Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Benoit Delbecq Unit: Phonetics

154

Benoit Delbecq Unit: Phonetics

By

View read count
Benoit Delbecq Unit: Phonetics
After two relatively stripped-down efforts, the duo Dice Thrown (Songlines, 2002) and solo Nu-Turn (Songlines, 2003), Parisian pianist Benoit Delbecq returns with a quintet for Phonetics, taking full advantage of the extended range of his group—stylistically, timbrally, and texturally. Delbecq's music draws from several diverse traditions, including the often counterintuitive constructs of modern classical music, the excitement and unpredictability of improvisation, and the polyrhythmic and contrapuntal complexity of Central African music.

All these big concepts have the potential of bogging down in academic abstraction, especially when combined, but Delbecq understands the pitfalls of synthesis and successfully navigates around them. He does this by endowing each piece with its own mood and character, finding fresh settings for each musician, and managing the sometimes precarious balance between ideas and momentum. The opening "Le Mème Jour" starts out briefly entangled, then resolves into a plaintive, gentle unison melody and eventually acquires steam and rhythmic energy, driven in large part by enthusiastic synergy between Congolese drummer Emile Biayenda and American bassist Mark Helias.

While most of Delbecq's compositions seem to fit together by careful assembly of shifting parts, they also melt into jam-like grooves on occasion. The highly percussive funk polyrhythms of "Yompa" serve as a platform for flitting piano phrases and snippets of pentatonic viola, returning to its oblique melody almost as an amnesiac reminder before splintering it apart and landing unexpectedly in unison.

This exceptionally well-recorded disc (released as an SACD hybrid) is perfectly suited to reveal timbral nuances and detail. Like pretty much everything on the Songlines label, you'll get a whole lot more out of the music if you listen carefully—this isn't background after-dinner music, that's for sure. But Phonetics is far more than the sum of its (already substantial) parts; it's a vibrant celebration of possibility and connectedness that reveals new things with each listen.

Visit Benoit Delbecq on the web.

Track Listing

Le M

Personnel

Benoit Delbecq: piano, sampler on

Album information

Title: Phonetics | Year Released: 2005 | Record Label: Songlines Recordings

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.