Joe Lovano/Trio Tapestry
Garden of Expression
Garden of Expression
(ECM) www.ecmrecords.com
If a track from this album were used in a Blindfold listening test, it might be hard to figure out that Joe Lovano is the saxophonist in question. Throughout Garden of Expression, he doesn't quite come across as the muscular tenor saxophonist player for which he is known. Which is not meant as a put down. He moves through the album thoughtfully, preferring long, drawn out lines over more complex harmonic developments. Sometimes it sounds simplistic, but his focus in this music gives it the added force to lift it up.
Trio Tapestry first came together on a 2019Lovano album of that brought the saxophonist together with pianist Marilyn Crispell and drummer Carmen Castaldi. Crispell might seem like an odd pairing with Lovano, considering her works that took many hints from Cecil Taylor. But the two of them crossed paths when the pianist played with Anthony Braxton, and both of them spent much time playing with the late Paul Motian. Crispell's recent, more introspective-sounding work also goes well with Lovano's searching side. Castaldi and Lovano have a history that goes back to their younger days in Cleveland, where both grew up and continue when they both attended Berklee.
Space serves as a key element to this music, as is often the case with ECM albums. The group allows the music to breathe and reflect. That way, when "Night Creatures" modulates from its single flowing chord to a new one, the harmonic focus takes on even greater dimension. Here, and on many other tracks, Castaldi is perfectly content hold back, letting his cymbals ring, with a few accents from the toms, rather than adding louder fills.
This type of approach works with music like this, which often flows languidly rather then working with a strict tempo. The title track, with its hesitant feel, recalls Duke Ellington's "Fleurette Africaine," which he recorded on Money Jungle. "Sacred Chant" begins feeling like a rubato Coltrane ballad, with Manfred Eicher's production creating the atmosphere of a windswept spring morning. It's surprising then, that this track - and the more angular "Dream On That" which follows it - both slip away after less than four minutes each, providing an abbreviated but vivid sketch of a song.
"Zen Like" closes the album with a longer (read: 10 minutes) meditation that begins with Lovano tolling some exquisitely bell-like gongs. (They also show up in "Garden of Expression.") He sticks to a lot of simple, long tones here on soprano. Crispell and Castaldi contribute punctuation in the form of occasional short chords and gentle brushes on the skins. In lesser hands, this spare type of performance could create restlessness, but the presence that these three bring to music adds a sense of direction and command to the whole thing. This is gentle but very captivating music.
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