Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Anne Mette Iversen: Racing a Butterfly
Anne Mette Iversen: Racing a Butterfly
ByNo one is afraid to follow a butterfly, especially not as limber and vigorous a creator as bassist/composer Anne Mette Iversen, who composes the whole of her eleventh disc to assure us that she too shares both the same heartfelt memory and jumpy restlessness we all do. Which is why Racing a Butterfly effloresces with "Triangular Waves," a title of some suspect given its rousing call of solidarity that instantly infuses the disc with a cavorting optimism and wit. Centering herself at the instinctual crux of her Quartet + 1, tenor saxophonist John Ellis, trombonist Peter Dahlgren, drummer Otis Brown III and pianist Danny Grissett -each then fall into orbit without reserve, fully knowledgeable of the speed bump hairpins ahead.
Like the spaghetti that sticks, there's an implicit trickery to Mette-Iverson's twisting musical trains of thought: they can derail at any moment or at least convince you handily they have so that, at the end of the day, what's difference does it make? The music still conveys you to places only butterflies achieve which is why and only why "Dancing Butterflies" even exists. Ditto "Cluster" (where Grissett and Brown rise and rise and to the occasion) and other obtuse swingers as the anything-but-predictable title work-out and the winsome, two-part ballad "Parallel Flying Part 1" and "Parallel Flying Part 2" both a hushed, indigo series of memory tissue connected solos ala Bill Evansthat fire up and unquietly rage.
As evidenced explicitly on 2019's Invincible Nimbus" (Bjurecords); 2017's Road Trip (Bjurecords); her debut This Is My House (Bjurecords, 2006) or any record in-between, Iverson, a mainstay and lynchpin of the tireless Brooklyn Jazz Underground has made some great records in pursuit of her vision of swing as a fixed though frayed and thrice curled ribbon around dazzling, little surprises. Remarkably, given the present state of things, Ellis, Brown, and Grissett have grounded most of her works, with their brimming dexterity shared by all who embrace Iverson's nervy, high order, new swing pop.
Track Listing
Triangular Waves; Racing a Butterfly; Parallel Flying Part 1; Parallel Flying Part 2; Butterfly Interlude; Dancing Butterflies; Cluster; Reworking of a Butterfly; Butterflies Too.
Personnel
Anne Mette Iversen
bassJohn Ellis
saxophone, tenorDanny Grissett
pianoPeter Dahlgren
tromboneOtis Brown III
drumsAlbum information
Title: Racing a Butterfly | Year Released: 2020 | Record Label: Bjurecords
< Previous
Basement Music
Comments
About Anne Mette Iversen
Instrument: Bass
Related Articles | Concerts | Albums | Photos | Similar ToTags
Album Reviews
Mike Jurkovic
Racing a Butterfly
BJURecords
Anne Mette Iversen
John Ellis
Otis Brown III
Danny Grissett
Bill Evans
Brooklyn Jazz Underground