Volume 29 Issue 5 | April & May 2024

voltage, Schubert’s

voltage, Schubert’s Trane-like tongue slaps, overblowing and sirenlike honks are not only integrated into the narratives, but given added oomph when live processed or cushioned by the oscillations. At the same time, Nabatov’s acoustic piano patterns include enough crashing chords and sympathetic plinks to preserve the improvisational aura. Brushed is an instance of this as the saxophonist spews out puffs and whines in the form of toneless air blocked by an obstruction in his horn’s bell as Nabatov’s synthesized echoes create percussion backing. Tensile raps are then replaced with keyboard thumps as the saxophonist reed bites and blows out snuffles and split tones. The electronically produced squeaks and air-raspberries however don’t prevent the two from sounding like an expected jazz duo on tracks like Scratch. The grumbling oscillations have to share space with key clips and clanks and sax buzzes and smears. Squeezing out multiphonics or overblowing an emphasized fruity tone, Schubert then foils the electronics’ spatial tendency to overwhelm acoustic properties. By the concluding track, Closing, the duo confirms the appropriate electroacoustic balance. A melange of reed growls and tongue stops mixed with crashing piano chords, the flanged wave form variations that are subsequently heard soon dissolve into faint rumbles to make common cause with and accompany the saxophonist’s angled split tone squeaks and a tone-shaking summation. Bringing novel sounds to a reed/piano duo doesn’t have to venture into the electronic world however. On Crusts (FOU records CD 48 fourecords.com) for instance, French improviser Jean-Luc Petit’s playing tenor and soprano saxophones and bass clarinet is amplified by the elaborations from Didier Fréboeuf on piano, objects and clavietta, a mouth-blown piano keyboard instrument with accordion-like tones. Meanwhile Norwegian Isach Skeidsvoll on Chanting Moon, Dancing Sun – Live at Molde International Jazz Festival (Clean Feed CF 617 CD cleanfeed-records.com) and Japanese Yoko Miura on Zanshou Glance at the Tide (Setola Di Maiale SM 4620 setoladimaiale.net) both use a similar handheld instrument, the melodica, with its mouthpiece and keyboard sounds in their duets with Lauritz Skeidsvoll playing soprano and tenor saxophones and Italian soprano saxophonist Gianni Mimmo respectively. Used more sparingly than electronics, Fréboeuf’s mouthpieceattached instrument doesn’t make its appearance until the final track, but even before that his measured responses perfectly complement Petit’s expositions, depending on which reed is used. Squeezed alphorn like blows and crying treble reflux from the tenor saxophone are met with inner piano string jangles and wood smacks that speed up the interface to gentling connections. More descriptively thickened chalumeau register bass clarinet slaps and snorts move the pianist deeper into pedal point expression on the appropriately named Scab, with the musical skin further exposed with bottom board echoes and brutal key clanging. As piano abrasions pull away, strangled reed cries confirm that the sonic wound still throbs. The clavietta’s music boxlike tinkles and shaking variations simply solidify Fréboeuf’s distinctive exposition on Crisp, with Petit’s equally crisp rejoinders on soprano saxophone move into droning telephone-wire-like shrilling without key movements. Dynamic near-honky-tonk keyboard patterns however, push that sequence to the bursting point with the resulting timbral explosion drawing the saxophonist to a forced air and altissimo squeaking finale. More use is made of the melodica on Chanting Moon, Dancing Sun with the title track based on a do-si-do of that instrument’s barrel-organ-like textures in unison or counterpoint with the saxophone. While the plastic melodica does create an interesting contrast to a reed instrument, as quickly as a modal sequence is advanced Isach Skeidsvoll returns to percussive piano tones as Lauritz Skeidsvoll’s nasal soprano saxophone adds Carnaticlike squeaks. By the conclusion, reed work begins to quiet as intricate piano chording moves forward. Perhaps more a physiological than a musical observation, but despite the Skeidsvolls literally being brothers – Lauritz is two years older than Isach – their playing appears more distant from one another than that of the other duos. Exploring freer playing at points with reed split tones, tongue stops and slide whistle-like squeaks plus energetic piano shifts in and out of tempo, their fluid improvising also veers toward pseudo gospel dynamics. Earlier spiritual music inferences come out into the open on the concluding From the Wasteland I Ascend. Waves of ecclesiastical piano glissandi and intensified saxophone honks and squawks suggest Southern Baptists feeling the spirit, with the potent beat all consuming but somewhat odd coming from Norwegian musicians at a Norwegian jazz festival. Miura and Mimmo offer a different and distinct duo conception on Zanshou Glance at the Tide, another live concert. That’s because the pianist and saxophonist play solo on the first two tracks, only uniting for Further Towards the Light, the extended finale. The first track is a threnody for the Finnish bassist Teppo Hauta-aho, one of the many Occidental musicians with whom Miura has played. Yet melancholy is mixed with muscle as her light touch is overtaken by pressurized energy and key slaps at near player-piano speed. Continuing up the scale with chiming notes and plucks; melodica puffs also echo sparingly. With detours into suggestions of Charles Mingus and Jimmy Rowles themes on the second track, the saxophonist is both lyrical and literal, building a mellow exposition from tune variations mixed with double tonguing, tonal slides and the odd screech. As a duo the two also scramble expectations by introducing a lengthy meditation on ‘Round Midnight as a secondary motif. At first Miura adds energy with bell tree shakes and melodica trills that underline Mimmo’s more emotional pitch undulations and near circular breaths. With each taking turns interpreting the Thelonious Monk ballad, she not only comps aggressively but uses the mouth-blown keyboard to double and strengthen the saxophonist’s ascending and descending single line expositions. The entire piano keyboard is brought into play in the final sequence, uniting textures from all three instruments for a broadened referential conclusion. Overall, using add-ons or playing acoustically each duo distinctively defines its territory and the combination. Vol 29 Issue 4 59 Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 | The Thirteen, Children’s Chorus of Washington, Dark Horse Consort 59 La sposa dei cantici | Ars Lyrica Houston 63 BACH: Clavier-Übung III, The Pedal Settings | Renée Anne Louprette In This Issue 58 Portraits | Emily Carr String Quartet 59 People Like You and Me | Robert Priest 60 Upheaval | Janne Fredens & Søren Rastogi 60 The Colburn Sessions | Mikyung Sung 64 Fire - Flowers | Timothy Shantz 64 In the Crystalline Vault of Heaven | Margot Rejskind 64 Dall'Abaco and the Art of Variation | Accademia de' Dissonanti, Elinor Frey What we're listening to this month: 66 Schubert: The Complete Impromptus | Gerardo Teissonnière 66 Album Leaf: Piano Works by Felix Mendelssohn | Sophia Agranovich 67 Rachmaninoff | Ian Gindes 68 American Spiritual | Michael Lee 68 Messiaen: Turangalîla-Symphony | Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Gustavo Gimeno, Marc-André Hamelin, Nathalie Forget 69 Recurrence | Saman Shahi 73 Night And Day (The Cole Porter Songbook) | Adi Braun 73 Tide Rises | Lauren Bush 73 You're Alike, You Two | Caity Gyorgy and Mark Limacher 73 Spring Comes Early | John Herberman 75 A Canadian Songbook | Ernesto Cervini's Turboprop 76 DISTANCIA | Solidaridad Tango 78 | April & May 2024 thewholenote.com

Breve: the backstory PART TWO: LIGHT WORK The story so far Last time we told you that we are well underway with a project to launch an autonomous not-for-profit organisation capable of building on the foundational listings-gathering work The WholeNote has been doing for nearly 30 years. We’ve called the initiative BREVE because in the musical terminology used in some places what we call a wholenote is called a semibreve, so a breve is two wholenotes, linked by a common purpose. We are doing this not because we want to become a one-stop Ontario listings mega mall, but because we believe we are part of an interdependent listings-gathering ecosystem with a united purpose: strengthening community engagement with live music in all its forms, because we believe that engagement with live music strengthens community. Baby steps We know from almost 30 years of experience that an initiative like this takes time, patience and constant renewal. And that it can only happen community by community. So this is what we are asking you to do. 1. Help us spread the word • that WHOLENOTE MUSICAL EVENT LISTINGS are free of charge and can be submitted by artists, venues or presenters at any time, from anywhere in Ontario • that we invite listings for date-specific LIVE musical events (including events streamed live), not just performances • and that even if they don’t make it into print in our magazine, these listings will be made available to the public free of charge on our website, and for republication by other individuals or groups who share the vision that engagement with live music in all its forms strengthens community. 2. If you don’t already do so, share your own information with us • Use the convenient online form at thewholenote.com/applylistings • or email listings to listings@thewholenote.com. All inquiries about WholeNote listings can be addressed to John Sharpe, Listings Editor at listings@thewholenote.com And aside from all this There’s an old joke I still love even though it depends for maximum effect on poking fun in a stereotypical way at the way the central protagonist speaks English. The joke has consequently fallen out of favour which is a pity because it’s funny, and in this context right to the point. So I am going to tell it anyway. There’s a new conductor is in town - let’s call her/ him Yoda. The choir is elated. This is the individual that will propel them into the upper echelons of artistry in their aspiring-to-be-world-class town. Rehearsals have been wonderful - no, better than wonderful. Choirs are, of all forms of artistic grapevine, the most potent way of getting the word out in the community, and the word has spread like wildfire. Every ticket to Yoda’s debut concert with the choir has been sold. On the big night the hall’s woefully inadequate lobby is packed, and people are crowding the equally inadequate sidewalk and spilling into the street, while they wait for the doors to open. The choir is in the hall, doing final warmups. Doors open in ten minutes - time to clear the stage! And, right on cue, the power goes out in the hall. Loud clicks as backstage breakers are reset … and reset … and reset. The dark remains stygian. All members of the choir remain frozen in place. And then a tap tap tap. The unmistakable sound of the new conductor’s baton, and then their quiet voice in the dark. “Raise your hands please.” Which, as one, in perfect unison, the choir does. And the lights come back on. Eyes wide, the choir turns to Yoda – a collective “what the heck just happened?” “Many hands make light work” their new conductor says. So, to repeat, right now we need you to lend a hand – not to make the light work, but to make the work light. To lend your support to the BREVE initiative, contact David Perlman at publisher@thewholenote.com. thewholenote.com April & May 2024 | 79