Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Gunhild Seim Time Jungle, with Marilyn Crispell: Elephant Wings

3

Gunhild Seim Time Jungle, with Marilyn Crispell: Elephant Wings

By

View read count
Gunhild Seim Time Jungle, with Marilyn Crispell: Elephant Wings
With Elephant Wings, Norwegian trumpeter Gunhild Seim grows the number of albums released, since beginning her career as bandleader of Time Jungle more than five years ago, to three, including 2007's Time Jungle and 209's Morpho, all released on her own Drollehålå imprint. Each has been a beautiful gem, demonstrating Seim's compositional skills to balance and contrast between a subtle, tender aesthetic with fierier and more intensive playing.

Elephant Wings is another excellent set of compositions, with Seim collaborating, this time, with renowned American pianist Marilyn Crispell, following a joint tour in Norway and Germany. Crispell plays here as an organic member of Seim's outfit, focusing on the pianist's unique and lyrical side.

With Crispell's support, Seim solidifies the folksy, songlike and storytelling qualities of her compositions. "Honu," "Joni," "Jambo" and "Song For Amelia" unfold beautifully as a rich and nuanced continuous mini-drama, characterized with coherent structure and a lasting, mysterious kind of emotional impact. "Elephant In The Room" is a truly magical composition, featuring a touching melody that each member of Time Jungle interprets gently, while Crispell repeats the theme. The close affinity between Seim and Crispell is best captured on the spare "Volcano Village," where both search for common melodic ground.

But Crispell, Seim and Time Jungle are also willing to experiment more with demanding, free improvised segments integrated within the looser dynamics of "Enough," "Moving Perspective" and "Manu." These impressive compositions demonstrate the opinionated playing and effortless trusting interplay of this longstanding quartet, with the wise support of Crispell.

The last composition, "Eyes No See," unites both attitudes. It is a restrained, lyrical composition that stresses abstract silence, space and time, thus creating an enigmatic atmosphere. An impressive way to conclude a highly creative and personal recording.

Track Listing

Honu; Enough; Joni; Elephant In The Room; Moving Perspectives; Jambo; Manu; Song For Amelia; Volcano Village; Eyes No See.

Personnel

Gunhild Seim
trumpet

Gunhild Seim: trumpet; Marilyn Crispell: piano; Arild Hoem: alto sax; John Lilja: double bass; Dag Magnus Narvesen: drums.

Album information

Title: Elephant Wings | Year Released: 2012 | Record Label: Drollehola 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.