Theo Girard: La rivière coulera sans effort

French double bassist Théo Girard has built a career with great patience, not releasing his debut as a leader until the age of 40. That well- received record, 30YearsFrom (Discoble, 2017), was a trio piece and included drummer-in-demand Sebastian Rochford, with whom Girard has built a not inconsiderable body of work. La Rivière Coulera Sans Effort (The River Will Flow Without Effort) is the first with a new quartet called Mobke—the 'Mo' from Montreuil, a district of Paris, and the 'bk' from Brooklyn, reflecting the transatlantic roots of his band. The 'e' is for ensemble, assuring us that this is a democratic affair,

The egalitarian nature of the music is clear from the start, with Girard contributing a beautiful, self-effacing bass line which opens the record and acts as the anchor for the wonderfully delicate "La Chose" (The Thing). The mood is restrained and assured, the expansion of ideas gradual. Nick Lyons' melancholy sax rounds things out with taste.

"On se Léve, On Se Casse" (We Get Up, We Leave) is suddenly alert, with each musician sort of heading in their own direction, sort of not. The less obvious harmony and melody are held in shape by Sophia Domancich's metronomic piano quavers, until they start to fall into less regular clusters and the doodle becomes more of a scribble. Girard does an awful lot with a handful of notes and some imaginative phrasing. The music is dense, then sparse, and then unexpectedly illuminated by shafts of harmonic clarity as a wash of cohesion brings the track to a close. 

Girard's skill as a leader is not to take center-stage and draw all the attention to himself. Instead, he encourages different members of the quartet forward while the rest of the band stands in support. "Une Chemin Tortueux N'est Pas Forcement Plus Long" (A Winding Path is Not Necessarily Longer) is a solo sax piece for the first couple of minutes, and a cracker at that. Economical, complex and angular, it starts with a limp and ends with a stride. There is something of Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch! (Blue Note Records, 1964) in the way the band gives the impression of barely hanging together around a rhythm that is all elbows and knees. 

The title track is a humdinger. The piano opens with an ominous, tolling quality in the left hand while the right hand is all elegance and simplicity, and gradually the two opposites start to blend.  The track broods, the faintest hiss of a cymbal hinting at the imminent expansion of the track to include the rest of the band, but they come in oh-so-slowly' Lesley Mok teases with a tom pattern, a pause, a splash of cymbal... If this is born of improvisation, it is brilliant. More than halfway through the track, the piano backs off to be replaced as the focus by some arco bass right at the top of the range and a whispered sax. It would have been so easy to overplay this, but there is not a note wasted or out of place.

In an interview with bebopified in 2017, Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus said he wished that the band "had been more of an influence than we seemed to be at times." Girard's track "Plus Qu'une Influence" (More Than an Influence) is an expression of his love for that original lineup of The Bad Plus and his acknowledgement of their impact on him as a musician and band leader. The sax wanders liltingly over juicy, strummed bass chords as the track grows into a lurching, angular piece of modern counterpoint that is at least as much about listening as it is about playing. It is reminiscent of The Bad Plus, but it also has flavors of Charles Mingus or, again, Dolphy. It is far from a homage or facsimile, though. This music is absolutely its own thing. 

If there is a weakness here, it is that the record is short. At scarcely 40 minutes long, it is at the lower end of average, which is a shame. None of the tracks overstays its welcome, and some could stretch out more. The final track, "Improvisation," is played with delicacy and respect and soothes things to a close, but while there is nothing wrong with the track, it is not among the strongest. Maybe the issue could have been rectified through a different track order. As it is, it is hard not to think that a record this good deserves a more definitive closing statement.

This is a mature record of considerable depth. The playing is excellent, and the compositions more than sufficiently assured to elicit some excellent ensemble playing as well as an appropriate showing of individual excellence. Girard includes enough hooks to make the record immediate and enough complexity to keep it rewarding as it unfolds over successive listenings. 

The best art is made by people who are compelled to create by their love of the form. It takes concentration, determination, and a little bit of obsession. If you can ever hear love in music, you can hear it here.

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