AKI TAKASE / DANIEL ERDMANN - Isn't It Romantic?
Budapest Music Center: BMC CD301
Aki Takase: piano; Daniel Erdmann: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone.
Recorded 3rd and 4th August 2002 by Viktor Szabo at BMC Studio, Budapest.
Recently Takase and Erdmann have worked together in Japanic, but their collaboration pre-dates this. In 1990s Berlin, Erdmann was a student of Takase’s and played in the ensemble that she had at the time. On this duo recording, both seamlessly switch between musical styles: slipping through the history (calling to mind Takase’s celebrations of Fats Waller, W.C. Handy, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman) but always homing into niches where melody disintegrates so that they can scoop up the pieces and remould it in something fresh. Takase’s piano playing has always startled in its ability to slip from sensual to aggressive within a bar or two. It takes a player of confidence and an unerring knack of spotting the directions she will take to accompany her, particularly in the unprotected environment of the duo. In this, having known and played with her for so many years gives Erdmann an advantage. He joins a distinguished company which includes David Murray and Ingrid Laubrock as duetists with Takase. To play with Takase is not simply to trade licks and genteelly swap solo and accompanist roles. Rather it is to wrestle, argue, debate and reflect on the music as it tumbles from her fingers, and to do so in ways which create opportunities to shape and be shaped by the tunes. While the tunes are composed, with credit alternating between the players, the motifs of each tune digs the foundation upon which improvised construction is built, demolished and rebuilt. The set closes with their take on ‘Isn’t it Romantic?’ which begins with a slow, slurred sax introduction to a jaunty ragtime swing as a whimsical nod to the history of the tune. Throughout Takase keeps a left-hand rhythm that roots the tune in its history, but around this Erdmann weaves sax lines that move from bop to avant-garde, coaxing Takase to add right-hand flourishes that follow these twists – and all of this without losing the melody.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Budapest Music Center: BMC CD301
Aki Takase: piano; Daniel Erdmann: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone.
Recorded 3rd and 4th August 2002 by Viktor Szabo at BMC Studio, Budapest.
Recently Takase and Erdmann have worked together in Japanic, but their collaboration pre-dates this. In 1990s Berlin, Erdmann was a student of Takase’s and played in the ensemble that she had at the time. On this duo recording, both seamlessly switch between musical styles: slipping through the history (calling to mind Takase’s celebrations of Fats Waller, W.C. Handy, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman) but always homing into niches where melody disintegrates so that they can scoop up the pieces and remould it in something fresh. Takase’s piano playing has always startled in its ability to slip from sensual to aggressive within a bar or two. It takes a player of confidence and an unerring knack of spotting the directions she will take to accompany her, particularly in the unprotected environment of the duo. In this, having known and played with her for so many years gives Erdmann an advantage. He joins a distinguished company which includes David Murray and Ingrid Laubrock as duetists with Takase. To play with Takase is not simply to trade licks and genteelly swap solo and accompanist roles. Rather it is to wrestle, argue, debate and reflect on the music as it tumbles from her fingers, and to do so in ways which create opportunities to shape and be shaped by the tunes. While the tunes are composed, with credit alternating between the players, the motifs of each tune digs the foundation upon which improvised construction is built, demolished and rebuilt. The set closes with their take on ‘Isn’t it Romantic?’ which begins with a slow, slurred sax introduction to a jaunty ragtime swing as a whimsical nod to the history of the tune. Throughout Takase keeps a left-hand rhythm that roots the tune in its history, but around this Erdmann weaves sax lines that move from bop to avant-garde, coaxing Takase to add right-hand flourishes that follow these twists – and all of this without losing the melody.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
