Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Ellen Rowe Quartet: Wishing Well

227

Ellen Rowe Quartet: Wishing Well

Ellen Rowe Quartet: Wishing Well
Ellen Rowe's uniquely modern sensibility echoes throughout Wishing Well. Rowe is a virtuoso pianist who blends the dreamy abstractions of nineteenth century impressionism with the nervous energy of a bebop player. She plays as she breathes—sometimes in shallow gasps indicating an extreme sense of urgency, and at other times in seemingly endless runs with dallying notes and interminable phrases as if her lungs, filled with air, have propelled her arms and fingers into an endless sequence of events. Both aspects are breathtaking and fill the heart and mind with such joy that it all becomes an embarrassment of riches, an echo that lingers even when she has long since stopped playing a solo and is merely comping behind one of her band mates.

Rowe is also a wonderful writer, and although she may not extend the vocabulary of the piano with startling new literature, she make sublime use of existing forms, mixing them up so that structures like the blues often get a cheerful uplift with sharp, bop-ish ideas. "Lewisburg Bluesy-oo" is typical of the facility with which Rowe handles that aspect of her writing character. She can also revisit classic songs such as Victor Feldman's "Seven Steps to Heaven" (made famous by Miles Davis), and recast the core melody in a song of her own, changing the brooding character of the original to a puckish one. This is what she does on "Seven Steps To My Yard," a song that, incidentally, also quotes liberally from Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite."

But Rowe has much more going for her writing. She is sensitive, and can write songs that show other aspects of her multifaceted personality. "Tick Tock" has a smart, walking quality that recalls the music of the '60s without sounding mold, and features an unforgettable arco break by bassist Kurt Krahnke. Drummer Pete Siers also follows suit, paying rich tribute to Art Blakey. "Sanity Clause" has an urgency bordering on the cantankerous, which is not a bad thing at all, but rather defines the uniqueness of the song, while "Longing" is a beautiful dreamscape and "For Donald" is elegiac and sublime from beginning to end.

There is something else that is alluring and outstanding about Rowe's writing. She seems to know how her instrumentalist partners will sound; what they require melodically, in order to take off and put their individual stamps on the music. "For That Which Was Living, Lost" and "Longing" appear written for no one but Ingrid Jensen's fey flugelhorn. And no one else can wax as eloquent on tenor saxophone as Andy Haefner does with broad mournful tone on "For Donald."

There is an enduring quality about Wishing Well. If Ellen Rowe Quartet stays together and continues to make subtly beautiful conversation together, who knows what will come next?

Track Listing

For That Which Was Living, Lost; Lewisburg Bluesy-oo; Night Sounds; Tick Tock; Longing; Sanity Clause; Wishing Well; Seven Steps to My Yard; For Donald; Alone Together.

Personnel

Ellen Rowe: piano; Andrew Bishop: soprano and tenor sax; Kurt Krahnke: bass; Pete Siers: drums; Ingrid Jensen: flugelhorn (1, 5); Andy Haefner: tenor sax (9).

Album information

Title: Wishing Well | Year Released: 2010 | Record Label: PKO Records

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.