OLGA KONKOVA - The Goldilocks Zone
Losen Records LOS134-2
Olga Konkova: grand piano, fender Rhodes; Per Mathisen: acoustic, upright bass; Gary Husband: drums.
Olga Konkova is establishing herself as a force in contemporary jazz piano playing; not only in the quality of her playing but also the quantity of her output across several labels. In this CD, on the excellent Losen label, she presents pieces recorded in a piano, bass, drums trio. The core of this CD is the 6 piece ‘Goldilocks Suite’, which begins with a swirling piano, sliding bass and crashing cymbals before settling in to a sequence of piano-led pieces. Konkova shows a strong, post-bop sensibility in her composing and her playing uses the full dynamic range of the grand piano. At times she has a strong, muscular approach that drives the pieces in directions which manage to be both unexpected but very logical; at other times, she is a lightness of touch that can be very moving (particularly on the second on the CD’s tracks, ‘Moscow Tears’, which is not part of the main suite). The recording (by Dani Castelar really brings out the richness in the sounds of the instruments). There is a nice interplay between Konkova’s piano and Mathisen’s bass, with lines being echoed and shared elegantly, and Husband (as one might expect from such a renowned drummer) works interesting patterns in support of their playing.
The titles of the pieces in the ‘Goldilocks Suite’ suggest inspiration from the notion that habitable planets exist in a zone which is not too hot and not too cold (a name that physicists took from the porridge in the Goldilocks fairy tale). The idea of a sweet-spot between the hot and the cool has obvious appeal to jazz thinking, and the trio swings between cool, cerebral pieces and hotter, bop-inflected pieces with ease. In the ‘Goldilocks Suite’, titles such as ‘The Pillars of Creation’, ‘The Retina Nebula’ (a dying star), ‘The Goldilocks Zone’ and ‘Kepler 22b’ (a planet some 600 light years from earth which lies in the habitable zone of a sun-like star), point to the over-arching theme of a search for the place where life can be found. However, two other titles, ‘Havvil’ and ‘People of Bwiti’ are less obviously related. The latter relates, I guess, to the Bwiti religion (mainly found in Gabon) which uses the hallucinogenic properties of the Iboga tree in some of its rites – possibly hinting at an idea of a spiritual journey to other Goldilocks zones. Of the pieces in the suite, this one (‘People of Bwiti’) carries an hypnotic and insistent underlying pulse and repeating melody, which is different from the progression in the other pieces.
Outside the suite, the CD has five other tracks. The opening track, ‘Nardissim’, feels oddly tentative compared to the other tracks (and fades out at 6’ 55) – as if the players were exploring their roles in the session; after some bass lines, Husband introduces a syncopated hi-hat beat that calls the session to order and the pieces gradually builds without feeling resolved. However, this track is somewhat at odds with the rest of the pieces, all of which features a sympathetic rhythm section working with a pianist on some well written pieces of contemporary jazz.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Losen Records LOS134-2
Olga Konkova: grand piano, fender Rhodes; Per Mathisen: acoustic, upright bass; Gary Husband: drums.
Olga Konkova is establishing herself as a force in contemporary jazz piano playing; not only in the quality of her playing but also the quantity of her output across several labels. In this CD, on the excellent Losen label, she presents pieces recorded in a piano, bass, drums trio. The core of this CD is the 6 piece ‘Goldilocks Suite’, which begins with a swirling piano, sliding bass and crashing cymbals before settling in to a sequence of piano-led pieces. Konkova shows a strong, post-bop sensibility in her composing and her playing uses the full dynamic range of the grand piano. At times she has a strong, muscular approach that drives the pieces in directions which manage to be both unexpected but very logical; at other times, she is a lightness of touch that can be very moving (particularly on the second on the CD’s tracks, ‘Moscow Tears’, which is not part of the main suite). The recording (by Dani Castelar really brings out the richness in the sounds of the instruments). There is a nice interplay between Konkova’s piano and Mathisen’s bass, with lines being echoed and shared elegantly, and Husband (as one might expect from such a renowned drummer) works interesting patterns in support of their playing.
The titles of the pieces in the ‘Goldilocks Suite’ suggest inspiration from the notion that habitable planets exist in a zone which is not too hot and not too cold (a name that physicists took from the porridge in the Goldilocks fairy tale). The idea of a sweet-spot between the hot and the cool has obvious appeal to jazz thinking, and the trio swings between cool, cerebral pieces and hotter, bop-inflected pieces with ease. In the ‘Goldilocks Suite’, titles such as ‘The Pillars of Creation’, ‘The Retina Nebula’ (a dying star), ‘The Goldilocks Zone’ and ‘Kepler 22b’ (a planet some 600 light years from earth which lies in the habitable zone of a sun-like star), point to the over-arching theme of a search for the place where life can be found. However, two other titles, ‘Havvil’ and ‘People of Bwiti’ are less obviously related. The latter relates, I guess, to the Bwiti religion (mainly found in Gabon) which uses the hallucinogenic properties of the Iboga tree in some of its rites – possibly hinting at an idea of a spiritual journey to other Goldilocks zones. Of the pieces in the suite, this one (‘People of Bwiti’) carries an hypnotic and insistent underlying pulse and repeating melody, which is different from the progression in the other pieces.
Outside the suite, the CD has five other tracks. The opening track, ‘Nardissim’, feels oddly tentative compared to the other tracks (and fades out at 6’ 55) – as if the players were exploring their roles in the session; after some bass lines, Husband introduces a syncopated hi-hat beat that calls the session to order and the pieces gradually builds without feeling resolved. However, this track is somewhat at odds with the rest of the pieces, all of which features a sympathetic rhythm section working with a pianist on some well written pieces of contemporary jazz.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
