Label: Intakt Records, 2020
Personnel - Sylvie Courvoisier: piano; Drew Gress: bass; Kenny Wollesen: drums.
Explorative pianist/composer Sylvie Courvoisier has been a model of excellence in the avant-garde jazz panorama since the mid 1990’s. Her affinity for complex rhythmic interlocking and innovative ideas are patented on Free Hoops, a new trio effort with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Kenny Wollesen. On the same vein of the brilliant D’Agala (Intakt, 2018), the tunes on Free Hoops arrive in the form of dedications to family, longtime friends and musical influences.
The title cut, composed for her husband - the violinist Mark Feldman - makes for an irresistible starting point. The off-kilter harmonic splendor is embedded in the right places while the intricate phrasing is occasionally embellished with motivic chromatic shifts. Despite atypical, the rhythmic drive provided by bass and drums sound incredibly natural as a consequence of Gress’ deft combination of slides and plucks, and Wollesen’s apt responsiveness and remarkable musicianship.
“Lulu Dance” is set in motion by an accessible, if somewhat trippy progression that gains heft as soon as jolts of energetic drum sounds start to stir its constant rhythmic flux. A contemplative middle section, also more overt and ambiguous, explores tonal colors within a spontaneous sound design. This is before fast percussive piano incursions on the lower register signals the trio to reinstate the earliest dance from which everything flowed out.
The threesome goes full force into another kind of dance on “Just Twisted”, which was penned for the groundbreaking saxophonist/composer John Zorn. Initially oscillating between vehement and graceful, the ambiance incorporates gently sweeping piano riffery, stunning percussive textures carried out with Wollesonic techniques, and bass pedal points. But then, they push the pedal to the metal, provoking agitation through vortical piano spirals that overflies a dazzling swing-like rhythm in nine.
In direct contrast to this mood, “Galore” nurtures composed yet still suspenseful moments with proficient alternation of arco and pizzicato bass techniques. This intriguing mood serves as a launching pad for an engagingly torpid rhythm predominantly built with snare drum and hi-hat. Dedicated to Wollesen, this piece, at particular times, puts on show the bassist and the pianist strutting around the pulse in tandem.
Courvoisier contemplated more family in her dedications, and if “As We Are”, approached from a Monk-inspired angle through a central riff that often repeats, was written for her mother; “Nicotine Sarcoline” gifts her brother Stephane as she puts a bounce in the impetuosity and pointedness of her glorious avant-gardism.
Liberating and extending the possibilities of form and improvisation, Courvoisier shows off an acute, borderless inside/outside sensibility that creates a spellbinding effect. Her labyrinthine, sensuous and powerful lines sound like no one else.
Grade A-
Favorite Tracks:
01 - Free Hoops ► 03 - Just Twisted ► 08 - Nicotine Sarcoline