Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Ellery Eskelin: Quiet Music
Ellery Eskelin: Quiet Music
ByQuiet Music is an apt enough name for the fourteen tracks recorded over two days in 2002, but Jazz Music or Song Music would have been just as good, since it's not really those either. While the compositions are often mid-tempo or slower and are never quite loud, they're never subdued either. For most of the first half, Constable pairs with sax, piano or accordion lines, as if trying to find a place for herself within the taut trio. Rarely out front, she slides around through the pieces, wandering but not lost. Not having a fixed address in the band in fact probably helps her find her place.
Parkins' keyboards and accordion have always contributed so much to the sound of the trio that when Gelda appears as a second keyboardist he's barely noticed. It's not until the final of the three tracks he contributes to, his only one on the looser second disc, that he leaps out. Olivier Mercaud's "Le Berceuse d'Angela becomes a sacred song with Gelda's soft, deep voice and is one of the few truly quiet moments on the disc. As if the song finally brought the session to quietude, it's followed up by a rich twenty-minute exploration which closes the disc, reviving after the first five to a sort of pounding theme, but a quiet pounding.
It's impressive that Eskelin has kept the same instrumentation vital for so long and just as impressive that he's fit a couple more voices into the fold without changing the sound of the core group. Quiet Music adds to a considerable discography for his trio.
Track Listing
Disc One: Coordinated universal time; I should have known; 48 A & B; Read my mind; Instant counterpoint; How do I know; Quiet music; Disc Two: Split the difference; Cuarenta y neueve; The curve; Let
Personnel
Ellery Eskelin
saxophone, tenorEllery Eskelin: tenor saxophone; Jessica Constable: voice; Andrea Parkins: piano, organ, accordion, sampler; Philippe Gelda: voice, piano, organ; Jim Black: drums, percussion.
Album information
Title: Quiet Music | Year Released: 2007 | Record Label: Prime Source
< Previous
A Love Supreme: The Legacy of John Co...
Next >
Meeting in Paris
Comments
About Ellery Eskelin
Instrument: Saxophone, tenor
Related Articles | Concerts | Albums | Photos | Similar To