For the inaugural release on Clonmell Jazz Social, they have called upon guitarist Harry Christelis to convene a quartet of upcoming players that will do justice to a series of elegant drifting creations that hover somewhere around the border between jazz and minimalism, ever-moving but also always gently steering the listener towards soft, unexpected landscapes.
Drummer Dave Storey and bassist Andrea di Biase lay an undulating bed upon which guitarist Harry and trumpeter Christos Stylianides meander with thoughtful traces that never overwhelm; in fact Christos’s trumpet tends to blur the distinction between rhythm and lead, choosing at where to place his fluttering lines depending on the input of the others.
The album opener though is an abstract piece, diverse sounds and simple motifs drawn together as a taster for the strung-out elegance that is to come, a simplicity that revels in space, the bass dreaming, guitar tracing leisurely shapes, sharing moments with the trumpet that appears mistily. The drums reassure us and it is a gentle embrace offering a tired but genuine smile.There is a careful grace to the pieces assembled here, the players intertwining but with great subtlety, space and time abounding. It all moves at a slow, sedate pace, hovering, its lack of momentum lulling us just with a few points of guitar keeping you involved, or a bass solo, lithe and languid, stirring into action.
“Walking Blue” is a limpid daze of a track, its circling trumpet happy to rest in its liminal lace while drama is injected by rolling drums. They lean on and jostle the other players, reminding them of where they are but not elevating anything too far beyond the soporific nature. Notes are left to linger until ripe, the restrained high tones of the trumpet left to echo into an open sky appearing as if from a dream.
I am reminded vaguely of other things, but those ideas are always diffuse as they paint their languid pictures in evolving shades of blue. The bass steps awkwardly across pebbles on an otherwise deserted beach, making its way down to the calmest sea. The others are also making their way there and want to gently persuade us that there is nowhere we would rather be as the trumpet lazily hovers, a speck of white in an otherwise uniform sky.
The penultimate track has another sudden influx of momentum, a final dash to a conclusion, the bass hypnotic yet reflective, scuttling drums and the guitar placid like ripples across a hidden pond. What is causing them is hard to say; but the trumpet and guitar are like different elements echoing one another, though texturally diverse. A flurry of cymbals resounds as the rhythm once again dissipates, returning as a distant, long-forgotten memory becoming an unstructured beach mosaic, ruffled by the tide.The album ends with an alternate mix of an earlier track, a melancholy late-night sayonara, a revisit that withdraws imperceptibly until all that is left is silence. This is a fine, understated yet wonderfully poised collection that shows you another way of existing, creating ripples that although subtle really resound leaving the listener yearning for more.
-Mr Olivetti-
