Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Sylvie Courvoisier: Lonelyville

205

Sylvie Courvoisier: Lonelyville

By

View read count
Sylvie Courvoisier: Lonelyville
Sylvie Courvoisier's work has come from a variety of angles over the years. She is a classically-trained composer with a strong ear for formal structure, an improviser with a strong sense of community and artistic relationships and an innovator whose work with preparing and altering the piano goes beyond the usual percussive effects to forge a new musicality on the instrument. All of those aspects of her work come together beautifully on Lonelyville, a fantastic and far-reaching suite written for a quintet with four of her longtime associates.

"Texturologie, the first of Lonelyville's four pieces, sweeps over more than twenty minutes, striking a perfect balance between the electricity of free improvisation and the coherence of composition. It's alternately beautiful and ferocious and sometimes even startlingly so, and it sets the groundwork for the three pieces that follow. Delicate string statements, played by Mark Feldman on violin and Vincent Courtois on cello, are set against the fluid pulsing of a rhythm section comprised of Gerald Cleaver on traps and Ikue Mori's processed drum machine sounds, as well as with the leader's piano, the preparations of which move the piano's nominal inclusion in the percussion family to an active membership.

Through it all, the group manages to take the sudden turns and drops and unaccompanied solos without ever seeming abrupt or overly formal. The music is never static, but also does not come off as unnecessarily complicated. It's simply sublimely, complex.

Lonelyville may be Courvoisier's strongest work yet as a bandleader in a discography that has included compelling trios, solo albums as well as duets with percussionists and other pianists. It's tempting to call it a crowning achievement. It's much more satisfying, however, to realize that there is, no doubt, much more where this came from.

Track Listing

Texturologie; Cosmorama; Contraste 2005; Lonelyville.

Personnel

Sylive Courvoisier: piano, composition; Mark Feldman: violin; Vincent Courtois: cello; Ikue Mori: electronics; Gerald Cleaver: drums.

Album information

Title: Lonelyville | Year Released: 2007 | Record Label: Intakt Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT



Sylvie Courvoisier Concerts


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

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

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.