Round Trip (Brooklyn Jazz Underground)
Anne Mette Iversen Quartet +1
Released April 28, 2017
DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n25ufB5-d_lxdgMDTOup32D2fS_OPdb68
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/2PSJDX1cQXYW5E0P4nsJMN?si=U17KyxWiRBOG0fa7IQIUlg
About:
Originally the meaning of ’round trip’ was to return to the starting point via a different road. When I wrote the tune ‘Round Trip’, it was about a deep and heartfelt wish I had- to return to my two sons, who I had left in another country for a few days. As this album and this music came about, ’round trip’ then became a key idea for the album. Round trip, in the sense of coming home, describes the feeling I have every time I play with this group. It refers to the many (round) trips we have taken together over the years, but also how much we have grown as a band, musicians and persons, and how we, no matter where each one of us is placed in the world, get together to make music and share our experiences. Even on a personal level I see the many round trips in our journey through life and music. So without further a due: Take a *Round Trip’ with us.
Track Listing:
1. Round Trip (Anne Mette Iversen) 05:35
2. Lines & Circles (Anne Mette Iversen) 05:27
3. Segue (Anne Mette Iversen) 05:42
4. Viinstedt’s View (Anne Mette Iversen) 07:48
5. December Light (Anne Mette Iversen) 04:48
6. Scala (Anne Mette Iversen) 05:22
7. The Ballad That Would Not Be (Anne Mette Iversen) 08:45
8. Red Hairpins (Anne Mette Iversen) 10:31
Personnel:
Anne Mette Iversen: bass
John Ellis: tenor sax
Peter Dahlgren: trombone
Danny Grissett: piano
Otis Brown III: drums and cymbals
Review:
Recorded in Poland on a single day in January 2016, the inventive double bassist/composer/ bandleader Anne Mette Iversen’s Round Trip documents her then-14-year-old quartet with tenor saxophonist John Ellis, pianist Danny Grissett and drummer Otis Brown III. Swedish trombonist Peter Dahlgren joined the band late in its existence and is the “+1” in its title. Three years after relocating from New York to Berlin in 2012, Danish expatriate Iversen formed a European band with two Germans (drummer/percussionist Roland Schneider and alto saxophonist Silke Eberhard) and a Frenchman (trombonist Geoffroy De Masure). The Ternion Quartet, as it’s known, recorded its debut in Berlin in October 2016, and Iversen released both albums concurrently. Listening to Round Trip and Ternion’s eponymous recording back to back provides an exercise in comparing and contrasting via some thoroughly compelling and wholly rewarding material. (The biggest difference is the presence of piano in the Quartet +1. Otherwise, it’s alto as opposed to tenor saxophone, and De Masure doubles on bass trombone.) Round Trip is sequenced like a live set. The title track opens the program with an adventurous tone set by Dahlgren’s obstacle course-worthy lines and Brown’s insistent rimshot patterns. “Lines & Circles” boasts pleasing hypnotic interplay among all five band members. There’s a looser, more straightforward feel to “Segue.” Ellis and Grissett both shine with thoughtfully constructed and well-executed solos. “Red Hairpins” closes the album with a mysterious introduction by all members of the rhythm section and some effortless interplay between Ellis and Dahlgren.
Yoshi Kato (DownBeat)
