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Anmeldt Litteratur / Film & tv / Musikk / Teater / Kunst / Arkitektur JAZZ Lyden av New York Dette bandet er lykkelig eier av et åpent og grovkornet uttrykk. Jessica Pavone Army Of Strangers Porter Records NEW YORK ER STADIG å regne som smeltedi- gel og tilholdssted for musikkens fortropper. Byen har en lang tradisjon for å fremdyrke miljøer der åpenhet er drivkraft og musikalske sjangere inngår uventede allianser eller lever uanstrengt side om side. Fiolinist Jessica Pavone representerer et yngre tilskudd av musikere innenfor denne tradisjonen. Hun er spennende å følge av den enkle grunn at man ikke vet hva hun leverer neste gang. Ser man på hvilke musikere Pavone har spilt med i sine ti aktive New York-år, får man bekreftet uforutsig- barheten. Anthony Braxton, Taylor Ho Bynum, William Parker og ikke minst Mary Halvorson er bare noen av dem som referanseramme og som lader hun har jobbet med. Det bør også «Det mest kArAkteristiske trek- låtene med gode minner. Apparently nevnes at Pavone har utgitt album på I´m Still Bleeding åpner med et naivt Tzadik. Dette plateselskapet drives av ket veD JessicA PAvones musikk, er og forsiktig tema som bygges ut mot John Zorn, mannen som er selve hvorDAn Det strengt ArrAngerte løs- det storvokste, mens Pavone improvi- symbolet på New Yorks sammensatte es oPP i møtet meD Det imProviserte. serer i front. Harris Eisenstadt tilfører miljø, der samtidsmusikk, klezmer, dynamikk og variert puls. rock, jazz og soul kommuniserer Det er ikke på grunn av noe grunn- uanstrengt. med historien som bakteppe, er det musikernes mangefasetterte erfa- leggende nyskapende jeg faller for noen band som dukker opp i erindrin- ringsbakgrunn som muliggjør den denne musikken. Styrken ligger i selve Tradisjonen. På Army Of Strangers gen. Det første er Curlew der Fred fleksible måten å ytre seg på. Fiolinis- fremføringen, i den måten de fire har fiolinisten med seg tre musikere Frith var det mest kjente medlemmet, tens kammermusikalske erfaringer lar musikerne tar eierskap i spillet og som gjør mye av seg i lydbildet. Pete og det andre er Dirty Three som gir seg også høre i stoffets strukturer. legger igjen spor av nødvendighet i Fitzpatrick, gitar, Jonti Siman, bassgi- Bad Seeds-assosiasjoner. Trekker man Tydelig tematikk og dagklare melodis- det de ytrer. Det er fordi de fire tror på tar og Harris Eisenstadt, trommer sammenlikningen lenger inn mot nutter holder uttrykket sammen. det de gjør, at jeg kan tro på dem. Det mater Pavone med mørk og råskim- jazzen, kan man havne ved Oddyse- Åpningssporet Cast Of Characters er alltid godt å høre musikere som rende akkordbruk og rytmikk. Fitzpa- bandet til James Blood Ulmer, der bader i saftig og overstyrt gitarlarm investerer dyktigheten sin i innhold trick får så mye rom til å rocke på fiolinisten het Charles Burnham. som holder god avstand til støyen, og velger seg en form de helt åpen- skakke at gitaren fremstår som like Saftig og naivt. Det mest karakteris- mens fiolinen kontrasterer og fanger bart føler sterkt for. sentral som fiolinen. Det er imidlertid tiske trekket ved Jessica Pavones vemod med lange linjer. Ja, Pavone Jessica Pavone vil ganske sikkert Pavone som har skrevet alt materia- musikk, er hvordan det strengt arran- låner blåtone fra folkloren uten å befinne seg et annet sted neste gang let, så det bærer hennes merke. gerte løses opp i møtet med det vippe inn i den. Bassist Jonti Siman jeg møter henne i musikken. Lytter man til kvartettens musikk improviserte. Det er nettopp disse spiller med en lyd som har 70-tallet ARILD R. ANDERSEN 108 juli/august 2011 Printed for [email protected] from The Wire (March 2010) at www.exacteditions.com. Copyright © 2010. Printed for [email protected] from The Wire (March 2010) at www.exacteditions.com. Copyright © 2010. Printed for [email protected] from The Wire (March 2010) at www.exacteditions.com. Copyright © 2010. Printed for [email protected] from The Wire (March 2010) at www.exacteditions.com. Copyright © 2010. Jessica Pavone: Songs of Synastry and Solitude [8 February 2010] By Andrew Dietzel Jessica Pavone has long been a key player in the realm of classical music, though the talented New Yorker has largely done so as an accompanying member of someone else’s ensemble. Slowly and with mounting confidence she paid her proverbial dues and embarked upon her solo career with 27 Epigrams, a lilting and busy collection of violin and viola compositions that cemented her place in the small niche of avant-garde classical. Now Pavone, with the help of the Toomai String Quintet, has crafted something sullenly beautiful, jarring and ominous in its minimalism. Comprised of 11 well-measured pieces, Songs of Synastry and Solitude sends the listener on a journey through a wintry landscape that is as desolate as the title suggests. That’s the easy part, but what takes a bit more time and patience to discover is that the synastry, which is to say the astrological compatibility between two people, is a subdued narrative that runs beneath, or perhaps within, each song. With very subtle additional assistance Pavone’s album is as deeply personal and idiosyncratic as a series of journal entries. The exterior presentation might show an unyielding mask of introversion, but an examination of the intimate interior offers something much more profound. The first song, “Here and Now, Then and Gone”, embodies this mirror-into-the-soul kind of assessment, and is the closest thing to an uplifting moment for the album’s duration. Its plodding transition from somewhat jaunty to definitively morose happens quickly and without warning, like entropy itself. “Darling Options” also dabbles in a kind of guarded optimism, but more powerful is its vaguely sinister undercurrent. “There’s No Way to Say” perfectly captures the speechlessness that can come with trepidation, contorting an anxious, tentative, and wordless scene into a musical pantomime of awkward discussions. “Houswork” continues this trend of unhappiness, exploring the dynamic of feminine housewife and masculine breadwinner. “It Comes To This”, woeful and reluctant, makes it easy to imagine the bittersweet departure of the housewife from the quotidian thanklessness of her station. It isn’t easy, of course, as it gambles relatively familiar comfort, even that which is received through subjugation, for a chance at freedom. Fittingly, “The Harbinger” marks the portent of something disastrous, something unimaginable, and the album concludes with the frightful revelation that “Hope Dawson is Missing”. Naturally, this is just my interpretation of Songs of Synastry and Solitude and shouldn’t be taken as the actual intent of Jessica Pavone, though I suspect there is something similar or parallel afoot here. This openness of arrangement is what makes the album so refreshing and fantastic. Each song is an invitation, and each title a linguistic starting point, for the listener to construct their own story via the transference of individual experience. This is the audiovisual and imaginative potential of music without words, a fact that Jessica Pavone and the Toomai String Quintet take full advantage of. Gloomy and forceful, Songs of Synastry and Solitude is as much about the space between the notes as it is the notes themselves, and as much about Pavone’s own story as it is yours. Published at: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/117804-jessica-pavone-songs-of-synastry-and-solitude/ advertising | about | contributors | submissions © 1999-2010 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved. PopMatters.com™ and PopMatters™ are trademarks of PopMatters Media, Inc. PopMatters is a member of the BUZZMEDIA Music advertising network. Various Press Reviews “Violist and composer Jessica Pavone has been a fixture on the New York scene for over a decade. Songs of Synastry and Solitude is Pavone’s highest profile release as a composer to date, demonstrating her flair as a lyrical writer and supple orchestrator. A straightforward contemplation on the power of song, Songs of Synas- try and Solitude is a timeless collection of elegant themes from a young composer of significant merit.” - Troy Collins AllAboutJazz.com “…a set of 11 original compositions that are emotionally weighty and dark, yet ultimately uplifting. While there is no direct stylistic or thematic link to Cohen’s songs, Pavone communicates the same sense of inevita- bility and universal suffering as the singer does, and leaves the listener with the same sense that there is hope in living—if only hope that daily suffering will be alleviated by the joy of song, love, spiritual enlightenment, and other forms of grace. This is measured, deliberate music that might be a love song, a prayer or just an acknowledgment that, as John Lee Hooker and Van Morrison once sang, you’ll never get out of these blues alive.” - James Hale Jazz Chronicles “In this release, she has presented compositions that are simple and stately, with a sombre grace that stands in wary contrast to Cohen’s finite pronouncements. The thoroughness and narrative direction of a songwriter inform her work, much as a good folk song would…pieces are performed with sensitivity and rigor by mem- bers of the Toomai String Quintet, projecting a sober view softened occasionally by a considered wistfulness. Pavone’s music reflects an austere but tender landscape where watchfulness orders reality.” - Nilan Perera Exclaim! “These 11 instrumentals are songs, too, in scale and shape, wordless distillations of feeling and reflection, brief musical narratives of relationship, star-blest or star-crossed…it’s a bittersweet chamber music evoking accord or aloneness that she is after, simply rendered and neatly crafted. The inclusion of double bass height- ens both mellowness and melancholy, and it serves as a pivot for elegant dance rhythms that crop up among the wistful melodies.” - Julian Cowley The Wire "Songs of Synastry and Solitude is full of lyrical beauty and lush melodicism, but it’s smart and spare, com- posed with an economy that never veers into anything saccharine.

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