INGRID LAUBROCK & KRIS DAVIS - Blood Moon
Intakt: CD345
Ingrid Laubrock: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone; Kris Davis: piano
Recorded 10th June 2018 by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, New York
This duet is from two ex-pats (one from Germany via London and the F-IRE collective and one from Canada) who have been very much part of the New York scene. This is the second duet recording that Laubrock has made for Intakt (previously being paired with Aki Takase). Even from the opening notes of ‘Snakes and Lattice’, the music melds the free-flowingness of improvisation with a carefully managed compositional structure. That they play so well together comes from a long friendship and musical partnership that has included Paradoxical Frog, Anti-House and a host of sessions led by other luminaries of the New York improv scene. In Davis’ tunes, (the opener, ‘Flying Embers’, track 4, ‘Golgi Complex’, track 7), the titles give a hint to the ‘rules’ of the structure – the melody slithers down before moving upwards and sideways, or it burns slowly and steadily (with drawn out saxophone drones) while occasionally flickering and then dying down, or the sax navigates a maze just ahead of the piano. Laubrock’s pieces (‘Blood moon’, track 2, ‘Whistlings’, track 5, ‘Jagged jaunts’, track 9) focus a more on the development of a melody, or at least lines which build and release tension and which work well-defined harmonic patterns. In the liner notes, Stephanie Jones points out that Laubrock will focus on ‘the way individual notes and gestures relate to one another’ or ‘the way they combine to create something thematic and resonating’. Having said this, both players completely inhabit the tunes so that there is a strong sense of the compositions being re-invented as they play them. The remaining pieces have joint credits and very much the vibrancy of improvised pieces – each player offers an idea which the other develops and hands back, with such an overlap that you lose track of the where the idea came from and just revel in the spontaneity of the playing.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Intakt: CD345
Ingrid Laubrock: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone; Kris Davis: piano
Recorded 10th June 2018 by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, New York
This duet is from two ex-pats (one from Germany via London and the F-IRE collective and one from Canada) who have been very much part of the New York scene. This is the second duet recording that Laubrock has made for Intakt (previously being paired with Aki Takase). Even from the opening notes of ‘Snakes and Lattice’, the music melds the free-flowingness of improvisation with a carefully managed compositional structure. That they play so well together comes from a long friendship and musical partnership that has included Paradoxical Frog, Anti-House and a host of sessions led by other luminaries of the New York improv scene. In Davis’ tunes, (the opener, ‘Flying Embers’, track 4, ‘Golgi Complex’, track 7), the titles give a hint to the ‘rules’ of the structure – the melody slithers down before moving upwards and sideways, or it burns slowly and steadily (with drawn out saxophone drones) while occasionally flickering and then dying down, or the sax navigates a maze just ahead of the piano. Laubrock’s pieces (‘Blood moon’, track 2, ‘Whistlings’, track 5, ‘Jagged jaunts’, track 9) focus a more on the development of a melody, or at least lines which build and release tension and which work well-defined harmonic patterns. In the liner notes, Stephanie Jones points out that Laubrock will focus on ‘the way individual notes and gestures relate to one another’ or ‘the way they combine to create something thematic and resonating’. Having said this, both players completely inhabit the tunes so that there is a strong sense of the compositions being re-invented as they play them. The remaining pieces have joint credits and very much the vibrancy of improvised pieces – each player offers an idea which the other develops and hands back, with such an overlap that you lose track of the where the idea came from and just revel in the spontaneity of the playing.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
