Quinsin Nachoff - Stars and Constellations

Label: Adhyaropa Records, 2023

Personnel - Quinsin Nachoff: tenor saxophone; Mark Helias: acoustic bass; Dan Weiss: drums + Bergamot Quartet and The Rhythm Method (#2).

Innovative Canadian saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff infuses his music with subtleties and complexities, providing a unique listening experience. His most recent CD, Stars and Constellations, delves into long forms and draws inspiration from mythology. Musically, the off-kilter successor to Ethereal Trio (Whirlwind Recordings, 2017) guarantees powerful orchestration that absorbs disparate elements from Coltrane and Bartók. Nachoff’s resourceful jazz trio, featuring Mark Helias on bass and Dan Weiss on drums, is strengthened by two New York-based string quartets (Bergamot and Rhythm Method) in a three-piece volume where they excel at sounding fully integrated.

“Stars and Constellations: Scorpio” opens the curtain to a fantastic sonic world with pizzicato strings, thoughtful soft drumming, and combined arco work from bass and cello. Tapestries are reworked, altering intensities, and the ever-growing bass lines of Helias create monologues for certain periods. Fantastic harmonic progressions and mutating rhythms trigger a gorgeously extended saxophone improvisation in which Nachoff showcases his spontaneity, range, and systematic articulation. The finale generates cheerful movements by blending modern classical dynamics with adventurous post-bop, making it the most jazz-oriented piece of the three.

“Stars and Constellations: Sagittarius” embarks on a journey with intriguing ascending glissandi, part of the instrumental mosaics and experimental observations that constitute the whole. This progressive 20-minute crusade was inspired by the mapping procedures of physicist Stephen Morris from the University of Toronto and is sculpted with elegance, discipline, and ambition. Nachoff hits the high registers with force during a revolutionary section prone to improvisation, while Helias plunges into a more pensive state. Weiss’ rhythm flows transition from understated accompaniment to a salient and elaborated solo. The piece finishes with melodic conjoint actions.

Bridging these pieces is “Pendulum”, a tasteful chamber abstraction comprised of spiraling melodies and evincing a high degree of responsiveness and calibration. Although featuring the two aforementioned string quartets engaging with each other, it’s Weiss who stands out by enlivening the rhythmic foundation with cleverness, while the coordination and teamwork between tenor sax and strings takes the form of a conclusive call-and-response.

Finding an exceptional connection between improvisation and notated music, Nachoff continues to forge a path of his own, moving in a revelatory line of action that separates him from other creatives.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Stars and Constellations: Scorpio ► 02 - Pendulum

Malnoia - Hello Future

Label: Outside in Music, 2021

Personnel - Jorn Swart; piano; Benni von Gutzeit: viola; Lucas Pino: bass clarinet.

Questioning what means to be human and the value of art in a technological age, the trio Malnoia - led by the pianist/composer Jorn Swart and featuring Benni von Gutzeit on viola and Lucas Pino on bass clarinet - releases their sophomore album, Hello Future, and fills it with carefully crafted scores that escort commissioned short stories about science fiction and the future. The trio boasts a boundary-leaping style with abundant lyricism, pointillism and contrapuntal movements, showing a masterful control over the flow of their music and its artful transitions.

“First Ocean” blends tempered folk and contemporary chamber music in a seamless, enjoyable manner. There’s a practical urgency in the harmonic accompaniment that counterbalances the poignancy of the melody. The result does justice to a story, written by Swart himself, about a space traveler who has forgotten the smell, feel and sensation of the sea.

The nature of “Paultjuh” moves the band into a lulling, shimmering space capable to create a balmy, if nostalgic, effect on the listeners. The viola cries appear to be moaning howls, while the bass clarinet validates the emotionally-driven piano harmony through patterned constellations of notes. There’s more light than darkness in this poetically profound exertion inspired on Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song”.

Whereas “The Ghost” is a slow waltz drowned in pathos, the classical-soaked “New Religion” embeds three layers of a time-shifted melody that evolve with grace, in a pure investment of uplifting Mozart-like dynamics. 

Classical and Latin passages are coupled with elegance on “DemocrApp”, while “Choro Humano”, disclosing its real nature on the title, explores the Brazilian genre with the happy vibe and staggering virtuosity for what it’s known. It’s all here, with no need for bass or percussion.

“Tubifoot” brings back all that jazz, exhibiting a mainstream posture and swing language. Distant from this mood, “Prelude to Singularity” employs unwavering dreamy piano, euphonious viola scratches and ruminative woodwind sounds to sonically depict the story of a man who found out that the concert that most affected him emotionally had been created by an algorithm. The latter number precedes the suave closer, Vangelis' “Tears in Rain”, the sole non-original composition on the album, which served as an emotional intensifier of Roy Batty’s famous monologue in the sci-fi classic Blade Runner.

All contrasting stylistic elements of Hello Future are woven together with a methodically organized discipline and filtered into a unique blend of music that has its charms.  

Grade B+

Favorite Tracks:
01 - First Ocean ► 02 - Paultjuh ► 07 - Choro Humano

Quinsin Nachoff - Pivotal Arc

Label: Whirlwind Recordings, 2020

Personnel includes: JC Stanford: conduction; Quinsin Nachoff: saxophone, composition; Nathalie Bonin: violin/soloist; Michael Davidson: vibraphone; Mark Helias: double bass; Satoshi Takeishi: drums, percussion; and more + Molinari String Quartet.

Toronto-raised saxophonist/composer Quinsin Nachoff’s new album, Pivotal Arc, is a modern chamber opus with three distinct long-form parts. The record, offering more than 75 minutes of music conducted by JC Sanford, consists in a Violin Concerto presented with the classically-trained violinist Nathalie Bonin as a featured soloist, a String Quartet work, and a large ensemble piece enhanced by the great rhythm section of bassist Mark Helias and drummer Satoshi Takeishi.

Carrying a contemporary feel and the influence of composers such as Bartok, Stravinsky and Ligeti, the three-movement Violin Concerto mixes cerebral written parts with the freedom of improvisation. According to Nachoff, “Movement I” is a ‘deconstructed, transfigured tango’. Its orchestration includes plucking-against-bowing string techniques in fluid motion, knitwork from Takeishi (his brushing is utterly captivating), Bonin’s deft improvisation on top of the colorful harmonic tapestry weaved by vibraphonist Michael Davidson, and interlocking combinations that showcase the sharp, intricate sonic world created for these musicians’ interplay. 

The busier, Balkan-influenced “Movement III” is set in motion with a swaggering pace, suggesting that one may find moments of revelation and mystery ahead. Dabbling in chromaticism, Helias delivers an expedite bass solo that gets prompt and clever responses from Takeishi. And then it’s Davidson who entangles us in enchanting articulations.

The next four pieces are non-improvised chamber odysseys for string quartet that still exhibits a strong sense of openness. The Molinari String Quartet is enlisted for the task, driving their glissandi and segmental fixations in a permanent sonic lane marked by steady tonal colors and more-curvaceous-than-angular forms. 

This is a work that requires patience from the listeners, requiring them to be in the mood to fully appreciate what’s going on. After the wide recognition obtained with the colossal Path of Totality in 2018, an album of reference in today's jazz, it’s interesting to see Nachoff working with new languages as he sharpens compositional and arranging skills. We have to wait until the last piece - the title track was written in response to the climate change - to hear the saxophonist in real action. He does it beautifully, even if the unorthodoxy of the percussive flow doesn’t really infuse extra enthusiasm.

Ambitious in its conception, Pivotal Arc is no ordinary record. Chewing up all its episodes at once is strenuous, but this music manages to carve out a space for itself.

Grade B-

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Movement I ► 03 - Movement III ► 08 - Pivotal Arc

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