Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Frank Gratkowski / Jacob Anderskov: Ardent Grass
Frank Gratkowski / Jacob Anderskov: Ardent Grass
There's a little of
Anthony Braxton
woodwindsb.1945
Frank Gratkowski
saxophoneb.1963
Jacob Anderskov
piano
Cecil Taylor
piano1929 - 2018
By comparison, the title track is ruminative and fraught, but both men know that any pondering this might provoke has no more than a momentary function. Not a moment seems to pass without being marked by some musical development, but those developments prove to be but links in a much greater chain, given the musicians' abilities. When Anderskov nails rolling figures rife with momentum, Gratkowski is right there with him, and the result covers the ground with nary a faltering step.
On clarinet, Gratkowski exhibits an almost classically correct tone, but the uses he puts it to result in some of his most persuasive work of the whole program, especially on "Devotion"—which, perhaps because of the title, is more reflective than anything else in the set. This does not, however, make for anything predictable, especially in view of the fact that Anderskov reins in his obvious capacity for boiling. In the ditching of dogma that this implies, he substitutes a kind of intentionally faltering approach. The duo still manages to avoid implications of chamber music, however, and this is thanks largely to the intuitive understanding of its players; the depth of which has the effect of making its music sound more profound than anything to be gleaned from simple reading of notes off a page.
Anderskov's odd left-hand punctuations on "Downstairs" become, soon enough, just one musical sub-text in the midst of three, and when he gives up on them it has the effect of taking the music, not to a higher level, but just one that's different. In lesser hands, such an exercise might not come off, but here it does because there's nothing casual in the way this duo goes about making music—thus, something of an object lesson. ">
Track Listing
Narrative; Diagnose; Ardent Grass; Asteroids; Rasa; Devotion; Downstairs; Sound Check.
Personnel
Frank Gratkowski
saxophoneFrank Gratkowski: alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet; Jacob Anderskov: piano.
Album information
Title: Ardent Grass | Year Released: 2011 | Record Label: Red Toucan Records
Tags
Frank Gratkowski / Jacob Anderskov
CD/LP/Track Review
Frank Gratkowski
Nic Jones
Red Toucan Records
anthony braxton
Jacob Anderskov
Cecil Taylor
Ardent Grass
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