Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells

Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson! The combination of two such unconventional musicians is both rewarding, challenging and unnerving. The two women are radical disruptors. Their visions and their ambitions are vast. Their range of influences is dizzying. Their creativity seems limitless; their refusal to be conventional is absolute. Even the mechanics of their instruments are subject to their inventiveness. The extent of their comprehensive insurrection is not really acknowledged. Does their gender obscure it?

In many ways, their music is challenging for the listener. Both musicians have a well-defined approach to their playing. Courvoisier carries her own rhythms in her head. It is not your conventional rhythm, probably closer to Stravinsky, Bartok, Ligeti, Messiaen, Sofia Gubaidulina. Halvorson butts up against and breaches the boundaries of jazz guitar conventions. Raw inventiveness is at the heart of her technique. She acknowledges wide ranging influences from Johnny Smith, James Blood Ulmer, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Hall.

Halvorson often uses pedals to increase her sonic range. She can create beautiful melodies or warped, mutated sounds. Her picking amplifies the percussiveness of her playing. The genre bending means that often there will be hints of flamenco, rock, noise and pure jazz.

Familiarity with the classical world has a crucial impact on Courvoisier's thinking and her playing. Halvorson is probably more firmly rooted in the jazz world, but her approach to guitar is as radical as Courvoisier's is to the piano. Her relationship with Courvoisier has tempered her radicalism slightly, but she is still living with the burden of being dubbed 'the guitar of the future.'

Courvoisier deeply loves the instrument and delights in what she can do with it, every part of it. There is a steely sensuality and a spectacular use of how to use a piano to the fullest extent. There are the rich sonics, the percussive chromatic clusters, the tintinnabulation, singing strings, metallic ripples, the taps on keys, thundering basses echoing deeply, dissonant pointillistic jabs, single notes contrasted with icy carillons.

In an interview, Halvorson commented that "Sylvie writes her music definitely has a more classical music element to it. Usually, people coming more from the world of jazz don't write parts out as much and, instead, keep things a little more open. There may not be as many dynamic markings or specifics. More is left to interpretation. But Sylvie's music is very specific. While it uses improvisation, the written parts are often more heavily notated in a way reminiscent of a lot of classical music."

Halvorson's "Bone Bells" opens the album, slowly paced by Courvoisier's piano. Halvorson is free to improvise with a clear lin, with only minor distortion. The balance changes midway, with Courvoisier assuming the dominant role.

"Folded Secret" is full of restless energy. Halvorson drives the piece along over a rhythm from Courvoisier, with guitar pealing out notes in inimitable counterpoint.

Halvorson's "Float Queens" gives Halvorson the opportunity to show a Spanish influence, with the piano keeping a percussive role under the melodic scintillations of the guitar.

Courvoisier's "Nag's Head Valse" is a waltz for a time. The broken rhythm is teasing and fun. This is high-class pointillistic fun. Stravinsky would enjoy the piece as it wends its way forward. This is music that should be danced to, a mixture of Satie and Stravinsky.

"Silly Walks," by Courvoisier, has a simple phrase which returns several times. Halvorson has said that she enjoys the dark aspects of music and her contribution here is undercutting the dominance of Courvoisier. The simple phase is at the core of the piece and gives it a satisfying classical structure.

The danger of this music is that it could be seen as frivolous, idiosyncratic or maybe irrelevant to a jazz context. That would be missing the revolutionary profundity that is at the heart of what the two women create. In subtle ways, they are changing jazz.

Music as compelling as this is rare. The texture is exhilarating. The sound of surprise is in every bar. This is scintillating music, saturated with creativity, bubbling over with inventiveness, creating new unsettling paths that jolt listeners out of the standardized perspectives. By merging Courvoisier's notational precision with Halvorson's improvisational verve, they create a new paradigm where composed and spontaneous elements achieve parity—a quiet revolution in sound organization.

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