Jazz Articles about Anat Fort

Anat Fort Trio: And If

by AAJ Italy Staff
January 10, 2011

L'iniziale “Paul Motian" è da brividi. Il brano dedicato al grande batterista che avevo suonato su A Long Story, debutto ECM di Anat Fort, è poesia allo stato puro. In una manciata di minuti si condensano al meglio le due direttrici cardine nella visione musicale della pianista e compositrice israeliana, ossia la rigorosità e la perfezione delle forme derivante dalla ferrea preparazione classica e l'amore per l'improvvisazione. Due mondi distanti e incompatibili che Anat riesce magicamente a far convivere, attraverso ...

Anat Fort: And If

by Hrayr Attarian
October 22, 2010

That pianist Anat Fort is an intensely lyrical musician is apparent throughout And If; her poetic lyricism acts, in fact, as sort of a unifying theme for the entire work. A hauntingly beautiful and sublime musical opus, the disc opens with her modal composition; “Paul Motian," a tribute to her previous band-mate, where her minimalist improvisation is reminiscent of Bill Evans. The trio goes through ten of Fort's own pieces, ranging from the sonata-like “En If" and ...

Anat Fort: And If

by Dan McClenaghan
September 20, 2010

Working with legendary drummer Paul Motian on her first ECM release, A Long Story (2007), must have been a formative experience for pianist Anat Fort. On And If, her second release for the German label, she opens and closes the set with two readings of “Paul Motian." These are inward, time-standing-still tunes, showcasing Fort's spare and spacious approach to her instrument, with the abstractly nuanced accompaniment of her regular trio-mates, bassist Gary Wang and drummer Roland Schneider.By and ...

Anat Fort: And If

by John Kelman
September 9, 2010

Pianist Anat Fort's ECM debut, A Long Story (2007) may have featured her “dream team"--and was all the better for it--but there's something to be said for the comfort and chemistry of longtime collaborators. Bassist Gary Wang and drummer Roland Schneider may not have the cachet of Ed Schuller or Paul Motian, but having worked with the Israeli expat since 2004, they clearly get what she's about, making And If a fine follow-up to A Long Story that, in many ...

Anat Fort: Survival of the Artist

by Chris Comer
August 8, 2007

Anat Fort: Swimming in a Sea of Motian

by Paul Olson
July 23, 2007

While her discography as a leader consisted, until this year, of only one self-released album (Peel, 1999), New York-based, Israeli-born composer/pianist Anat Fort has been working steadily for years. Few contemporary jazz pianists have as graceful and developed a playing style as Fort--her use of rests, her love of space, and her classically-imbued phrasing are, once you've encountered her, immediately recognizable. She's just as good a composer, however, and it's the songs on her 2007 ECM debut A Long Story ...

Anat Fort: A Long Story

by J Hunter
April 18, 2007

My first exposure to the ECM milieu--the singular look, the sharp sound, the hypnotic music--was with Keith Jarrett's 1975 opus The Köln Concert. After longtime immersion in my parents' West Coast-intensive record collection, this amazing work of crystalline beauty hit me like French New Wave hits an American movie buff. Some guy named Manfred Eicher was telling me, in effect, “We don't have to do this music the same old way! Free your ears and your mind will follow!