Paul Motian and bassist Mark Helias, Crispell hints at the roiling intensity of her earlier work only once, near the end of the album. What precedes is an intensity of a different sort, with Crispell delicately probing into the nooks and crannies of a sometimes lyrical, sometimes angular musical landscape. The results are often breathtaking. Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko‘s association with ECM dates back to 1975, and the reflective, crystalline sound of his quartet is quintessentially ECM. Suspended Night is an elegant and refined series of numbered “variations,” spacious in their uncluttered, if measured, execution. At times, Stanko’s musings recall some of Miles Davis’ more pensive moments. Although virtually unknown in this country, the trumpeter is bound to attract attention with music of this quality.This article appears in May 21 • 2004.