Volume 23 Issue 3 - November 2017

There is nothing really adventurous in
the music – all the tracks have Pederson
penning the songs either alone or with other
composers. Her music is reminiscent of many
female vocal trio jazz and ballad styles of past
decades, with support from brilliant background
musicians. Breakfast in Bed has a
great upbeat sing-along melodic hook, while
Dear Gussy is a klezmer-flavoured toetapping
tune. Valentine is a mellower jazz
ballad with storytelling lyrics that showcase
their vocal nuances. All the string and
horn instrumentalists are great, with special
mention to George Koller (bass), William
Sperandel (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Tom
Szczesniak (accordion), and the recording/
production teams.
Just like they buoyantly sing the words
“never judge a man by his cover” in the
closing track Never Judge, don’t judge The
Willows by their self-proclaimed different
hair colours but instead indulge in their
exploration of easy listening jazz.
Tiina Kiik
Two Roads
Julia Seager-Scott
Pipistrelle Music PIP1706 (harpmusic.ca)
!!
In her inaugural
solo recording,
classically trained
local modern pedal
harpist Julia Seager-
Scott embarks on
an adventurous
musical journey
performing/arranging
on two new instruments for her – the
Baroque triple harp and the clarsach or traditional
Gaelic wire-string harp.
Handel’s Harp Concerto in B-flat Major,
third movement, is the only non-arrangement
performance here. Seager-Scott writes
that she learned this staple of the pedal harp
repertoire as a teenager but was thrilled to
relearn and record it as originally written for
triple harp. Her clear melodic lines against
the lower contrapuntal notes are perfect,
along with glorious Baroque ornamentation.
Equally memorable is her performance of
Monteverdi’s Pur ti miro from Poppea, which
showcases her confident sense of Baroque
tempo and style. Seager-Scott also experiments
with improvisation in two tracks
with Monteverdi bass lines, as one take in
the opening track, and layered takes in Harp
Party Improvisation.
Her numerous tracks on clarsach harp of
the traditional Irish folk music of Turlough
Carolan (also known as O’Carolan) are a
welcoming musical contrast to the Baroque
music. Planxty Burke/Planxty Drew features
an uplifting melody against a toe tapping lilt.
Equally memorable is the slower emotional
and touching performance of Clergy’s
Lamentation.
Production is clear and successfully
captures the performer’s musical nuances.
The detailed liner notes are informative
though the tiny print may be difficult to
decipher. Keep listening to the end as a secret
track with harp and singing complete Seager-
Scott’s multifaceted adventure.
Tiina Kiik
Something in the Air
An Added Ingredient for
Integrated Improvisation
KEN WAXMAN
Sympathetic dynamics and mutual compatibility are attributes
ascribed to notable musical groupings. That’s why so many are
made up of players from the same country or even the same
region: think of the Budapest String Quartet, Liverpool’s The Beatles
or the New York Jazz Quartet. But as music becomes more global
this nationalism is increasingly rare. Here are CDs whose direction
has been changed – or not – by adding a foreign player to an existing
local combo, by creating a new entity with one expatriate element, or
when players from various national backgrounds root themselves in
one place.
Judging from the results on Ghost Lights
(Songlines 1621-2
songlines.com), French pianist Benoît
Delbecq joining the Vancouver-based trio of
clarinetist François Houle, guitar and oud
player Gordon Grdina and percussionist
Kenton Loewen was more like mixing two
complementary compounds than introducing
an unstable element to a scientific
formula. That’s because the Houle/Grdina/Loewen trio has been
together since 2014, while the clarinetist and keyboardist have worked
as a duo since 1996. Delbecq’s familiarity with non-Western scales
coupled with Loewen’s skill on the Arabic lute give pieces such as Ley
Land and especially Soft Shadows an Eastern cast. Ley Land’s moody
and crepuscule feel is further advanced by slurred string fingering
and Houle’s chalumeau slurps. Meantime Soft Shadows’ Eurasian
tinge is intertwined with minimalist tones as organ-like drones from
processed loops create a continuum. Placing a wispy reed narrative
atop sharp guitar lines, percussion shuffles and restrained pianism as
on Ghost Lights only works for so long. Like a dainty tiara perched on
a massive head of hair the wrong movement can upset the balance.
Luckily equilibrium is maintained due to contralto clarinet cries
matched with modulated piano tones. The CD’s most jazz-like piece
is Gold Spheres which evolves into a suite of multicoloured, almost
Africanized tinctures. Ghostly and atmospheric via reed snarls and
plucked inner piano strings, the wavering theme is both percussive
and succoring. Underlying harshness is relieved with slurred
guitar fingering while the quartet demonstrates perfect control of the
material, since neither this timbral softening nor the preceding firmness
prevents the tune from attaining a notable finale.
A similar situation is delineated on the
aptly-titled Everything is a Translation (Fiil
Free Records FFR0916 larsfiil.dk); a suite
composed by Danish pianist Lars Fiil and
interpreted by the Fiil Free septet of five
Danes, Swedish guitarist Henrik Olsson
and Polish trumpeter Tomasz Dąbrowski.
Composed so that each subsequent track
bleeds into the next, the five sequences
go through sections of speed and static, Arcadian lulls and aggressive
outbursts. Symbolically the session also marks how completely
Dąbrowski has integrated Scandinavian ethos. Unlike some showcases
where the soloist seems to be jammed on top of the ensemble,
the trumpeter’s muted grace notes are present from the first track
Why Search for Common Ground, with textures reflecting back onto
Fiil’s low-frequency, Lisztian chording and offhanded cracks and
swats by drummer Bjørn Heebøll and vibraphonist Martin Fabricius.
There’s such bonding that the tempo speeding up and becoming more
swinging almost passes unnoticed. Later instances such as a blustering
brass call plus piano pumps show how to fearlessly inhabit
the groove between hard bop and cool. That piece fades seamlessly
into the neo-pastoral title tune, where sour brass whistles in counterpoint
to smeared reed lines also don’t upset the narrative flow or
detract from the overall beauty. At the same time, since the suite is
sturdy and organically constructed to highlight beautiful colours, it
never lapses into mere landscaping. To demonstrate its modernity
82 | November 2017 thewholenote.com