Kris Davis and the Lutoslawski Quartet: The Solastalgia Suite

Kris Davis's The Solastalgia Suite is a towering achievement. Straddling the diverse worlds of modern classical and jazz idioms, Davis, already a notable heavyweight on the jazz scene, has moved to another level, the emergence of a kind of beyond jazz. Here, teamed with the Lutoslawski Quartet—Roksana Kwasnikowska (1st violin), Marcin Markowicz (2nd violin), Artur Rozmysłowicz (viola), and Maciej Młodawski (cello)—Davis brings her skills as a composer and pianist to eight tracks of challenging, sublime, chaotic but controlled beauty and abstractions.

Davis, no stranger to the world of accolades and awards, has received multiple best of year awards from several publications for her albums. For example, Duopoly (Pyroclastic Records, 2016)—a series of duets with guitarists Bill Frisell and Julian Lage, pianists Craig Taborn and Angelica Sanchez, drummers Billy Drummond and Marcus Gilmore, alto saxophonist Tim Berne, and clarinetist Don Byron. Or Diatom Ribbons (Pyroclastic Records, 2019), which features a group comprised tenor saxophonists Tony Malaby and JD Allen, vocalist Esperanza Spalding, guitarists Nels Cline and Marc Ribot, vibraphonist Ches Smith, turntable musician Val Jeanty, electric bassist Trevor Dunn, and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington. And Diatom Ribbons: Live at the Village Vanguard (Pyroclastic Records, 2024), which pared down the 2019 version of the group to Carrington, Jeanty, and Dunn, and added guitarist Julian Lage.

But this is something new. While there has always been a formalistic component to Davis' work, this is highly structured, emphasizing precise attacks, coordinated group dynamics and rabid virtuosity. Of the eight tracks on the album, "The Known End" is perhaps most illustrative of this. Its volatile opening is dissonant, abstract, forceful and staggered, with space between the tone clusters. Davis adds a series of rapid pulsating notes, glissandos, and arpeggios. One can even hear a bit of the blues. Atop the jagged quartet structure, she demonstrates her chops with rolls all over the keys and solid chordal progressions. There is a bit of a call-and-response development, with a violinist soloing while the pianist and the rest of the quartet maintain a rugged syncopated undertow. Then chaos ensues. Fear? Anxiety? A violinist's swift bows spin out notes from the highest parts of the instrument's register. There is a dissonant fallback—a sense of slowly swimming beneath the water. As the piece winds down, Davis generates a back-and-forth, gentle ostinato, and the quartet in unison falls slowly beneath. The long arcs generate feelings of a magnificent sweeping vista of sea caverns and icy blue water.

Or take the fascinating "Degrees of Separation." Here Davis combines formalism with free playing—itself almost paradoxically a form of development. From the number's fiery opening, with quartet members creating fast bowing, the group suddenly breaks (dissembles?) into free form. Then it is back to fast bowing. This back and forth continues even as Davis enters the fray. She dawdles at times on the high keys, and the notes generate an eerie feeling. She also uses variability in meter to a significant effect—explosive, running, and spontaneous. The piano lines she fosters, like Prokofiev gone mad, create an interesting counterpoint to the quartet's heavy action. In sequence—construct, rhythmic whirlwind, then silence. A lost ballerina dance motif emerges and contrasts with abrupt returns to chaotic and brisk machine gun bowing. Davis rips the piano as the quartet maintains the intensity. There is a sudden fury before a spatial interlude and some slightly bluesy chords. Davis demonstrates she can caress the keys, explore single note bounces, and generate booms. The rhythm becomes Stravinsky-ish. The piece ends with a sense of loss, perhaps sadness—a dying romance?

Formalism in jazz is often cerebral, and it can lack the spontaneity that is the essence of jazz—music of the moment crystallized forever. Not so with The Solastalgia Suite. Davis maintains spontaneity despite the formalism. How she does this is a mystery. A technique that she alone holds tight. But it is with crossover hybrids like this that music advances. And all we can do is stand and applaud. Ad astra!