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Aercine
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| REVIEW | SOURCE | REVIEWER | |
| Featuring Michael Jefry Stevens on piano, Herb
Robertson on trumpets, Mark Feldman on violin, Steve Rust on bass and Harvey Sorgen
on drums. This all-star quintet has been together for quite a while in different
permutations, including an early effort with Dave Douglas and Joe Fonda called the Mosaic
Sextet (reissued on GM), plus some half dozen different releases with varying personnel on
Leo. Commencing with some a dark piano intro, the rest of the quintet soon float in with the ever-incredible clarion trumpet of Herb Robertson and ghost-like violin swirls of Mark Feldman blend with the quirky rhythm team fragments. On "The Shokoe Slip", Herb is off on one his astounding high flying trumpet solos pushed by the propulsive start and stop rhythm team work, then its Michael's turn to display his formidable pianistics with another marvelous solo, followed by another amazing solo from the hottest violinist in town - Mark Feldman. Bassist Steve Rust, whom I am not familiar with, and Harvey Sorgen are splendid throughout, consistently spinning, listening, digging in, balancing and pushing all the soloists. Although, this music is completely improvised, there is an invisible thread, a connection of spirits that runs throughout - five outstanding musicians working together and creating a magical web around and between each other. Everyone plays acoustically and the production by Harvey and Steve is superb, warm, clear and perfect. Without any doubt, one of this month's (year's?) best. |
Dowtown Music Gallery | ||
| It's rare to find an album as compelling
as this one, and it's even more remarkable when all of the music on the disk is completely
improvised. There is a stunning empathy between the five musicians who comprise Aercine,
and the results of their musical relationship are sheer joy. Aercine crosses musical boundaries as easily as a butterfly moving from one kind of flower to another, then another and another. "Kaaterskill Falls" begins wit h an apostolic Appalachian-tinged theme fervently played by violinist Mark Feldman. It is a statement with inexplicable excitement, yet charged with passionate awareness--elation and pathos combined. Bass, drums, and piano come into the matrix and adding complexity, propulsion, and depth to the piece by building on the original theme in organic and unusual ways--the piano accents by Michael Jefry Stevens are reminiscent of Webern's pointillism, while the bass and drums tumble over the falls with exuberant kinetics. Feldman plays strong, surging variations on his theme throughout the piece, but a few muted solo bass notes end the piece in mystery. Throughout the recording the ensemble works with such precision and empathy that it would be easy to assume that these pieces are through-composed. That is one of the many strengths of this project; however, in fact they aren't composed, but fully improvised. Combining the discipline of precision playing with the creative freedom of improvisation is a wonderful dance, and one that this group achieves with ease. This music merges and blurs the invisible borders between modern classical and modern jazz idioms. On "Aercine" this smudging of genres is particularly evident--the piece is at once a tone poem, a John Cage piano filtered through a Charles Ives filigree, and a rumbling jazz etude all rolling into a unique gesture all its own. The whole album is filled with great surprises and adventure. This disc is very well recorded and the production values are first rate. |
All About Jazz | Farrell Lowe | |
| If you're looking for a CD that stretches the
(musical) boundaries, but doesn't sound like meth freaks playing heavy-handed hammers,
this is IT, kiddies! Almost 55 minutes of exploratory improvised sonic suite that will
sate your appetite for strange. The interplay between Robertson's trumpet & Feldman's
violin is simply beautiful, but in the overall, this quintet plays jazz that sounds almost
like jazz... heavily improvised, yet formful, these guys play (together) like there's no
tomorrow! Stevens keyboard chops are enchanting... Robertson's horn, on track 2, "The
Shokoe Slip", is pure life! Our friends at Drimala Records always pick winners, &
they've scored yet again with this fine album I listened to this 5 or 6 times through, and it's the kind of music that puts you out in a (mental/musical) zone you didn't even know existed... 45 minutes later, you pull into your destination, not even having realized that you just took a ride! Clean recording throughout, super balance on each of the instruments. Those with a love for improvised music will agree (without doubt) in our rating of HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! |
Improvijazzation Nation, Issue #62 |
Dick Metcalf | |
| Stunning technique, a never hiding sense of beauty and careful research. That's how I describe the extremely pleasant improvisation of "Aercine", a quintet composed of the Michael Jefry Stevens Trio plus Herb Robertson and Mark Feldman. This music can't be correctly defined, even if by my standards it could be adjacent to jazz - but I would not do the musicians any favour using this term. I try and recognize - most of all - chamber music influences; the interplay among these fellows is absolutely flawless and the first listen makes me think about scores and notated segments but no - this is only a perfect kind of self-regulating freedom and, probably, profound intuitive reasoning over each other's suggestion. That means striving towards perfection, something that Michael, Herb, Mark, Harvey Sorgen on drums and Steven Rust on bass have managed to achieve - almost completely. Hats off to all of them. | Massimo Ricci |
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| Michael Jefry Stevens is in the enviable
position of having almost thirty recording sessions behind him. Drimala Records feel that Aercine
is the pianist's strongest recording since his three famed Mosaic Sextet sessions in the
late 1980s. Harvey Sorgen and Mark Feldman were present on those groundbreaking
recordings. Michael Jefry Stevens is influenced on one side by Coltrane, Bill Evans, Cecil Taylor and Thelonious Monk but, on the other, by Mahler, Bartok, Debussy and Ravel. The free jazz environment allows Stevens the luxury of painting his music with a palette containing blues, rock, classical, jazz and funk. The resulting improvisations cannot be pigeonholed. This reviewer, being a traditionalists, is totally unfamiliar with the world of free-jazz but found much to appreciate and enjoy in spite of my handicap. Roundup and Renata were especially exciting and appealed to my traditional approach to jazz. |
Richard Bourcier |
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