Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » East West Collective: Humeurs

5

East West Collective: Humeurs

By

View read count
East West Collective: Humeurs
The East West Collective constituted one of the surprise hits of the 2013 Vision Festival in New York City. As their name implies the five strong outfit comprises improvisers from both the Occident and Orient. Their origin lies in French cellist Didier Petit's regular visits to the Far East, often with clarinetist Sylvain Kassap in tow, where he perceived a connection between Chinese traditional music and European improvisation. Guzheng player Xu Fengxia and koto exponent Miya Masaoka were invited to join for tours in France and America, and with the addition of reedman Larry Ochs (the "O" of the ROVA saxophone quartet, and a frequent collaborator of Masaoka), the East West Collective was born.

Overlapping passages distinguished by combinations of unusual sonorities and careful listening form one of the unit's defining traits. Rarely does the whole ensemble play at the same time. While some segments verge on the abstract others are unexpectedly tuneful or rhythmic, especially those in which Masaoka or Fengxia evoke reiterated guitar like motifs. Although all but one cut is generated on-the-fly, the sleeve notes intimate that Petit furnishes strategies or road maps to guide at least some of the pieces. If so they must be very light touch as they leave no compositional signature. No-one dominates as egos are checked at the door. Although theatrical elements occur in performance, particularly from Petit who echoes his countrywoman Joëlle Léandre in his use of voice, they do not impinge on the recorded sound.

Even when the instrumentation goes through constant flux, the collective pulls off the trick of maintaining momentum. Och's episodic "By Any Other Name (for William Kentridge)" provides a case in point as cello and both reeds revolve around an elegiac broadly sketched melody, before a scratchy section which ultimately gives way to strummed koto and guzheng, suggesting a deconstructed blues. Further metamorphoses take place before a return to the two horns in loose fugue. Extended techniques are used sparingly and unobtrusively, such as Kassap's bass clarinet multiphonics at the outset of "Humeur de Terre." Each of the selections is characterized by restraint, which makes the sequences when they do all come together stand out in sharp relief, serving as emphatic punctuations in a subtle but rewarding discourse.

Track Listing

Mountain; Wine; Humeur du Dessous; By Any Other Name (for William Kentridge); Humeur de Terre; Road; Humeur de l'Esprit.

Personnel

Didier Petit: cello, voice; Larry Ochs: tenor & sopranino saxophones; Miya Masaoka: koto; Xu Fengxia: guzheng, voice; Sylvain Kassap: clarinets.

Album information

Title: Humeurs | Year Released: 2014 | Record Label: Rogue Art

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.

Near

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.