Craig Taborn - Daylight Ghosts
The Guardian 80
(ECM)
However far from familiar paths the American pianist Craig Taborn strays, he sounds surefootedly convinced of his route, and however private his music, it emits a vivid intensity. Daylight Ghosts – a superb quartet set with Chris Speed on reeds, Chris Lightcap on bass and the Bad Plus’s Dave King on drums – operates in Taborn’s favourite free-floating manner: changing fragments of melody rather than dominant themes come and go, steadily transforming the moods. The Shining One mixes quick, boppish exchanges of motifs with twisting, written-unison lines. New Glory is exhilarating free-jazz with a Chick Corea-like Latin vamp in it, and there are deep clarinet and bass interludes, brief bursts of rock-piano riffing and subtle minglings of electronic loops and long-tone sax sounds on Phantom Ratio. Only players with deep jazz insights and wide musical references could have made this fine album.
Continue reading... Thu Feb 02 18:00:37 GMT 2017The Free Jazz Collective 70
The opener 'The Shining One' begins with a quick exchange between drummer Dave King and woodwind player Chris Speed, who delivers the track's corkscrew theme. Taborn's entrance is subtle and bassist Chris Lightcap delivers a powerful punch before stepping back into a supporting role. The concentric layering of the track's short melodic cells heap on the tension, but when the band seems to be just getting started, the track ends! The following song 'Abandoned Remainder' also starts out slowly, but picks up some heady steam while the group shows off a collection of jagged melodic fragments.
To my ears, it's track 6, 'Ancients' that serves as the centerpiece of Daylight Ghosts. Its lean framework lets the musicians stretch out with concentrated ferocity. I suppose the following 'Jamaican Farewell' feels like a bit of a letdown to me. It is a minimalistic and pretty ballad, but remains just a bit too ephemeral. Throughout, there are stretches where it feels somewhat static, the build is slow, like on the well titled 'The Great Silence' where Speed's clarinet plays forlornly over tiny splashes of chords, but even so, the sound is crisp and small movements make for big moments. These slower tracks are well balanced by others that catch fire like 'Abandoned Remainder' or are irrepressibly buoyant like 'New Glory', and it is these contrasts that make Daylight Ghosts, as a whole, a compelling listen.