Julie Sassoon Quartet - Fourtune

The Guardian 80

(Jazzwerkstat)

There are creative contemporary musicians whose origins and agendas let you roughly place them in the scheme of things in a couple of sentences, and there are those who defy summaries – such as Julie Sassoon, the Berlin-resident British pianist, who studied jazz piano and Indian violin and has worked since the millennium in jazz, world-music, multi-piano ensembles, solo ventures and improvising chamber groups, but regularly returns to partnerships with the atmospherically voicelike reeds-player Lothar Ohlmeier. Fourtune is her first quartet set, joining them with the powerful duo of bassist Meinrad Kneer and drummer Rudi Fischerlehner.

The opening Cloud patiently locates its melody in Ohlmeier’s pure-toned whispers and softly whistling tones; To Be opens with Kneer’s richly nuanced bass and develops a four-note motif echoed by tom-tom rolls and then soprano sax; the dramatic Wake Up Call is variously thoughtful and frenetic. Trumpeter Tom Arthurs makes telling appearances on two tracks – notably the pristine and evocative White Notes (For JKM) – as part of the latest evidence that Julie Sassoon continues to steer her own discreetly eloquent path.