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Pollock

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Jürgen Friedrich

Label: Pirouet Records
Released: 2009
Duration: 00:51:00
Views: 1,549

Tracks

Drift; Round Midnight; Ripple; Wayward; I Am Missing Her; Samarkand; Enclosed; Billy No Mates; Pollock; Over; Flauschangriff.

Personnel

Additional Personnel / Information

RECORDING INFO recorded and mixed by Jason Seizer at Pirouet Studio Munich, mastered by Christoph Stickel at MSM Studio Munich, designed by Konstantin Kern

Album Description

RELEASE NOTES An Organic Stream of Incandescent Colours ��Pollock��: the new Pirouet CD from the excitingly artful piano trio Friedrich��H��bert��Moreno his brush onto the canvas which laid on the floor, or he swung and shook the brush over it, thus creating a painting filled with movement. This style of painting has a striking relationship to jazz wherein process and spontaneity is especially important. It is no coincident that the cover of Ornette Coleman��s 1961 avant-garde album manifesto, ��Free Jazz��, grasps back at Pollock��s aesthetic (the cover art is a reproduction of Pollock��s painting ��White Light��). At any rate, the interconnection of the trio Friedrich�� H��bert��Moreno to Pollock is much more subtle. Only in one piece is it totally obvious��the one which is also called ��Pollock��a collective improvisation between the three musicians: liquid tones that make for fascinating aesthetic forms. The other compositions are most decidedly not acci- dental drips and dabs��although they shine with an amazing immediacy, reflecting a sparkling multi-coloured beauty. Already with the first piece, J��rgen Friedrich��s composition Drift, the music is bound up in a lyrical tenderness��and this lyricism develops into a rhythmically pulsating piece pro- pelled by an immense drive. Following the course of this and the other pieces on the CD, one quickly notices that, within all the complexity, these musicians are ready and able to concentrate and thus communicate, spontaneously interac- ting as they respond to every nuance. Musical thoughts and impulses are set free, and the music achieves a wonderful organic flow. The pieces never feel artificial �C a swinging naturalness runs through the proceedings ( just as Pollock��s colours run together into motifs and themes). The impulses of the moment and the highly creative way they are dealt with: these are hallmarks of this trio. The Ger- man pianist and the two Americans formed this group in 1998. J��rgen Friedrich has been professor for composition and arrangement at the College of Music in Manheim, Germany since 2006. At the time of the group��s formation, he had travelled to New York to receive the Gil Evans Prize. During his stay in New York, he met John H��bert and Tony Moreno at a jam session, and the musical electricity bet- ween them was so strong that they immediately decided to record a CD together. Since that time they have gotten to- gether every year to tour and record. Whoever hears the trio today immediately senses that that same electricity still courses through the three musicians �C with a sophistication and mutual understanding that allows for a finely nuanced interaction. The colours shift and change, played with a ca- sual virtuosity, at one stage loud another stage soft, as the intertwining voices pursue fascinating musical thoughts. J��rgen Friedrich, John Hebert, and Tony Moreno are a masterful trio who play music swirling with intensely vivid, luminous colours. Up until now the trio has always been associated with playing their own compositions, so it is quite a thrill to listen to them play one of the classics of jazz, one of the most famous and most played: Thelonious Monk��s Round Midnight. Here it is immediately clear: no one has ever heard Round Midnight played the way Friedrich, H��bert, and Moreno play it. Quasi from the outside with exceptionally delicate pianis- tic impressions, the music closes in on the interpretation of the theme as it emerges in its first outline��and this straight- away in the piano��s intro-solo, with new harmonies, neither fragmented nor embellished with extra tones. It��s almost magic how the theme��as opposed to today��s trends��is played verbatim, and then is ingeniously guided into new spheres until it culminates in joyous, bluesy recapitulations of the motif. Here the handling of this classic is completely traditional (in the sense of an explicit rendition of the theme with the improvisations essentially kept close to the theme��s intent, which in turn is a new approach in today��s music) and at the same time totally up-to- date (in the sense of an ama- zingly innovative musical transformation). J��rgen Friedrich, John H��bert, and Tony Moreno are expo- nents of the highest art of the piano trio. They are jazz chamber musicians who rule over both the graceful and the gritty��a masterful trio who play music swirling with in- tensely vivid, luminous colours. Refinement and imme- diacy: seldom does one find this combination in such con- summate harmony. REVIEWS This trio is one of the most dangerously empathetic ensembles working today. One part Bill Evans mixed with one part Myra Melford plus three parts individualism. In the world of introspective, feeling, and sensitive pianists you cannot find many stronger jazz pianists than Jurgen Friedrich. He has crafted a unique style that, no matter the context and no matter who he works with, the surrounding musicians always change their playing to match this young immensely talented musician. Hebert��s playing is absolutely spectacular throughout. He is not responsible for outlining harmonic structures but is free to play inside of those structures, elucidating a chord here or a return to tonic there just by his mere use of hints or allusions. Moreno��s drumset work is, at most times, more about color and how he reflects on the proceedings instead of anything as banal as time keeping. A truly great recording.?Thomas R. Erdmann / Jazzpreview.com??Three passionate tonal painters who act with the most valuable of all colors: heart and soul.?Reinhard K?chl / Jazzthing??Organic structures and driving pulse. J��rgen Friedrich convinces with a soundwise and compositionally excellent album. In the jazz piano trio scene, itself amply occupied by prominent talent, this trio deserves recognition that it has found its own language. It is great how it has constantly developed this originality with a new thrust of ideas and intensity. J��rgen Friedrich has delivered us an early masterpiece with his youngest album Pollock: playful energy, tonal-harmonic complexity and the interpreters�� and composers�� experience and ability to control combine in the recording, which is also excellently recorded. The trio opens Monk��s classic ��Round Midnight�� into an impressionist space and serial extrapolations, then seizes rondo and rhapsodic structures and integrates alternative contemporary pop impulses into the melodics. The well-rehearsed trio fosters a delicate harmonic architecture as well as drive and dynamics.? Rainer Be?ling??Critic`s choice. Today, piano trios are being produced in excess. If one of them wants to stand out from the crowd, it has to be very good. This one is just that. In association with John H��bert, bass, Tony Moreno, drums, Friedrich weaves fine, complex tonal structures which one can associate as much with the free expressivity of a Jackson Pollock as with the romanticism of a Bill Evans.?Bert Noglik / MDR Jazzzeitung??Jazz CD of the month. As one can hear on its earlier albums, this trio does not idle �C and this is extremely seldom in the history of jazz. J��rgen Friedrich and his American partners, John H��bert and Tony Moreno, establish themselves as one of the most interesting trios of current jazz with this coup.?Werner Stiefele / Audio??The magic of interaction. The trio made up of the pianist from Cologne, Germany, J��rgen Friedrich and the New Yorker dream team, consisting of the bassist John H��bert and drummer Tony Moreno, has been active for ten years and lives out the transatlantic entente cordially and musically. The title of their fifth CD, Pollock, refers to the US action painter, Jackson Pollock (1912 �C 1956), who was influential beyond the realm of painting. And in the central three recorded tracks, of eleven, the trio takes Pollock��s dynamic way of working as a productive approach. In tonal collective improvisation, the trio juggles and balances from the moment itself with much empathy, which attunes into tonal colors, melodies, texture, etc.: amazing parallels to their visual paragon! Accessible trio music in spite of its fine complexity, full of contrasts, widely diverse, independent and played at the highest level. Five stars.?J��rg Sommer / Aargauer / Mittelland / Solothurner Zeitung??With lightness. The German pianist J��rgen Friedrich and the Americans John H��bert (bass) and Tony Moreno (drums) are able to spark ��Round Midnight,�� a pearl nearly played to death, with new facets: indeed, this represents the high point of the CD. It is impressive with which playful lightness Friedrich, who as the first European received the Gil Evans Award for Jazz Composition, creates a liberated lightness. There is no tone too much, nothing seems demonstrative with all compositional sophistication. The CD exudes a relaxed, yet enthralling atmosphere. Although one is not lulled at any position by familiar cliches heard a thousand times, but rather is confronted with new ideas, one feels enshrouded by the music in a bewitching manner. The three celebrate chamber-like jazz eye to eye with the great trios of Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett. Sound and music: five stars.?Reiner Nitschke / Fono Forum??A fascinating piano trio CD thanks to the special coherence of the protagonists, a coherent masterpiece of interplay that has grown over many years! The trio masters the art of the tonal painting in the most wonderful colors that can shimmer and illuminate, applied here tenderly, there powerfully. Soulful music from fascinating shades of color.?Tobias B?cker / Jazzzeitung??There��s an alluring sense of discovery about the trio of Jurgen Friedrich (piano), John H��bert (bass) and Tony Moreno (drums). The group, a serendipitous accident, continues its exciting chemistry on this second Pirouet album. The dark-hued Samarkand, a wonderfully fluid Ripple, the interaction out of the brief theme for Billy No Mates or Friedrich��s lovely Over, the musical storytelling of Flauschangriff �C all shun superfluous gesture. It��s a restraint that applies also to three improv interludes and, especially, to the only non-original, Round Midnight, which pulls off the difficult feat of combining respect with individuality. Five stars.?Ray Comiskey / Irish Times??The trio has a way of playing that gets to the heart or crux of the matter.?Doug Simpson / Audaud.com??J��rgen Friedrich composes diametrically, on various levels. The contrasts are what attracts. An excellent pianist who knows how to oppose the flow of the elements. ? Tom Fuchs / Piano News??One does not need to read the current and numerous positive reviews. One simply feels that three musical personalities have found each other in the music; a pianist, however, should be celebrated here above all.?Ulfert Goeman / Jazzpodium??Pianist J��rgen Friedrich has that certain indescribable: he has his own sound.?Katharina Lohmann / Amazon Editorial Department??One will not only hear more from this pianist. One wants to hear more. Absolutely.?Rheinischer Merkur