Customer Reviews

It Takes Two

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This quartet joins the melancholy romanticism of Kenny Wheeler to two guitars (American John Abercrombie and Englishman John Parricelli) and double bass (Swede Anders Jormin). All the songs are Wheeler's save for the theme from Spartacus, so it doesn't come as a surprise that nothing accelerates much beyond a light mid-tempo swing or a wryly balletic tango. Wheeler's tunes fascinate jazz improvisers because his harmonic palette is challengingly distinctive, while never intruding on the music's deceptive, softly-humming simplicity.

Abercrombie plays mostly electric guitar and Parricelli nylon acoustic, but they interact as if they were regular partners, and the quartet's ensemble sound - with Jormin taking a strongly countermelodic role, and sometimes being the theme-deliverer himself - reflects real empathy and receptiveness in the participants.

There's also a strongly southern European and Moorish feel about some of the music, as if Wheeler's sometimes remote persona has been warmed by the fruitful relationship with Italy's CamJazz label. The title track is a gentle tango, with Jormin anchoring the pulse and developing it as an improvisation, and the wistfully moving ballad on Comba N.3 curls Wheeler's dolorous ruminations around the guitars. Overdubbing is used briefly for a Wheeler brass fanfare, Abercrombie has a deliciously singing solo on Spartacus, and Parricelli a very inventive electric one after the sighing long-note melody of After All. There are two free improvisations (in which Abercrombie gets almost raunchily Scofield-like) but though the mood of this set tends to the triste, there's a lot of movement in the depths below its gently undulating surface.

Kenny Wheeler is such an understated and subtle artist that his music is not something the discerning listener jumps carelessly into. Having said that this is the first of his albums to leave me a just little disappointed. That is not to say there is some beautiful music here, some fine playing and performances. A slightly unsatisfying recording would be perhaps be the best description. Outside of Kenny's flugelhorn, there are the contributions of the excellent John Abercrombie, John Parricelli - a British guitarist and the Swedish bass player Anders Jormin.

Highlights of the album are 'My New Hat', a dreamy number that opens with Jormin's bowed bass striking a distinctly Moorish motif before the two guitars, (electric and acoustic) enter, creating a space over which the flugelhorn floats in its melody. 'It Takes Two' follows - a typical Wheeler piece of music - the horn uncovering hidden harmonic and melodic spaces, then bending into the upper or lower registers in those sudden turns of which he is so capable, while the guitars trade an almost pizzicato style of soloing and accompaniment. But it is on track three, 'Comba Nr 3', that the combined talents of all four musicians come best together. A beautiful, haunting melody, full of, again, Moorish hints, southern European folkloric motifs and the north American urban landscape. The spacing of the instruments, their timing, their presence and absence at critical points make the track the prefect vehicle for Wheeler's unique musical sense.

Other high points are 'Love Theme from Spartacus', just the two guitars with fingers sliding and the occasional sigh or grunt delightfully adding to its immediacy. 'One of Many', a lovely flowing piece which John Abercrombie augments with his clear, singing guitar lines. And, 'Fanfare', an overdubbed horn piece that brings to mind the Gil Evans - Miles Davis collaboration of Sketches of Spain. The two improvised pieces, 'no 1' and 'no 2', are interesting but strictly just that, improvisations, that tempt but do not completely convince of their necessity.

Despite this the album leaves me a little wanting. It seems at times to float away, to become so understated in intent that you find your mind wandering and not wandering as it should into places the music brings it. Nevertheless, such has been Kenny Wheeler's credibility over the years that it may be it just requires more listening time. That it needs to sink in a little more before the entirety of its musical ideas, its palette becomes apparent.

However in the overall scheme of things these are minor quibbles. This is still an excellent and commendable work. An essential for those who lean to chamber jazz. For those who prefer the subtly of a Cézanne over the boldness of a Picasso.

It's such a promising line-up: Kenny Wheeler joining forces with John Abercrombie and John Paricelli on guitar, and Anders Jormin, the bassist responsible for the richly atmospheric sound (and as a composer, the best tunes) of the Bobo Stenson Trio. But it's precisely the contributions by Jormin that undermine (some would say ruin) an otherwise nice and mellow, highly melodious album.
Tracks 7 and 11, co-written by Jormin and Abercrombie but dominated by the former, are senseless pieces of free-jazz drivel that fade in from nowhere, hover around for a bit and then die a dismal, anonymous death. No structure, no discernible melody, just mood spoiling noise.
If you like your Wheeler lush and melodious, as on What Now? or Widow in the Window, you'd be well advised to give those two tracks a listen before you order this disc.