
Daylight Ghosts (ECM)
Craig Taborn
Released February 2017
The Guardian Highest Rated Jazz Albums of All Time
New York Times Best Jazz Albums of 2017
AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2017
2017 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll Best New Album
YouTube:
1. https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=KRr1ecUCAAU
7. https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=jgsoNyF2Qz8
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/4WMd6CHBI1xqYjD8svvoES?si=5mhssQ_JR_SdCgfUsCDQXg
About:
Keyboardist
Craig Taborn’s Daylight Ghosts is the Minneapolis-bred New Yorker’s
third ECM release as a leader, a quartet album following the solo Avenging
Angel and trio disc Chants. Both projects earned wide acclaim,
with The Guardian stating that Taborn’s “musicality and his attention
to detail are hypnotic, as is his remarkable sense of compositional narrative
within an improvised performance.” Along with Taborn on piano and electronic
keyboards, the quartet of Daylight Ghosts includes two other
luminaries from the New York scene – reed player Chris Speed and bassist Chris
Lightcap – plus drummer Dave King, the leader’s fellow Minnesota native and
one-third of The Bad Plus. Each player draws from a broad artistic background,
as informed by rock, electronica and diverse strains of world music as they are
the various permutations of jazz improvisation. Dynamism and spectral ambience,
acoustic and electric sounds, groove and lingering melody – all come together
to animate Daylight Ghosts.
The sonic fluidity of Daylight Ghosts – its dynamic stressing group
improvisation over discrete soloing/accompanying roles – is enabled by the long
relationships that Taborn has forged with each of the other musicians, who
gathered in New York City’s Avatar Studios with producer Manfred Eicher for the
sessions. Taborn has been playing music with King since they were teenagers in
Minneapolis, the two venturing everything from bebop and free jazz to dance
music and metal. Taborn and Lightcap have shared membership in each other’s
groups in New York for more than 15 years, while the keyboardist and Speed have
been occasional musical confreres for a decade. Speed, King and Lightcap also
have their own web of associations.
“Because the four of us have a history of commingling and playing a wide
variety of music together, these guys were ideal for exploring a sound world of
acoustic and electronic instruments in a seamless way, one that didn’t hit too
hard on any obvious reference points,” Taborn explains. “Live, this band moves
from a quiet, chamber-music space to a raucous, almost rock kind of energy,
which Dave and Chris Lightcap really know how to drive. For the recording, I
wanted to subtly infuse the chamber-like palette with some of that energy, yet
with no hint of fusion. This music trades on transparency. I wanted all the
elements to be crystalline, so that the layers of the music work like a prism.”
The lone cover tune on Daylight Ghosts reflects another of Taborn’s
longtime affiliations. Beyond his recordings as a leader for ECM, Taborn has
played on albums for the label by Michael Formanek, David Torn, Evan Parker and
Ches Smith. But his first appearances on ECM were via a sequence of albums with
AACM pioneer Roscoe Mitchell. Taborn and company reinterpret Mitchell’s
“Jamaican Farewell” on Daylight Ghosts, with Speed taking up his dark-hued
clarinet to find the melodic heart of this gem of ruminative lyricism. “I’ve
always loved this piece, and it has such a beautiful, simple melody that
elicits so much in the improvisation,” Taborn says. “And with the introduction
of subtle electronics, it really seems to open up a vast world we can explore.”
The rest of Daylight Ghosts features eight Taborn originals, snaking
and atmospheric by turns. Highlights include the tune-rich title track, marked
by Speed’s Spartan-toned tenor and Taborn’s entrancing piano figures, as well
as “Phantom Ratio,” which has Speed’s sax tracing long tones over Taborn’s
pealing synth loop and keening electronic buzz. “The Great Silence” and “Subtle
Living Equations” have a hovering, almost ambient feel. Opening with
a guimbre-like Lightcap solo, “Ancient” pulses on a long crescendo of
rhythm, while “The Shining One” moves from the get-go, colored by Taborn’s
high-energy piano improvisations and King’s skittering percussion.
Reflecting on what his cohorts bring to this music, Taborn says: “Dave has a
refined sonic sensibility at the drum kit, particularly in the way he
integrates acoustic and electronic percussion. It’s about not having either one
dominate; so that when you hear the record, it’s not always apparent what’s an
acoustic drum and what’s an electronic drum pad. Chris Lightcap has a concept
for both the double bass and the bass guitar that’s invested in vintage sound
quality. He likes flat, roundwound strings on the Fender Precision bass; he
likes a dark amp tone; and he likes laying down strong, solid bass lines. We
share an affinity for these vintage instrumental sounds while finding new ways
of utilizing those sounds expressively.”
Chris Speed “has an astounding skill set for dealing with complicated music,
but his approach is one of patience and consideration. He will always take the
direct path, which is so important in music that emphasizes an integrated group
sound. It can be a particular challenge with the tenor sax, which is so often a
lead instrument. But his playing can both hold its own space and not overwhelm
the texture. In that, he reminds me of John Gilmore, who when playing with Sun
Ra could state a strong idea simply and then tuck back into the band. And on
clarinet, Chris has just a gorgeous sound. It’s important for this band to have
both the earthy tone of the tenor and the more lyrical sound of the clarinet.
Chris brings both.”
Taborn’s ever-involving pianism blends darting leaps with finely graded
colorations and hypnotic minimalism. Beyond his virtuosity, he employs multiple
keyboards with a compositional aesthetic, the mix of acoustic and electric
timbres heightening each other and filling the spectrum with interest. He
stresses his fascination with “sonics” in the making of Daylight Ghosts.
The album’s electric keyboard sounds subtly reflect his love of the lo-fi
mystery heard in transistor organs from ’60s Sun Ra to early Philip Glass, from
psychedelic rock to ’60s-’70s music from Ethiopia and Benin. Then there were such
subtle, serendipitous passing events as King striking an electric gong with a
reverse-attack, white-noise effect, which was highlighted in the mixing process
as a telling “micro-detail” within the transparent sound picture.
“I really am a sound guy,” Taborn says. “After all, what’s music but a
collection of sounds arranged in some evolving narrative. I tend to listen to
things loud and with a certain focus so that I can hear as much detail inside
of the sound as possible, not just the event or gesture – like here’s a drum
fill – but the actual sound of the toms, how long a cymbal rings, the harmonic
that arises when the cymbal is hit and that’s picked up by the piano. I live
for the details, and there’s a lot of detail on this record. Don’t put it on in
the background.”
Track Listing:
1. The Shining One (Craig Taborn) 3:29
2. Abandoned Reminder (Craig Taborn) 7:46
3. Daylight Ghosts (Craig Taborn) 7:36
4. New Glory (Craig Taborn) 3:14
5. The Great Silence (Craig Taborn) 5:37
6. Ancient (Craig Taborn) 8:15
7. Jamaican Farewell (Roscoe Mitchell) 5:39
8. Subtle Living Equations (Craig Taborn) 4:31
9. Phantom Ratio (Craig Taborn) 8:29
Personnel:
Craig Taborn: piano, electronics
Chris Speed: tenor saxophone, clarinet
Chris Lightcap: acoustic bass, electric bass
Dave King: drums, electronic percussion
Recorded May 2016, at Avatar Studios, New York
Producer: Manfred Eicher
Engineer: James A. Farber
Photography by Thomas Wunsch
Review:
However far from familiar paths the American pianist Craig Taborn strays, he sounds surefootedly convinced of his route, and however private his music, it emits a vivid intensity. Daylight Ghosts – a superb quartet set with Chris Speed on reeds, Chris Lightcap on bass and the Bad Plus’s Dave King on drums – operates in Taborn’s favourite free-floating manner: changing fragments of melody rather than dominant themes come and go, steadily transforming the moods. The Shining One mixes quick, boppish exchanges of motifs with twisting, written-unison lines. New Glory is exhilarating free-jazz with a Chick Corea-like Latin vamp in it, and there are deep clarinet and bass interludes, brief bursts of rock-piano riffing and subtle minglings of electronic loops and long-tone sax sounds on Phantom Ratio. Only players with deep jazz insights and wide musical references could have made this fine album.
John Fordham (The Guardian)