Nocturnal Animals

Mirela Onel for Jazzthetik, Jan./Feb. 34. Jahr Ausgabe 292 

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The number of strokes with which the Russian pianist blows her albums out is always astonishing – this time it even turned out to be a double album. Even more astonishing is the prominence of her respective comrades-in-arms. On Nocturnal Animals Yelena Eckemoff’s band consists of Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen and his fellow countrymen Jon Christensen (ECM legend) and Thomas Stronen on drums. Eckemoff, who has lived in North Carolina for a long time, loves theme albums and has therefore added poems to Nocturnal Animals, which can be read in the CD booklet. “Nobody knows whether and what animals think,” Eckemoff philosophises, “but in my poems I have endowed each animal with a personality – they think and behave more or less like people in certain situations. Well, whether one can actually recognize a bat in the underlying tension of “Bat” is probably left up to each listener; the majestic “Toad”, in any case, is the first to erect a monument to the toad in a jazz context (Ginger Baker has already done so in rock). With this top-class band, Eckemoff has created atmospheric chamber pieces, mostly at a slow tempo, which not least bear witness to their effervescent ingenuity – whether or not a double album was absolutely necessary is irrelevant in the final analysis, since one can also listen to their music piece by piece. 

Original German:

Die Schlagzahl, mit der die russische Pianistin ihre Alben raushaut, ist immer wieder verblüffend — diesmal ist es sogar gleich ein Doppelalbum geworden. Noch verblüffender ist die Prominenz ihrer jeweiligen Mitstreiter, auf Nocturnal Animals besteht Yelena Eckemoffs Band aus dem norwegischen Bassisten Arild Andersen sowie dessen Landsleuten Jon Christensen (ECM-Legende) und Thomas Stronen am Schlagzeug. Eckemoff, die seit Langem in North Carolina lebt, liebt Themen-Alben und hat Nocturnal Animals deshalb um Gedichte ergänzt, die man im CD-Booklet nach-lesen kann. „Niemand weiß, ob und was Tiere denken”, philosophiert Eckemoff, „aber in meinen Gedichten habe ich jedes Tier mit einer Persönlichkeit ausgestattet — sie denken und benehmen sich etwa so wie Menschen in bestimmten Situationen.” Nun ja, ob man in der untergründigen Spannung von „Bat” tatsächlich eine Fledermaus erkennen kann, bleibt wohl jedem Hörer selbst überlassen, das majestätische „Toad” jedenfalls setzt im Jazzkontext erstmals der Kröte ein Denkmal (im Rock hat Ginger Baker das ja schon getan). Mit dieser hochkarätigen Band gelangen Eckemoff jedenfalls stimmungsvolle, meist in getragenem Tempo gehaltene Kabinettstückchen, die nicht zuletzt von ihrem übersprudelnden Einfallsreichtum zeugen — ob es dafür nun unbedingt ein Doppel-Album gebraucht hätte, spielt letztlich keine Rolle, man kann sich ihre Musik ja auch stückweise zu Gemüte führen. 

Jan./Feb. 34. Jahr Ausgabe 292 

Magazin für Jazz und Anderes

Yelena Eckemoff Nocturnal Animals L&H / In-Akustik ***–•

Mirela Onel for Jazzthetik, Jan./Feb. 34. Jahr Ausgabe 292 

Carol Banks Weber for Festival Peak

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Title: The Small and the Quiet of Yelena Eckemoff’s ‘Nocturnal Animals’

“Some hard music to record, fully composed, about 85 pages to read, 14 pieces,” Norwegian double-bassist Arild Andersen described of his Nocturnal Animals recording experience. Lots of pages, lots of notes, pre-destined in Yelena Eckemoff’s structured fashion, and yet, “It was great…somehow we sort of float on top.”

The classically trained, jazz-inclined Russian pianist and composer turned her musical sights to smaller things that go bump in the night in her upcoming Jan. 24, 2020 release on L&H Production. Eckemoff devotes 14 instrumental tracks — split in half, in a double-album — original artwork, and poetry to the dancers and prancers of the night: blooming cicada, tacky-sticky bat, walkingstick, fox, grizzly, rattlesnake, wolf, hedgehog, toad, lynx, scorpion, firefly in mating season, owl, and sea turtle, finding its last sea legs.

Nocturnal Animals plays small, in quiet, stealthy patter. The choice to go with double-bassist Andersen, who’s appeared on several of her past works, and two drummers, Jon Christensen and Thomas Strønen, blends well with the heartbeat of these animals that humans sense more often than see, and often, with fear and trepidation, if not wonder.

Eckemoff’s poetry feeds into the mythology and the science of each nocturnal creature. Her straightforward, vaguely romanticized descriptions seem factual, which then allows her to elaborate in more fanciful, presumptive language, putting us in the place of these featured night creatures for a spell.

The listener can both readily identify with what a firefly must be feeling during summer mating season, alight with promise, excitement, and hope, along with the biological rituals compelling these truths. How like them we are:

“Myriad attractive males are flickering their songs of passion;
Their chorus is so loud!
But I single out a special light; as it moves closer and closer,
I fix my eyes on the one whose light is of an especially tender hue,
And I fall in love at first sight.
I signal him with a flash of my belly, and I see that my feelings are shared.
Oh, how sweet it is to love and to be loved!
Oh, how fortunate I am to be able to drink the cup of life to the bottom!”
“Firefly” plays off that universal sense of wonder, relief, and first love in Eckemoff’s trickling, gossamer notes, as Andersen’s fluttering, darkened gaze moves the fireflies around in a world within a world out there under the evening gaze. Her touch on piano brightens and lifts, assuming fireflies’ pearlescent glow, swirled in effect under the double-bassist’s dowager gestures and, to a lesser extent, the percussionists’ subtly shimmering luster, stealing a mood.

“It is my prom tonight, my party time. I’ve waited long for this glamorous and exciting night, when I meet my groom and begin to live out my destiny.”
— “Firefly”
Eckemoff and her bass/percussive trio ease off from complete literal interpretation, save the recognizable lumbering of the Grizzly Bear in Andersen’s revved-up, deep and low bass.

Far from a sound effects album, there’s meaning beneath the notes, in the pre-determined pressure and lightness of beings in transit, in flight, trying to connect the natural world of nocturnal savagery under Eckemoff’s humanistic spell — their hissing crawlspaces, their dramatic, silent tension — with secret, noble, humane motivations.

There’s also a faint thread of melody weaving in and out, throughout. Not enough to hum a tune back and forth. But enough to experience what the cicada may upon awakening from gray to “white as a bride!” to “shiny black,” in the ultimate transformation from nothing to “beautiful creature.”

“Cicada’s” beautiful melody is short-term, lapsed, and hidden in satiny folds, captured with controlled tenderness in Eckemoff’s hands, and mirrored, vexed just as gently by bassist Andersen. Together, they stroke a cascading, give-and-take path for the young cicada to outgrow “grim underground tunnels,” out into the vast unknown on “sparkling translucent wings.”

Poignant inevitability underscores the last tune of the mother sea turtle, as she dares look back at the children she’ll leave behind to fend for themselves, and dares look forward to one more chance at spawning more “beautiful melodies, you, my dear offspring, will add much to the wondrous symphony of life.”

Eckemoff’s piano and Andersen’s bass walk along the shore, ripple into engorged waves, falling away in scintillating sheens of moon gloss — expressively refrained with cymbal curves. The piano-bass unite as a force, becoming stronger, leading the listener and the aging sea turtle away from stagnation and death toward one more stop, a “small rocky island” ahead. The journey’s long, and so is this final tune at well over eight minutes, but the small, sturdy ebb and flow, with sparkling piano, remains ever mesmerizing in its gradual ascent.

As Eckemoff lights this gradual ascent from darkness, she touches the eternal and the earthly with renewed purpose.

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Chris Spector for Midwest Record

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Nobody can ever accuse Eckemoff of not being ambitious. She has taken us a lot of different places over the course of her career so far and this time she takes us impressionistically into the world of nocturnal animals spreading the work over two discs. Surrounding herself with some first call jazzbos and venturing into having verse accompany her playing, this is quite the head spinning package. She doesn’t have to try hard to take her piano to new places but she certainly extends her reach here. A well done trip into the wilderness that probably exists right in your own backyard.

 

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Jan Granlie for Salt Peanuts

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The Soviet-born, but now US-residing pianist Yelena Eckemoff, must be a rarity in today’s jazz. She obviously has a penchant for Nordic life, and she must have some budget to help her art. Since 2009 she has made records with a number of well-known Nordic artists such as Mads Vinding, Morten Lund, Mats Eilertsen , Marilyn Mazur, Verneri Pohjola, Antti Lotioen, Olavi Louhivuori, Tore Brunborg, Arild Andersen, Jon Christensen and Thomas Strønen, as well as with international jazz stars such as Manu Katché, Ralph Alessi, Drew Gress, Joey Baron, Paul McCandless, Peter Erskine, Billy Hart, Chris Potter, Adam Rogers, Gerald Cleaver, Mark Feldman, Ben Street, Mark Turner, Joe Locke, George Mraz and more.

She moved to the United States in 1991, where she at first made several recordings in classical, vocal, folk, Christian music and new age. Her first jazz album, “Cold Sun”, with bassist Mads Vinding and drummer Peter Erskine, was recorded in 2009, and that Manfred Eicher of ECM did not pick her up there and then, may well be considered a mistake by the German. She has always been concerned with the ingenious and a bit strange in nature, which is perhaps why her relationship with the Nordic countries is so strong. Eckemoff was trained as classical pianist at the Moscow State Conservatory, and jazz has come to her crawling gradually.

Her records are relatively long, like this latest recording, a double CD Nocturnal Animals that was recorded in Rainbow Studio in Oslo with bassist Arild Andersen and drummers and percussionists Jon Christensen and Thomas Strønen. And although I won’t bet my monthly paycheck on it, I suspect this is the last record with which drum legend Jon Christensen concluded his career, and because of just that well worth the money to buy.

We get 14 compositions made by Eckemoff, and the landscape is as Norwegian as it could possible get. “Nocturnal Animals” is essentially a melancholy record, Eckemoff’s lyrical way of playing has a lot of Russian soul in it, and sounds like a longing for great open landscapes of the cold Russia. At the same time, there is much of the typical Nordic and lyrical feel to the music – that her bandmates are so well-versed in. Andersen is there with his typically singing bass tone, which you can recognize from one mountain peak to the other, and behind him plays Christensen in his usual way, along with Strønen, who is the one who holds the rhythmic section together. Christensen has a relatively free role, where he, more or less, does what he wants.

And although Eckemoff’s compositions do not come across as most original, at least from a Nordic point of view, they work well with these Norwegian musicians. In some of the songs, Andersen pulls it all up, like in the driving “Walkingstick,” where his “four flat” play elevates whole song in a nice way.

Eckemoff has many fine piano solos that sometimes run in opposite direction from Keith Jarrett’s way of playing. She copies no one, she is herself, and her relationship with nature makes the music sometimes sound like a kind of soundtrack to a film about Nordic nature. And with three Norwegians by her side, she creates a nice collection of songs. Songs maybe not strong all the way, but Andersen’s fine bass and the two drummers’ loose and great playing turn this record into something completely different from what David Attenborgh or likes of him would normally pick for their nature films.

Original Danish:

Den sovjet-fødte, men nå USA-bosatte pianisten Yelena Eckemoff, må være en sjeldenhet innenfor dagens jazz. Hun har tydeligvis en egen forkjærlighet for det nordiske, og hun må ha en del «penger på bok» til å gjennomføre sin kunst, siden hun siden 2005 har gjort plater med en rekke kjente, nordiske artister som Mads Vinding, Morten Lund, Mats Eilertsen, Marilyn Mazur, Verneri Pohjola, Antti Lotjonen, Olavi Louhivuori, Tore Brunborg, Arild Andersen, Jon Christensen og Thomas Strønen, i tillegg til internasjonale jazznavn som Manu Katché, Ralph Alessi, Drew Gress, Joey Baron, Paul McCandless, Peter Erskine, Billy Hart, Chris Potter, Adam Rogers, Gerald Cleaver, Mark Feldman, Ben Street, Mark Turner, Joe Locke, George Mraz med flere.

Hun flyttet til USA i 1991, hvor hun gjorde flere innspillinger innenfor klassisk-, vokal-, folk-, kristenmusikk og new-age. Hennes første jazzalbum, «Cold Sun», med bassisten Mads Vinding og trommeslageren Peter Erskine, ble innspilt i 2009, og at Manfred Eicher i ECM ikke plukket henne opp der og da, må vel kanskje ansees som et feilgrep fra tyskerens side. Hun har alltid vært opptatt av det underfundige og litt rare i naturen, og det er kanskje derfor hennes forhold til Norden er såpass sterkt. Eckemoff er utdannet klassisk pianist ved Moscow State Conservatory, og jazzen har kommet krypende til henne etter hvert.

Hennes produksjon er relativt stor, og på hennes seneste innspilling, en dobbel-CD, har hun vært i Rainbow Studio i Oslo og innspilt med bassisten Arild Andersen og trommeslagerne og perkusjonistene Jon Christensen og Thomas Strønen. Og selv om jeg ikke kan sette en månedslønn på det, så har jeg en mistanke om at dette er siste innspilling med trommelegenden Jon Christensen, og bare det er verdt pengene for disse to platene.

Vi får 14 komposisjoner gjort av Eckemoff, og landskapet er så norsk som det nesten er mulig å få det.

«Nocturnal Animals» er i hovedsak en melankolsk plate, hvor Eckemoffs lyriske måte å spille på, som har mye russisk i seg, og som kan høres ut som en slags lengsel etter de «store» landskapene i den kalde, russiske naturen. Samtidig er det mye av det typisk nordiske og lyriske i musikken, som de andre musikerne er vel bevandret i. Andersen med sin typisk syngende basstone, som man nesten kan gjenkjenne fra en fjelltopp til den andre, og bak «leker» Christensen seg på sedvanlig måte, sammen med Strønen, som er den som holder det rytmiske sammen. Christensen har en relativt fri rolle, hvor han, mer eller mindre, gjør som han vil.

Og selv om Eckemoffs komposisjoner ikke er de mest originale, sett ut fra et nordisk synspunkt, så fungerer det fint med de norske musikerne. I noen av låtene drar Andersen det hele opp, som i den drivende «Walkingstick», hvor hans «fire flate»-spill løfter det hele på en fin måte.

Eckemoff gjør mange fine pianosolier, som innimellom også heller over mot Keith Jarrett, men det blir aldri noen kopi. Hun er seg selv, og hennes forhold til naturen gjør noen ganger musikken til en slags «soundtracks» til naturfilmer fra Norden.  Og med de tre nordmennene ved sin side, blir dette en fin samling låter, som riktignok ikke er like sterke hele veien, men ved hjelp av, særlig Andersens fine bass-spill og de to trommeslagernes løse og fine spill, blir dette noe helt annet enn en følgesvenn til David Attenborgh eller andre som plukker musikk til naturfilmene sine.

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