REVIEWS
By John Sharpe about our tenth anniversary Krakow residency in November 2024
www.allaboutjazz.com/barry-guys-blue-shroud-band-ten-year-anniversary-barry-guy
CD-Kritik Jazzpodium 10/2023
Barry Guy Blue Shroud Band: All This This Here (FSR)
Der britische Komponist und Kontrabassist Barry Guy legt mit seiner 14-köpfigen Blue Shroud Band ein neues Opus magnum vor: eine 73-minütige Suite in sieben Sätzen, die die lebenslange Beschäftigung des Künstlers mit Samuel Beckett reflektiert. In Umfang und Anspruch ist sie verwandt mit «The Blue Shroud» (2016), Guys Auseinandersetzung mit Picassos «Guernica», die dem Ensemble den Namen gegeben hat.
Wiederum zeigt sich die enorme Komplexität und Bandbreite von Barry Guys Schaffen: Seine neue Komposition verbindet Jazz, barocke und klassische Musik mit Verfahren der Avantgarde und freier Improvisation. Das Ganze ist jedoch kein eklektischer Zitat- und Anspielungssalat, sondern ein Werk aus einem Guss, in dem Freiheit und Form in einem fruchtbaren Spannungsverhältnis stehen. Barry Guy dirigiert das in einem Halbkreis angeordnete Orchester vom Bass aus. Er ist das Zentrum des Kraftfelds, exekutiert jedoch nicht nur, was in seiner Partitur steht, sondern lässt auch spontane Interaktion zu. Den Nukleus des Werks bildet Becketts spätes Gedicht «What Is The Word», eine Reflexion über das Vergehen und Stillstehen der Zeit.
Das Ensemble hat «All This This Here» 2021 am Jazzfestival in Krakau aufgeführt; die nun vorliegende Studio-Aufnahme wurde in Porto eingespielt. Neben Barry Guy und seiner Lebenspartnerin Maya Homburger an der Violine wirken unter anderen die griechische Sängerin Savina Yannatou, der spanische Pianist Agustí Fernández und der irische Gitarrist Ben Dwyer mit. Zur Bläsersektion zählen Musiker aus Deutschland, Grossbritannien, Skandinavien und der Schweiz, für die vielschichtigen Rhythmen sind der spanische Perkussionist Ramón López und sein Schweizer Kollege Lucas Niggli zuständig.
Barry Guys Musik verlangt vom Hörer einiges, gibt ihm auch viel zurück. Sie richtet sich nicht an Leute, die bloss unterhalten werden wollen, sondern an ein aufmerksames, neugieriges und unerschrockenes Publikum. Das vorzügliche Begleitheft von Jonathan C. Creasy trägt viel zum Verständnis des Werks bei.
Manfred Papst
Barry Guy Blue Shroud Band: All This This Here
By John Sharpe
October 17, 2023 in ALL ABOUT JAZZ
Bassist and composer Barry Guy combines a number of his passions on All This This Here in a stunning act of synthesis. For the third major work for his Blue Shroud Band, following its eponymous debut (Intakt, 2016) and Odes And Meditations For Cecil Taylor (Not Two, 2018), Guy sets to music Nobel winning playwright Samuel Beckett's last poem What Is The Word (in two versions, both the original French and the English translation, which bookend the program).
Guy has long been fascinated by Beckett, who provided the conceptual frame for Fizzles (Maya, 1993), albeit without invoking words, and Time Passing..... (Maya, 2015) which excerpts the playwright'sPing. He also finds correspondence in three other texts from different sources similarly dealing with "life in transit" which he incorporates between the two renditions, drawing inspiration from two Eighteenth century Japanese haikus, a poem by Irish writer Barra O'Seaghdha and another by Beckett.
Just as the words derive from a rich variety of traditions, so does the music. One unique feature of the Blue Shroud Band is that it brings together skilled practitioners of Baroque music with seasoned improvisers, and those like Guy with a foot in both worlds, as well as those of contemporary classical and jazz. With such a rich menu the danger is that it confuses and one flavor overwhelms another. It is Guy's genius that he is able to unite them into a coherent whole.
In what must be a logistical nightmare, the 14-strong ensemble contains nine nationalities. Remarkably the line up has remained almost entirely unchanged since the outfit's 2014 unveiling, having only replaced Peter Evans with Percy Pursglove on trumpet and Michel Godard with Marc Unternährer on tuba. Apart from the consistently stimulating and challenging nature of the material, another explanation for such stability must be the way in which Guy intuits settings which show off each member of the band to best advantage.
Versatile vocalist Savina Yannatou delivers Beckett's words, recited on the opening "Comment Dire," sung on the closing "What Is The Word," over floating tonalities which echo the halting, circling back on itself, nature of the text. But thereafter she extemporizes guttural and syllables as fragments of 17th century composer Pelham Humfrey's courtly music appear, with Fanny Pacoud's viola and Michael Niesemann's oboe d'amore prominent, only to gradually loosen their moorings as they fray into improv. That alternation recurs throughout the piece. Such description gives just the merest indication of the intricate plotting which is way beyond explication, but which inextricably draws the listener in.
Furthermore each section furnishes opportunities for individual expression which arise organically from the performance. For instance early in the first rendition Pursglove's supple trumpet comes to the fore in a series of liquid waspish fanfares, while later Unternährer's tuba fluidly weaves around Agusti Fernandez' thickly voiced piano in a swirling pas de deux.
In overall terms, that appealing dichotomy between forthright grandeur and unmoored exchanges surfaces again on "Waiting" and also elsewhere. Then as if to offer a counterbalance, the group transforms into a surging jazzy big band fuelled by twin drummers Ramon Lopez and Lucas Niggli on the two "Time Things," which serve as vehicles for the four saxophonists Torben Snekkestad, Niesemann, Per Texas Johansson and Julius Gabriel, to wax visceral. Even here, the accompaniment periodically falls away to leave the reedmen treading air, before triumphantly renewing the uplifting sprint. The strings come into their own on "Lysandra," where after her bravura acrobatic solo Maya Homburger's violin meshes with Ben Dwyer's guitar and percussion in a vortex of chamber abstraction and flamenco whirl. And there's more, much more.
The packaging helpfully includes the texts, an overview from Guy and an erudite essay by author and film producer Jonathan Creasy explaining the genesis and construction of the work. Even at over 72-minutes the album, recorded in the studio in Portugal, is jam packed with event. With its vaulting ambition and spectacular execution it establishes yet another high water mark in Guy's work and demands in depth listening.
R. Dittmann, Bad Alchemy
BARRY GUY, BLUE SHROUD BAND All this this here (Fundacja Słuchaj!, FSR 09 | 2023): Guys Blue Shroud Band hat seit dem grandiosen Debut 2016 auf Intakt mit „Tensegrity (Small Formations)“ (2014 im Alchemia Club, Krakow, 4xCD) gezeigt, aus welchen besonderen Molekülen es besteht, und ist bei „Odes And Meditations For Cecil Taylor“ (ebendort 2016, 5xCD, erneut bei Not Two) aus dieser Binnenkommunikation aufgestiegen zur großen Hommage an Cecil Taylor, mit den schon mit dem London Jazz Composers Orchestra 1995 angestimmten „Three Pieces for Orchestra“ und den 'Haikus', mit denen Marilyn Crispell einst ihren Mentor bedichtet hat. Nun stellt Barry Guy sich, erneut mit Haikus - Various people / Pass / And evening comes on & The tide of age / Ever flows / And never ebbs - und mit 'Waiting' von Barra Ó Seaghdha der 'Vergänglichkeit', eingerahmt mit Samuel Becketts 'comment dire' = 'what is the word' und verdichtet in go end there / one fine day / where never till then / till as much as to say / no matter where / no matter when. Akzeptieren, dass Leben ein 'Time Thing' ist, ein kurzer Traum, ein Ringen um Worte, ein Finden von Klängen, gemeinsam. Mit Savina Yannatou – voice (GR), Maya Homburger – violin (CH), Fanny Paccoud – viola (FR), Agusti Fernandez – piano ( ESP), Ben Dwyer – guitar (IR), Percy Pursglove – trumpet (UK), Torben Snekkestad – soprano / tenor sax (NOR), Michael Niesemann – alto sax / oboe / oboe d’amore (D), Per Texas Johansson – tenor sax / clarinet (S), Julius Gabriel – baritone / soprano sax (D), Marc Unternährer – Tuba (CH), Lucas Niggli (CH) & Ramon Lopez (ESP) – percussion. Guys Faszination durch Beckett und wie er die Conditio humana hinterfragt, hallt auch schon in „Five Fizzles“ (2009) und „Quindecim“ (2021) wider. Und nun hier, hervorgegangen aus seinem Streichquartett für Kronos und durchsetzt mit barocken Fragmenten von Purcells Lehrer Pelham Humfrey. Was ist das treffende Wort für dieses, dieses, für all das da, diese verrückte Unbändigkeit...? 'Närrisch'? Yannatou sprechsingstammelt mit französisch-kapriziösem Zungenschlag, sie singt …Pale yellow / fall on britting green / Shadowplay. And - / No... Zu Klängen, die sich gegenseitig ins 'Wort' fallen, sich fitzelfein, klimper-quirlig, tubafroschig widersprechen. In Ellipsen aus Solo und Tutti, Fiedlerinnen und Bläsergetöns, schrillem Gezwitscher und. Trübsinns-Geunke, heterogenem Improv und stürmischem Bigband-Schmiss. Düstere Gongs und Waffengeklirr streiten mit einer zart¬bitteren, dann aufbegehrenden Geige, Chimes, spani¬scher Gitarre – Ares vs. Athene? Der Kriegsgott brachte den „God of War“-Protagonisten Kratos so zur Raserei, dass er seine Frau 'Lysandra' erschlug. Ach nein, es ist Adonis blue (Lysandra Bellargus), ein himmelblauer Bläuling, der mich da begaukelt (nachdem Barry Guy & Maya Homburger damit auch schon J.S. Bach umgaukelt haben). Yannatou orakelt polyglott zu Trompete, Gitarre, Tamtam, setzt Traum und Poesie gegen die Große Uhr. Die Reprise von Becketts 'Folly' setzt ein mit krawalligem Crash, und die Griechin würfelt seine Worte wie Knöchelchen zu bruitistisch erregtem Durcheinander, das sich zusammenballt und wieder zerfällt. Zugleich elegisch und unbändig, mit donnerndem Piano, donnernden Drums, haspelnder Stimme, klirrenden Tasten, klirrenden Chimes, schnarrender Tuba, und ohne Antwort aufs What is... [BA 121 rbd]
Barry Guy Blue Shroud Band - all this, this here (Fundacja Sluchaj, 2023)
Saturday, May 25, 2024
By Stuart Broomer
Saturday, May 25, 2024
There is nothing quite like one of Barry Guy’s major works – each a broad tapestry, sometimes including a wealth of language, always a wealth of music, a skein of cultural references (this one touching on the poetry of Samuel Beckett and haiku as well as a welter of musics and free improvisation). Guy spent decades as a bassist in ancient music ensembles while also being among the most eminent of contemporary improvisers, and his large ensemble works speak to that unique experience and skill set. Guy came of age when large-scale jazz composition was a significant activity in England (typified perhaps by Mike Westbrook, Graham Collier and Kenny Wheeler), at the same time that Guy was active in free improvisation with John Stevens, Derek Bailey, Paul Rutherford and Evan Parker. In his large-scale works, Guy is a master at integrating musical styles and methodologies, often making things thought antithetical become complementary.
In late 2014, I was on assignment covering Jazz in Autumn in Krakow. Organized by Marek Winiarski, founder of Not Two Records, it’s usually a festival with a special plan. A large ensemble (repeat leaders have included Guy, Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson and the late Peter Brötzmann) gathers to develop and rehearse an expansive piece during the day, meanwhile performing in small sub-ensembles during the evenings in the basement club Alchemie. At the week’s conclusion the large ensemble work is performed in a concert hall. In 2014, it was Guy and the ensemble that has since become The Blue Shroud Band, named for the work that they were then developing in Krakow. I was fortunate enough to attend the band’s rehearsals during the later stages of their preparation. It was an extraordinary collection of musicians, gathered from across the spectrum of Guy’s associations, from baroque ensembles to free improvisation and several, like Guy himself and partner and violinist Maya Homburger, adept in both of those worlds. (My detailed account of the group’s first work, Blue Shroud, is available in my Ezz-theticscolumn at pointofdeparture.org for March 2015:
www.pointofdeparture.org/archives/PoD-50/PoD50Ezz-thetics.html
A similar process is behind “all this this here”, though the title alludes to a phrase from Samuel Beckett’s final poem, “what is the word”. What is perhaps most immediately impressive, testimony to the esteem in which Guy and his work is held by his collaborators, is that only two personnel changes have occurred in the band since 2014. Tuba and serpent player Michel Godard has been replaced by tubist Marc Unternährer and trumpeter Peter Evans by Percy Pursglove. Otherwise, the remarkable personnel is identical.
Along with Guy and Homburger, there’s the Greek singer Savina Yannatou,Catalan pianist Agustí Fernández, violist Fanny Paccoud and Irish guitarist Ben Dwyer. There’s the stellar Northern European saxophone quartet of Torben Snekkestad (soprano and tenor), Michael Niesemann (alto saxophone, oboe and the baroque oboe d’amore), Per Texas Johansson (tenor saxophone and clarinet) and Julius Gabriel (baritone and soprano saxophones), as well as the percussion duo of Ramón López and Lucas Niggli, capable of everything from the explosively subtle and the subtly explosive.
The work will brook no easy summary. Its ultimate effect is not merely a matter of scale but the subtle grace of all of its individual components, its interactions between text and music, the individual realizations of voice and instrument turning score into sounds and also improvising within the context of this expansive form, whether individually or collectively.
It’s difficult to absorb or encapsulate, let alone describe all this this here : whether it’s the texts that Guy has selected – primarily that poem from Samuel Beckett – or the myriad ways in which Yannatou has invested them with extraordinary intensity, light and meaning, intensity, light and meaning that cannot be categorized by meanings beyond their aptness and intensity. The same can be said of pianist Agusti Fernandez’s many moments, whether profound or glittering, or the performances of the saxophonists: Per Texas Johannson, on tenor brings a focussed articulation and daunting force to “Time Thing 1”, playing with an oracular depth of chaotic energy that’s matched by all the synchronized and exploding bits of the scored ensemble.
Like Sun Ra, no easy or likely comparison, Guy draws dedication from the members of the Blue Shroud Band. Certainly, there are the commonplace explanations: collegiality; shared technical excellence; mastering complex materials together. However, there’s something more as well: the chance to make music that hasn’t been made before or elsewhere and won’t likely be made anywhere else by anyone else ever, and yet it’s music that feels central to so much experience, common and uncommon, an assemblage of meaning-rich sounds that have never met before and might mean anything and everything.
THE BLUE SHROUD
Drei Leitgedanken haben meine Komposition THE BLUE SHROUD geprägt - der Luftangriff auf die baskische Stadt Guernica durch deutsche Kampfpiloten der Legion Condor 1937 im Dienste Francos, das Gemälde von Pablo Picasso, das als Reaktion auf diese Ereignisse entstand und, in jüngerer Zeit (2003), ein blauer Vorhang, mit dem eine Ta-pisserie des Guernica Gemäldes im Hauptgebäude der Vereinten Nationen verhüllt wurde, bevor der amerikanische Außenminister Colin Powell den Fernsehzuschauern und der gesamten Welt seine Position zum Einmarsch in den Irak erläuterte. Zweifellos hätte Picassos Bild von Tod, Panik und Zerstörung eine viel zu deutliche Botschaft über die Grauen des Krieges an Powells Zuhörer gesendet. In einem Akt höchster Feigheit hielt man es für nötig, diese Präsentation von allem Negativem zu reinigen, und so wurde der Wandteppich vor der Übertragung von Regierungsangestellten und Sender-personal mit der blauen Fahne der Vereinten Nationen verhüllt.
Warum also nun ein Musikstück mit einem so emotionsgeladenem Thema?
Die Analyse des Kunsthistorikers Simon Schama von Picassos Gemälde in seiner Fern-sehreihe ‚The Power of Art‘ hatte meine Aufmerksamkeit auf Guernica gelenkt und auf den Nachhall, der seine Geschichte begleitet hat. Nicht, dass eine Erinnerung nötig gewesen wäre, aber es war dennoch ein Anlass nachzudenken über die Gräuel des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts, die sich unter dem Deckmantel von Macht, Herrschaft und Ver-schleierung ereignet haben. Hier war ein Gemälde mit einer Botschaft, die ich aufgrei-fen musste. Eines schien mir sicher: man konnte ein Musikstück schreiben, das die Ak-tualität des Themas widerspiegelt. Ein Stück, das die Kraft des menschlichen Geistes zeigt, der Unterdrückung durch Tyrannei zu widerstehen.
Das Wesentliche an diesem Projekt war es, eine internationale Gruppe von Musikern zusammenzustellen, die offen und fähig waren, sich sowohl in der Welt der Improvisa-tion als auch der Barockmusik zu bewegen. Nach meinem Gefühl sollten musikalische Fragmente von H. I. F. Biber und J.S. Bach in die Komposition aufgenommen werden, um den Hörer zu dieser ganz besonderen Klangsensibilität zu führen; die Barockgeige, Viola, Oboe und Serpent boten die einzigartigen Klangfarben, die ich suchte.
Für den jetzt erwartungsvollen Hörer sollte ich darauf hinweisen, dass dies trotz der Einbeziehung von Biber‘schen und Bach‘schen Fragmenten kein Versuch einer ‚verjaz-zenden Musik‘ oder des Crossover ist. Genau wie bei den Konzerten des Duos Hombur-ger/Guy steht Frühe Musik Seite an Seite mit gegenwärtigen Ausdrucksformen, und die ‚sprachlichen‘ Möglichkeiten beider reichen aus, um die Jahrhunderte zwischen ihnen zu überbrücken.
Ein Gemälde wie Guernica hat offenkundig eine starke visuelle Botschaft, bleibt aber grundsätzlich stumm, wenn es darum geht, Worte zu liefern für die Vokalistin des En-sembles, Savina Yannatou. Ein Gespräch mit der irischen Schriftstellerin Kerry Hardie über das Projekt regte diese an, den Text ‚Symbols of Guernica‘ zu schreiben, den sie mir für die Komposition, in Teilen oder auch als Ganzes, überließ. Darüber hinaus stell-te sie zwei weitere Verse für den Schluss zur Verfügung. Dieser großzügige Beitrag wurde zum Grundgerüst dieses Stückes, während ich an einer Struktur arbeitete, die dem Thema angemessen war.
Obwohl sich THE BLUE SHROUD mit der menschlichen Existenz und dem fortwähren-dem Leid und der Gewalt in der Welt beschäftigt, betrachtet durch Picassos prägendes Gemälde, soll das Stück auf keinen Fall ein rein politisches Statement sein.
Es ist eine Komposition, die hervorragende Musiker in einem kreativen Szenario prä-sentiert, und die meine Auffassung widerspiegelt, dass Mitgefühl immer noch eine Option für uns alle ist, schlussendlich mit der Hoffnung, dass die Menschheit vielleicht irgendwann aus ihrer Geschichte lernt.
Barry Guy
REVIEWS
By John Sharpe about the Krakow days....
(These words first appeared as part of a review of the 9th Krakow Jazz Autumn, reprinted courtesy of All About Jazz www.allaboutjazz.com)
During the days leading up to the final concert of his 2014 residency in Krakow, Guy rehearsed his hand-picked band through the score for his ambitious new work “The Blue Shroud”. But in the evenings they broke into smaller subdivisions to improvise freely. That plan not only provided a way to promote familiarity and let off steam after a long day's intense rehearsal, but also sowed the seed for some of the improvisatory passages in the longer work. Each night there were three sets, each comprising up to three separate groupings. While everyone had links to the bassist, many of the participants had not worked together. So it was inevitable that there would be some first time meetings among the small formations. Often these were some of the most potent of the short engagements.
Guy’s presence was also a surefire indicator of quality. Individually, he stands as one of the world’s preeminent improvisers on bass, having developed the quicksilver aesthetic first posited by Scott La Faro to its logical extreme. In performance Guy simply has to be seen to be believed. His spurts of hyperactivity combined precise articulation, a plethora of extended approaches and seemingly inexhaustible stamina. He thrived on opposites and tension: between pizzicato and arco; between deep resonance and a nimble upper register; and between straight and idiosyncratic techniques.
While with one hand he might brandish a mallet to mine overtones from the strings both above and below the bridge, with the other he would simultaneously finger rapidly evolving pitches and chords. Then afterwards he might insert knitting needles between the strings to act as temporary bridges which modified the tuning and at the same time add a random metallic shimmer. His use of a volume pedal meant that even the most subtle effects, such as his ringing harmonics, could hold their own in dialogue. But whatever he did was informed by an acute musical sensibility. It was never just technique for its own sake.
Day One
While the overall standard of the sessions was astoundingly high, there were some sets that stood out even more than others. Unsurprisingly the most seasoned improvisers proved the most accomplished, but even the chamber specialists gave a strong account of themselves on less conventional turf. On the first night highlights included the opening solo set from Spanish pianist Agusti Fernandez, and his subsequent duet with trumpeter Peter Evans, and the duos of Evans and Norwegian reedman Torben Snekkestad, and Guy and Greek vocalist Savina Yannatou.
Fernandez' first gesture was electrifying: swiping a wood block across the strings inside the piano to magic a wild gust of sound. It announced a panoply of percussiveness from which occasional plucked notes materialized as if by accident. Few other pianists can equal the Catalan's dexterity and resourcefulness in extracting maximum potential from his instrument. Amid the multiplying overtones, Fernandez drew out an almost vocal quality from the piano interior. As a very hushed groaning passage subsided, Evans joined the pianist.
With the bell of his trumpet over the mic, he created a resounding bass drone, which the pianist punctuated with shrill plucks from the piano interior. Purposeful interplay ensued, testament to prior collaboration, not only on disc with Mats Gustafsson, but also as a duo on tour. Fernandez paralleled the American's rapid fire exhortations with dense muscular runs. One wonderful moment of synchronicity saw both seemingly independently settle on a trilled phrase. Evans' speed of thought and reaction provides a severe test for anyone he shares the stage with, but Fernandez was equal to the task.
Likely the duo of Evans and Norwegian reedman Snekkestad will also surface on disc at some point, such was the success of their inaugural meeting. After exchanging growls and quiet susurrations, Snekkestad using a trumpet with a reed mouthpiece, the pair exuberantly braided squalling tones. Snekkestad sneaked his soprano into his mouth next to the reed trumpet to conjure lacerating exclamations, before focusing wholly on the straight horn. Seated next to each other, circular breathing through a brass lexicon, the twosome appeared every inch terrible twins.
Yannatou has featured in previous Guy projects, including “Time Passing” at the 2013 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, as well as in a pairing captured live on Attikos (Maya, 2010). On this occasion Yannatou constrained her wordless ululations, muffled stutters and introspective screams within a low level passion, which allowed full rein to Guy's exquisite filigree runs. Arco swoops interrupted flurries of pizzicato notes and slurs akin to Yannatou's vocal sighs. It was as if they conversed in an intimate discourse in an alien language complete with its own syntax, which was at times stirring, mournful and ethereal.
Day Two
The second evening furnished a study in polarities. The opening combination of Guy, drummer Lucas Niggli and violinist Maya Homburger performed "Rondo for Nine Birds", a composition by Guy inspired by a picture which adorns the wall of their home. In the through-composed piece, the players returned at regular intervals to a jaunty ditty, interposed between diverse vignettes. Niggli interpreted the repeating theme differently each time, varying between fingers and sticks, and between exact and loose, while Homburger and Guy's parts intertwined, sometimes austere but at others nervy and staccato.
If much of the first set dwelt in the chamber, then the quartet of Niggli, drummer Ramon Lopez, Fernandez and Evans probably resided in the garage, with a default setting of all out aural assault. Evans' bravura trumpet cut through the waves of noise with aplomb, dipping into the troughs and skimming above the surf. He and Fernandez once again united in a high energy face off, fuelled by a clattering accompaniment. But there were astonishing contrasts too, as when Evans key pad popping prompted the Spaniard to delve into piano's innards. But the respite was brief. Fernandez hammered the keys, smashed his forearms and used his fingers in sewing machine motion, while Niggli excitedly bounced on his stool translating the fervor into apocalyptic tumult.
Day Three
On the third night high points included the duo of Guy and alto saxophonist Michael Niesemann, the larger grouping growing out of the initial threesome of Michel Godard, French violist Fanny Paccoud and Guy, and the Aurora Trio with Evans and Yannatou. Niesemann alerted unsuspecting listeners to his qualities with a searing clarion call on his alto saxophone. It heralded not a maelstrom, but an interlude of subdued intensity in which plaintive alto vied with fluttering bass. That pattern of alternating animation and meditation continued, as Niesemann's short guttural phrases matched Guy's sudden switches between bow and hands. Such was the combustive zeal, that their first selection peaked in frenetic oratory, as Niesemann screeched multiphonics, with the veins on his neck looking ready to pop.
Paradoxically given their backgrounds, Paccoud, Godard and Guy gave rise to some of the most swinging sections of the three nights. From the serpent, a convoluted wooden ancestor of the tuba, Godard drew a jazzy buzz, which encouraged Guy into a relaxed lope. When Paccoud entered from backstage she picked out Godard's rhythm on her viola, before sawing a bluesy wail. Once Swedish reedman Per Texas Johansson joined on clarinet his jagged lines brought about a return to the accustomed abstraction, which turned into a garrulous swelling collective with the addition of Julius Gabriel's baritone saxophone and Snekkestad's reed trumpet. At one point Johansson arrested the whole audience's attention by affixing a balloon to the mouth of his clarinet, which he inflated and then allowed to deflate with a booming gasp.
Guy programmed the Aurora Trio for the final set of the three nights. Completed by Fernandez and Lopez, the trio's blend of soulful balladry and spiky invention is immortalized on three acclaimed outings: Aurora (Maya, 2006), Morning Glory (Maya, 2010), and A Moment's Liberty (Maya, 2013). However tonight they were supplemented by Evans' trumpet and Yannatou's voice, and as a consequence eschewed the melancholic lyricism which so strongly pervades their repertoire for a set of daredevil flights.
A special bond was evident between the members of the Aurora Trio, manifest in the shared rhythmic attack between Guy and Lopez, and in the instantaneous trafficking between the bassist and the pianist. Fernandez spent most of the set with at least one hand under the piano lid. Evans was once again a scorching presence. His narrative ripened and evolved at breathtaking pace, transmuting into a stream of highly detailed fizzing sound. Yannatou took the opportunities as they arose in the ebb and flow to interpolate her wordless vocals. It made a cracking finale which engendered keen anticipation for the final show by the entire aggregation.
by Stuart Broomer, New York City Jazz Record, January 2015
Barry Guy’s Blue Shroud Orchestra, the 14-piece band created to perform the English bassist’s Blue Shroud, gathered for the final week of Jazz Autumn from Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and America, some members meeting for the first time, then spent the next three days rehearsing the piece eight hours a day, only to spend each night in three sets of small ensemble improvisations, getting to know one another’s musical personalities at the granular level. The musicians were drawn from Guy and partner/baroque violinist Maya Homburger’s diverse worlds of jazz and contemporary classical, free improvisation and period instrument performance, all possessed of remarkable skills and a willingness to test and extend them in fresh contexts.
Over 20 different groupings would appear between Agustí Fernández creating a storm of original sound in the piano’s interior to begin Tuesday’s program and the final quintet on Thursday, which expanded the Aurora trio of Guy, Fernández and drummer Ramon Lopez with trumpeter Peter Evans and mercurial Greek singer Savina Yannatou. In between one encountered a range of stunning musical voices, from the solo pieces by Homburger on baroque violin and Irish composer/classical guitarist Ben Dwyer to a remarkable group of saxophonists whose reputations are only beginning to reach beyond Europe: Michael Niesemann has the previously unknown capacity to play both fire-breathing free alto and virtuoso baroque oboe d’amore; Torben Snekkestad’s doubles are just as unusual: in addition to tenor and soprano, he plays a reed-trumpet hybrid that sounds like a roar from the dawn of time. The young Julius Gabriel plays ferocious baritone while Per Texas Johansson doubles tenor and clarinet, sometimes with distinctive humor: during one improvised dialogue, a black balloon emerges and expands from the bell of his clarinet. In addition to various duos and trios, the reed players performed as a quintet, the fifth member Michel Godard, a virtuoso of the tuba and the medieval serpent, sounding on the latter like a modern trombonist. The violist Fanny Paccoud, another ancient music specialist, played skittering free improvisations in assorted ensembles while another incongruous component of this assembly—the two contrasting drummers, Lopez, loose and unpredictably propulsive, and Lucas Niggli, a demon of precision—performed as a duo and in a quartet with Fernández and Evans.
This unique collection of musicians and their compound skill sets were matched together for a special vision, one crisscrossing past and present, combining seemingly contrary views, voices and methodologies to create a new kind of composition, one that reached beyond collage to a polysemous musical discourse, born at once in a score and the accelerated evolution of free improvisation.
The debut of the 75-minute Blue Shroud brought these contrasting virtuosities together. Inspired by Picasso’s Guernica, Guy named the piece for the blue shroud that was placed over a tapestry copy at the UN building during Colin Powell’s 2003 declaration of war against Iraq. As vast as Picasso’s painting, Guy’s work is equally ambitious, a great musical meditation on the horrors of war and the quest for compassion. Constructing songs on poems by Irish poet Kerry Hardie, Guy employed methods ranging from atonality and Spanish flamenco to a gorgeous chorale of high-pitched reeds, contrasting lyrical passages with bursts of violent energy and lacing passages of free improvisation through and over both, with Yannatou singing text in four languages, blending formal declaration with speaking in tongues. One uncanny component was the dramatic inclusion of pieces by the 17th century composer H.I.F. Biber and Bach, images of compassion and respite, beautifully realized and continuous with Guy’s own lyrical episodes. It’s a major work, bridging musical chasms, and should be widely heard.
