Avenging Angel (ECM)
Craig Taborn
Released May 13, 2011
JazzTimes Top 10 Albums of 2011
AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2011
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Do2z_KJ8Y&list=OLAK5uy_nq7vKsX6aV3H8aU6WijbjhzbT1kqerT0I
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About:
“Avenging Angel” is Craig Taborn’s distinguished contribution to the great solo piano tradition at ECM, a powerful, purposeful and rigorous album, which rises to the challenges of the format and transcends them. The disc explores the textural dimensions of sound, builds new structures, uncovers a rugged lyricism. Recorded in the optimal acoustics of the recital room at Lugano’s Studio RSI, with Manfred Eicher producing, it’s Taborn’s first disc under his own name for ECM, following on from inspired sessions with Roscoe Mitchell, Evan Parker, David Torn and Michael Formanek.
“Avenging Angel”, a powerful, creative and rigorously uncompromising album, is the first unaccompanied solo disc in Craig Taborn’s discography as well as the first ECM recording issued under his name. The album was recorded in the exceptional acoustic of the recital room at Lugano’s Studio RSI, with Manfred Eicher producing.
The disc follows several distinguished ‘sideman’ appearances for ECM, including three Roscoe Mitchell albums – “Nine To Get Ready”, “Composition / Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3” and the recent “Far Side” – as well as Michael Formanek’s “The Rub and Spare Change”, Evan Parker’s “Boustrophedon” and David Torn’s “Prezens”. Taborn (born 1970) has been widely-valued for his resourcefulness as an improviser, in and out of the jazz tradition, since the early 1990s, when his work with saxophonist James Carter’s groups drew the attention of musicians, press and listeners alike. His own groups have since explored a range of options, and he’s also been at the forefront of experiments cross referencing jazz and electronics. In this regard his 2004 album “Junk Magic” (on the Thirsty Ear label), has been cited as a pioneering work, and Craig has repeatedly been voted #1 Rising Star Keyboardist in the DownBeat Critics Poll.
In the last few years, however, solo piano performance has become a priority for Craig Taborn. “If the areas of improvisation that I deal with are always ‘compositional’ in a certain sense, in this case a very focussed compositional approach is applied, rather than allowing a broader exploration to yield a result. Throughout this recording I’m honing in on specific details. The music is really improvised: I just start. But having started, I try to relate everything that happens, like the motivic or rhythmic and textural detail, to the initial ideas as closely as I can. In terms of my own playing I try to have things emerge from the musical material itself. And a lot of that can depend on the instrument, too [in Lugano, a Steinway D]: the sound of the piano itself and what it is generating. I’m interested in the history of piano music, certainly, but I’m not hearing the instrument quite in those terms. I’m experiencing it also as a pure sound source, very aware of the tones and the overtones and how the instrument is ringing. This music is not about ‘transcending the piano’ as much as it is about working with what is possible within it.”
Amongst the album’s striking characteristics is the way in which Taborn balances density of sound-events and structural clarity. “I like transparency and I like the details to be clear. But I also like layering the sounds: I like a complex palette, multiple voices, multiple rhythms, but I also want to be able to discern things, including all the spectral details that come up.”
Track Listing:
1. The Broad Day King (Craig Taborn) 6:16
2. Glossolalia (Craig Taborn) 2:44
3. Diamond Turning Dream (Craig Taborn) 4:17
4. Avenging Angel (Craig Taborn) 6:56
5. This Voice Says So (Craig Taborn) 9:43
6. Neverland (Craig Taborn) 4:28
7. True Life Near (Craig Taborn) 4:29
8. Gift Horse/Over the Water (Craig Taborn) 7:37
9. A Difficult Thing Said Simply (Craig Taborn) 4:35
10. Spirit Hard Knock (Craig Taborn) 4:37
11. Neither-Nor (Craig Taborn) 3:18
12. Forgetful (Craig Taborn) 7:58
13. This Is How You Disappear (Craig Taborn) 5:03
Personnel:
Craig Taborn: piano
Recorded July 2010, at Auditorio Radiotelevisione svizzera, Lugano, by Stefano Amerio
Cover Photo: Thomas Wunsch
Design: Sascha Kleis
Producer: Manfred Eicher
Review:
He’s served with distinction as a sideman for the likes of James Carter, Chris Potter and David Torn. He’s been in demand for his skills on grand piano, Fender Rhodes, even organ. In 2004 he issued an album under his own name that stands as a defining document of the jazztronica movement. Now Craig Taborn has gone and done something completely surprising: He has recorded a solo album of spontaneously composed works.
It’s easy to imagine how this album might have been made over two days in the studio-Taborn sitting at a piano, waiting for inspiration, plucking a few notes, generating a motif and then going with it. “The Broad Day King” places single-note phrases over an ostinato, with heavy use of sustain and enormous open spaces between thoughts. On “Gift Horse/Over the Water,” the same 10 notes are repeated over two bars, again and again, with Taborn’s right hand tossing chords in different places each time through. Talk about use of space: With “This Voice Says So,” a mere 20 notes are played in the first minute, and the same three-note phrase is repeated six times therein. The album is not all peace and quiet, though. “Glossolalia,” the meeting place of Chopin and Jarrett, finds Taborn wresting spiky three-octave sprints and lower-register thuds out of the keys.
Avenging Angel is an experiment in sound and silence. While brief melodic ideas underpin many of the pieces, equally central to the aesthetic is the actual sound-the reverberations of hammered strings, the oscillations, the durations of sustains. This is delicacy taken to new levels. This music requires the listener to pay close, close attention. Mistake it for background music and you will miss the point altogether.
Steve Greenlee (JazzTimes)
