Label: Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records, 2019
Personnel - Silke Eberhard: alto saxophone; Geoffrey De Masure: trombone; Anne Mette Iversen: bass; Roland Schneider: drums.
Anne Mette Iversen is a Berlin-based bassist/composer from Denmark who touts a joyous, often hip approach to music. Invincible Nimbus is her second CD with the chord-less Ternion Quartet, whose frontline is made of alto saxophonist Silke Eberhard and trombonist Geoffrey De Masure. Iversen shares the rhythmic responsibility with drummer Roland Schneider.
The new album is exclusively composed of originals that stress the necessity of selflessness and openness to dialogue. Thus, in addition to collective cohesiveness and interaction, we have great individual statements, oftentimes exposed simultaneously as conversational practices. The bandleader points out the studying of fugue-writing techniques, some ideas from Messiaen’s The Technique of My Musical Language, and Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns as musical inspirations for this work.
“Polychromatic Pictures” opens the session with piquant, angular phrases delivered in unison. The bass installs the groove but the flow is routinely disrupted and altered, only becoming steady when the artistry of De Masure is showcased in virtue of extremely tasteful melodies delivered with an opportune rhythmic sense. A variation of mood, texture, and tempo come off when Eberhard starts to pronounce eloquently what is going on in her mind.
You’ll find an Afro-funk romp stirring up “Dig Your Heels In”, immediately put forth after the insouciant counterpoint between horns and bowed bass that launches it. The structure gives Schneider some mobility from behind the drum kit, with the brassy and groovy qualities of the tune being enhanced along the way.
Functioning within a more straight-ahead framework, the ensemble swings with passion on “Within a Diapason”, having the horns exposing hard-bop-like unisons and then fueling their communication with juxtaposed phrases. The bandleader, also steps forward, soloing with horn interjections around. Another opportunity to engage in dialoguing spontaneity occurs in the last section of “The Invincible Nimbus of Mystery”, which starts out as a languorous chamber exercise propelled by thoughtful brushwork and earnest arco bass, but concludes otherwise.
Whereas “Four Snakes” favors breezy tones, later acquiring a more intense swinging drive, “Ionian Steps” resembles a folk-jazz dance impregnated with rhythmic figures in counterpoint. After blowing a number of agitated phrases, the saxophonist claims some quiet moments for herself, a methodology followed by the trombonist, who infuses some Eastern sounds in his vocabulary while sole percussive subtleties keep running in the back.
Iversen’s material is pretty interesting, denoting a fetching avant-jazz air capable to please even those interested in trailing more traditional paths.
Grade B+
Favorite Tracks:
01 - Polychromatic Pictures ► 05 - Dig Your Heels In ► 09 - Ionian Steps