AprilCadence2013

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140 | CadenCe Magazine | april May June 2013
Schlippenbach interludes and meditations, brief
palate cleansers (after the opening, deceptively title
“Reverence”) served up between helpings of the
classics. After a few buttoned-down measures of
“Work,” when one wonders what to make of the disc,
Schlippenbach begins at the nimblest of turns simply
to cascade through the music, to crowd ideas in the
tight spaces, even to get into a bit of Burrell-ian stride.
He manages to make the music sound spacious despite
the density and rapidity of his ideas. And oddly, some
of the most Monk-sounding moments come during his
own improvisations, where over a simple pedal point
or a rocking interval he sounds like he’s imagining his
way through a bunch of barely articulated fragments
or unearthed sketches. After the positively laconic
“Locomotive,” the lengthy side-by-side versions of
“Introspection” are filled with tension and allusions to
other Monk tunes. The churn of “Epistrophy” emerges
here and there, for example (suggestive and abstract,
where the actual “Epistrophy” is almost martial).
He’s similarly liberal in his interpretations of other
monastic classics: the tumbling, crystalline reading of
“Coming on the Hudson,” the brisk and nearly waltzlike
“Pannonica,” and a staggered, patient, at times even
drunken-stumbling “Brilliant Corners” (never faltering,
but simply an emphasis on the broken, fragmentary
nature of that chart). A solo record by Schlippenbach is
always a treat, but this one especially so.
Jason Bivins