David Six: Dance With The Ghosts III

On the Greek island of Lesbos, Moria was the largest refugee camp for those crossing the Mediterranean toward Europe, and one of the most sinister, before its destruction by fire in 2020. Shortly before, at the beginning of the pandemic, David Six, a composer, pianist and also percussionist, composed and recorded Moria (feat. Saied Silbak) (Self Produced, 2020) with oud player Saied Silbak, in solidarity with these refugees.

This was the starting point of the Dance with the Ghosts trilogy. In 2023. The Dance With The Ghosts Quartet (Sessionwork Records, 2023) explored subtle jazz with a Nordic coloring, while the Dance With The Ghosts Chamber Sextet (Sessionwork Records, 2023) was also given a contemporary classical music tint. The third volume features six compositions played by one to three musicians, with Six, the composer, not always playing. As in the earlier volumes, refined compositions and improvisations are inextricably intertwined.

David Six is an artist given to reflection. The trilogy brings together a large number of pieces written in 2023, rooted in scientific observation of our world and sensitivity to fundamental issues of our time such as human rights, the environment, and political deadlocks. Examined through a philosophical lens, these subjects lead Six to give his view of the world with the tool at his disposal: art.

One of the gems is the meditative "Living In The Rays of Light," which opens the album, a trio with András Dés, a long-time accomplice, on percussion, and Tuva Halse, whom Six met in 2023 at the wellenklænge festival in Lunz am See ("I immediately knew that she is probably my favorite violin player of all times," he says in an interview with All About Jazz) about the trilogy. Recorded in a single take, it indeed features that unique sound heard, for example, on Reconnection (Jazzland Recordings, 2026).

The album is placed under the sign of hope. A thread running through the trilogy, "Norway Maple Song," named after Acer platanoides, a symbol of adaptation and resilience, was entirely composed and arranged for classical guitarist Zsófia Boros, as was "Lacrymae," dedicated to those who were unable to say goodbye to a loved one.

Three other pieces feature Six on piano and prepared piano, and highlight Dés' frame drums, cajón, cymbals and bells, Simon Zöchbauer's zither, and Caimin Gilmore's bowed bass. In "Arcane Celestial," the only trio piece in the standard piano/bass/percussion format, Gilmore's bowing, recorded separately, flourishes in the total freedom that Six and Dés come to counterpoint. Nothing conventional, but sheer beauty.

In fact, nothing in this album is conventional. The trilogy concludes with a precise and atypical suite, virtuosically edited, somewhere between composition and improvisation, jazz and world music, sorts of sonic haikus that concentrate the talents of hand-picked musicians.