Customer Reviews

Solstice Sound & Shadows

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This CD contains all of the elements that made ECM the most interesting label of the 70's. Challenging, advanced music that offered all the things that new age music promises but never delivers: substance married to mood. Don't get me wrong; this is definitely jazz music, but it's a long way from dixieland!

Edgar Allen Poe wrote that the "most legitimate of all poetical tones" is "melancholy." I think he would've liked this album. If you've heard--and like--Towner's "Solstice," you'll enjoy this one too; it's cut from the same cloth. Every song features Towner's enormous-sounding twelve string, which functions more like a chamber group than a guitar, filling the tracks with intrigue and atmosphere. On top of this, Eberhard Weber contributes some of his best work, wringing a moaning eloquence from his electric upright. Charlie Mariano is replaced by Jan Garbarek on soprano sax, a substitution that doesn't work quite as well for me (I've always found Garbarek's tone a bit piercing), though he still sounds great.

This is one of the 4 or 5 albums I play on a rainy Sunday (along with Weber's "Yellow Fields" or "Following Morning," the first Return to Forever album, Towner's "Solstice," and Keith Jarrett's "Arbour Zena.")

This record quite deservedly won the German equivalent of a Grammy award. It comes at a time when Ralph was composing some of his very best works, and it seems that extraordinary consideration was given to choosing ensemble members for their individual sounds. The result is an extraordinary ensemble sound which is beautifully recorded and deserves to be listened to on the finest of stero systems. All aspects of this word: the compositions, the playing, and the recording itself, are inspirational.

Try the album called Solstice first. This one is by the band called Solstice.

This one is good , but...my first impression is that Jan Garbarek's horn is mixed a little to much to the front.I prefer his sound when it echoes off the fjords.

I was hoping it was the two albums on one cd but it is not.This is a set of different music by the group that recorded the original album "Solstice" on ecm records.

Contrary to the Penguin Jazz Guide, which gives Solstice, this album's predecessor, a top of the range four stars, and this only three, my own preference is for 'Sound & Shadows', because I feel it has the greater warmth of the two. Both have a stripped-down, classical feel to them, while Towner's crystalline guitar and Garbarek's keening reeds, emphasise the discipline these extraordinary musicians bring to their music-making.

Sound & Shadows acoustic seems warmer than the dry tone of the previous album, the band have been together for another three years, and Towner throws some piano and even French Horn into the mix, which adds to the warmth (and variety) of the soundscape. Perhaps it's also because there seems more individual personality and character to some of the pieces, with 'Distant Hills' and 'Balance Beam' both having a wisful, haunting tone, evident in some of the solo work and ensemble playing. There seems a greater sense of atmosphere here to me, and the closer 'Song of the Shadows' also shares something of this elegiac quality. Immaculate musicianship throughout, and Weber and Christensen's propulsion unit is a wonder of economy and deft application. Music to listen to again, and again.

This is a good CD, it has all of the trademark sound engineering that made ECM such an interesting label. I have to admit that I was a tad disapointed with this one, it just isn't as "ear-opening" as the first Solstice release. But it is still good. Solstice = Amazing, great, an all-time-favorite. Solstice Sound and Shadows = pretty good and listenable.