1705 – Zone
Budapest Music Centre Records BMC CD 221
Zsolt Kaltenecker: electric and acoustic pianos, sampler; Bela Piri: double bass, bass guitar; Andras Des: percussions.
The UK jazz scene has had several bands mixing trip-hop beats with jazz(ish) piano. This can produce a gentle, ambient sound at times and at others reminds us that jazz can still be music to dance to. This concept is taken up by 1705 on this CD. Des’ percussion has a hypnotic steadiness that can sound like a drum machine at times and propels the music with precision. Piri lays down simple but effective bass lines on top of the drum patterns to produce an insistent rhythm for the pieces. In many of the pieces on show here, the initial theme has the clarity and simplicity of film music. It is this simple theme over the trip-hop rhythms that called to mind the UK bands mentioned at the start of this review. While the UK bands tends to keep the theme development to a minimum so as not to disrupt the dancing, 1705 are far more adventurous.
What really makes this CD stand from some of the other bands playing in this manner is the complexity of Kaltenecker’s playing. As the pieces develop, Kaltenecker’s improvisations develop rhythmic complexity as if both hands were at odds with each other, while still retaining the integral structure of the music. The left / right hand playing feel more strongly aligned to classical than to jazz traditions; there isn’t so much sense of stride or boogie-woogie rumbling on the lower notes, nor of spikey intercessions of chords during the playing that one might hear in post-bop. What you hear is more of a dialogue between two potential solos that each hand is contributing to the piece, perhaps in the manner of Chopin but always with a sensibility that keeps the beat and swings. On the sets only ballad, track 6, ‘Closing Hour’ (surely this should be ‘Closing Time’?), the gentle, waltz theme develops gradually with the feel of an improvisation on a half remembered ‘Let there be love’. Over the 6 minutes of the piece it flows with the sort of variation more commonly found in Minimalist compositions, but with its own fragile beauty.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Budapest Music Centre Records BMC CD 221
Zsolt Kaltenecker: electric and acoustic pianos, sampler; Bela Piri: double bass, bass guitar; Andras Des: percussions.
The UK jazz scene has had several bands mixing trip-hop beats with jazz(ish) piano. This can produce a gentle, ambient sound at times and at others reminds us that jazz can still be music to dance to. This concept is taken up by 1705 on this CD. Des’ percussion has a hypnotic steadiness that can sound like a drum machine at times and propels the music with precision. Piri lays down simple but effective bass lines on top of the drum patterns to produce an insistent rhythm for the pieces. In many of the pieces on show here, the initial theme has the clarity and simplicity of film music. It is this simple theme over the trip-hop rhythms that called to mind the UK bands mentioned at the start of this review. While the UK bands tends to keep the theme development to a minimum so as not to disrupt the dancing, 1705 are far more adventurous.
What really makes this CD stand from some of the other bands playing in this manner is the complexity of Kaltenecker’s playing. As the pieces develop, Kaltenecker’s improvisations develop rhythmic complexity as if both hands were at odds with each other, while still retaining the integral structure of the music. The left / right hand playing feel more strongly aligned to classical than to jazz traditions; there isn’t so much sense of stride or boogie-woogie rumbling on the lower notes, nor of spikey intercessions of chords during the playing that one might hear in post-bop. What you hear is more of a dialogue between two potential solos that each hand is contributing to the piece, perhaps in the manner of Chopin but always with a sensibility that keeps the beat and swings. On the sets only ballad, track 6, ‘Closing Hour’ (surely this should be ‘Closing Time’?), the gentle, waltz theme develops gradually with the feel of an improvisation on a half remembered ‘Let there be love’. Over the 6 minutes of the piece it flows with the sort of variation more commonly found in Minimalist compositions, but with its own fragile beauty.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
