Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Ehud Ettun: Deep In The Mountains

4

Ehud Ettun: Deep In The Mountains

By

View read count
Ehud Ettun: Deep In The Mountains
The mountains in question are those of South Korea, revered as sacred by the inhabitants of that country. They also made an indelible impression on Israeli bassist Ehud Ettun in the 40 days he spent there. The eleven songs on this album—a mix of originals and standards—are coloured by his meditations on the visit.

Westerners climb mountains to conquer them, South Koreans to renew bonds with nature and ancestral beliefs. On one of the summits of the Jirisan range in the south of their country, at least once in their lifetime they hope to experience a mystical moment of oneness with nature that will bring them prosperity and good fortune to last the rest of their lives. The belief is born out of a mixture of Buddhism, shamanism and animism.

Some of the spirit of this obviously rubbed off on Ettun. His album is highly enjoyable and creative, with a wonderful fresh feeling to it. The three opening numbers—Sammy Fain's "Secret Love," from Calamity Jane, Ray Noble's "Cherokee," and "Old Devil Moon," written by Burton Lane and Yip Harburg for the long forgotten 1947 musical Finian's Rainbow—are given a new, almost composite identity by Ettun.

They are followed by Ettun's own signature tune for the album, "Deep In The Mountains," which switches from lively to meditative and back again. "Alfonsina Y El Mar (Alfonsina And The Sea)," a broodingly tragic musical tale by Argentinian pianist Ariel Ramirez, is followed somewhat incongruously by Jimmy Van Heusen's "It Could Happen To You." It is a relief to escape the false optimism of Broadway and return to the Jirisan mountains for "Arirang," a lilting Korean folk song.

Leonard Bernstein's "Some Other Time," which became a jazz standard at the hands of Bill Evans, is given a fine, sensitive re-run.

The last three numbers are all originals and include "Matcha Green," a choppy, busy tribute to the Japanese powdered tea used in the tea ceremony.

Track Listing

Secret Love; Cherokee; Old Devil Moon; Deep In The Mountains; Alfonsina Y El Mar; It Could Happen To You; Arirang; Some Other Time; Matcha Green; Keep Calm; Stork.

Personnel

Ehud Ettun: bass; Daniel Schwarzwald: piano; Nathan Blankett: drums.

Album information

Title: Deep In The Mountains | Year Released: 2019 | Record Label: Internal Compass Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.