Georg Graewe - Barre Phillips - Peter Van Bergen: Other Songs

Modern jazz/improvising pianist Georg Graewe is rapidly becoming a prominent recording artist for Dallas, Texas based “nuscope recordings” and on Other Songs the pianist performs alongside world class bassist, Barre Phillips and the lesser known but highly regarded saxophonist/clarinetist, Peter Van Bergen. The title, Other Songs intimates choice tidbits of loosely based motifs, quaint three-way dialogue and jagged statements, evident from the onset of the first track, “Verbunden”. Here, Van Bergen executes raspy lower register lines performed on contrabass clarinet in tandem with Phillips’ steely-edged arco bass patterns and Graewe’s temperate yet altogether abstract chord voicings and oblique lyricism. On “Afore”, Graewe expounds upon circular passages and chord clusters that boast soft textures amid implied meter perhaps akin to a tap dancer’s sense of rhythm. Van Bergen and Graewe trade minimalist evocations on the duet piece titled “Astray” whereas; the band performs with animated assurance while suggesting upward movement on “Verkruemmt”.

On occasion, Graewe injects traces of Euro-Classicism into his fleet-fingered articulations as Van Bergen concentrates more with multihued sounds and fluttering dialogue while Phillips provides the axis for the band; however, the bassist multitasks as a soloist who provides resonance and disparate tonalities. Hence, Other Songs represents a series of emphatic works that invoke an air of unpredictability as the musicians mold wavering patterns of sound and subtle dialogue into a genteel presentation that elicits a distinct sense of timelessness.

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