Jazz da Gama

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What makes Yelena Eckemoff so compelling an artist is that her narratives draw you into their worlds with a mesmerising simplicity that tellers of fables like Aesop, the Grimms and – refusniks and naysayers notwithstanding – Roald Dahl. Pick any story by those narrators and read, then listen to one told by Ms Eckemoff and you will be spellbound with all concerned. Ms Eckemoff has – to my mind – a slight edge because she sets her tales to music and has a marvellous sense of orchestration to draw you further into her world [and that of the story] as if she were creating an operatic score sans the de rigueur aria.

If you [the reader] thinks that this sounds like hyperbole… well perish the thought and dive into the world of the Lonely Man and His Fish. Like the stories told by those mentioned above, Ms Eckemoff’s story is utterly beckoning and once you begin to be drawn into its narrative you are hooked until the proverbial end. What makes Ms Eckemoff so special is that she has a history of creating partnerships with her ensembles elevating them to new levels. This, of course, extends to individual musicians [and the ensembles] whose performances are elevated to a new level. Ms Eckemoff remains the principal character [in all her narratives] who – in turn – galvanises her musicians to create the intensity of a live concert – like a short instrumental pantomime.

This magical ability by the pianist and composer, who in the studio, generates this is not just for the microphones and her ear for orchestral colour is extraordinarily acute. First of all, her compositions reveal that she has a proximity with nature that is supernal. It’s almost as if, when writing, she literally takes the form each of the characters that she intends to give life to. Then withdrawing herself from her two-dimensional creations she regards them from a safe distance and begins to add the third and fourth dimensions, to sculpt them and – like a kind of later-day Geppetto – to bring them to life. This is the kind of magic that makes the Lonely Man and His Fish seem real; and come to life.

Now her genius for orchestration comes into play. On the recording in question, she sets up the narrative on disc one. Here the principal protagonist is the Lonely Man. He is “played” by Kirk Knuffke – or to be more specific – by Mr Knuffke’s cornet. For his part Mr Knuffke makes masterful use of the unique conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality of the instrument [and its natural transposition in B♭] to literally become the Lonely Man. Throughout the development of the story – and the relationship between that Lonely Man and His Fish an instrumental/narrative relationship develops between Mr Knuffke and his cornet [which is now the voice of the Lonely Man], and the other protagonist – that is The Fish, played – or voiced – here by Masaru Koga and his Japanese flutes.

The dramatic twist and turns takes place after the Lonely Man meets with an accident and ends up in hospital. Then, on disc two, the Fish begins an adventure of a lifetime as he falls into the hands of a nurse entrusted to care for him. Ms Eckemoff’s score is now turned over to Mr Koga and his bamboo flutes to voice the Lonely Fish who is – quite literally put through the ringer – by being taken out of the safety of his aquarium and dumped into a large pond. Mr Koga’s virtuoso performance – like Mr Knuffke’s as the Lonely Man – captures all the dramatic palpitating splashes – often jittery shimmies and a slithering dive into thick underwater weeds – in the misadventure of the hapless Fish.

Yelena Eckemoff [centre] with [left – right] Ben Street Eric Harland, Kirk Knuffke and Masaru Koga

Like Mr Knuffke’s performance on cornet as the Lonely Man, Mr Koga’s buoyant performance as the Fish in the story is magical both in the manner of which both musicians bring the character [of man and fish] to life. Through his deft use of orchestral colour Mr Knuffke can paint a dusky, impressionistic picture of backdrop upon which, with bittersweet wailing, his Lonely Man navigates his life. Mr Koga is tasked with recreating a much livelier character who bedazzles his lonely, almost wan looking patron and elevates his ordinary life swimming around his aquarium, then – as his fishy life takes a dark turn, the flutist matches every dramatic twist with a virtuoso performance to match.

If you approach this recording of Lonely Man and His Fish was a two-dimensional interaction between a human and an aquatic creature, perish the thought. Ms Eckemoff together with her harmonic and rhythm partners – the inimitable bassist Ben Street and drummer and percussionist Eric Harland – have set about to provide vivid atmospherics in which walks the Lonely Man, just as his beloved Fish enjoys the adventure of a lifetime. This may sound like a children’s story. But as with Aesop, the Grimms and Mr Dahl we now know there was never an adult who was not seduced by the adventure or found an important lesson to learn. The added dimension is the wonderfully written music and the ensemble’s cultured playing, deftly imagining the unfolding story. As always, Ms Eckemoff’s written word accompanies the music in a lavishly printed booklet – mimicking, in a way – an opera’s libretto. And, also – as always – in throwing herself and drawing her musicians into her world Ms Eckemoff pulls off another wonderful recording.

Deo gratis…

Music – Disc One – 1: Lonely Man; 2: Pet Store; 3: First Evening at Home; 3: Breakfast for Two; 5: Man and His Fish; 6: Accident; 7: In Hospital. Disc Two – 1: Into the Wild; 2: Life in the Pond; 3: Survivor; 4: Empty House; 5: Song for Spark; 6: Call for Friendship; 7: Dreaming Together

Musicians – Yelena Eckemoff: compositions, piano, Fender Rhodes Suitcase 73 and Musser Ampli-celeste; Kirk Knuffke: cornet; Masaru Koga: Japanese flutes; Ben Street: contrabass and electric bass; Eric Harland: drums and percussion.

Recorded –2023
Label – L & H [cd806 151-34]
Runtime – Disc One 41:47 Disc Two 45:32

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If Yelena Eckemoff were a visual artist and this music were to be depicted upon an appropriate canvas, that [canvas] would most certainly have been an enormously long mural. It’s also worth noting that Miss Eckemoff is, indeed, a visual artist and her impressionistic works generously endow this production; however, strictly speaking about her musical creations now, she seems to always conceive of things on a rather epic scale. The definite article in the title, Adventures of the Wildflower suggests that she has taken her naturalist’s microscope to one said wonder of nature in the garden of her mind [and very possibly one where she resides too]. Starting there this work germinates into a whole universe of nature and that too, in all its wondrous spirituality.

Yelena Eckemoff and her Finnish band[/caption]Of all the composers that dot the contemporary map, Miss Eckemoff appears to have a particular genius for extrapolating on an idea with almost childlike wonder. The result is music which is guileless and beautiful. She told similar stories – about nature that is – with Blooming Tall Phlox [2017], In the Shadow of a Cloud [2017], Desert [2018] and Nocturnal Animals [2020]. And now, with these two discs, Miss Eckemoff bids us follow her into the country garden of her mind where we make friends with a wildflower as its life unfolds in a drama of earthy, visceral passion. Along the way, we also make a dog and a mouse, chickens, skittish butterflies and hummingbirds, and gamboling children – all of whom come alive according to their nature. It is a cycle of life, described in music, which treats the whole process with due reverence to a Divine creator, who we – predictably – cannot see, but are always conscious of because of reverential tone-textures pervade this eloquent, multi layered music.

You hear this almost immediately in the ethereal beauty of the Theremin played by Jarmo Saari, which heralds the start of the cycle of life in the very first song on disc one – “In the Ground”. Miss Eckemoff then leads the rest of the ensemble with the elegance of her piano playing, for which she is renowned, and we are subsumed by the musical topography of a natural landscape that mixes beauty with danger, reverberations evocative of birds and animals, and children, as we drink in the heady sounds of the elements that come alive in nature that broadens from a humble back-garden to one that evokes the whole of planet earth – if not even Eden and Elysium. Both discs feature beautifully crafted arrangements of beguiling variety and sensuousness, in every lovingly-caressed phrase of Adventures of the Wildflower.

Miss Eckemoff has, over the years of her career, also shown herself to be extremely astute at picking the musicians to embark with her on various projects. This two-disc set is no exception. Mr Saari – who is introduced to us on Theremin, also plays an assortment of guitars and glass harp. One is tempted to go so far as to suggest that his inclusion – together with that of Panu Savolainen, who joins in on vibraphone [and, of course, Miss Eckemoff, herself] – are probably pivotal in shaping the overall sound of this music. This is especially evident in their performances with which they seductively bend and shapes the notes of some of this music – particularly “In the Ground”. However, saxophonist Jukka Perko pays his way handsomely throughout – note how he sculpts the long inventions of “Rain” and “Hummingbirds”. Meanwhile Antti Lötjönen’s contrabass and Olavi Louhivouri’s percussion colouring bring the earthy rumbling of nature to life.

Whether evocative of the rustle off spring, the steamy hiss of summer, long rainy days and the elemental and visceral vortices of nature in all its glory, each track takes us into a plethora of some wild situations and places – full of darkness and light – with trusted and inspiring musical friends.

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The term “expect the unexpected” may have become somewhat trite from overuse, but in the case of any new music from Yelena Eckemoff it certainly is true. Moreover, her work is always deep and extremely well-crafted artistically and technically. Lots of artists strive for this and many succeed, but somehow none seem to do so in the manner that the pianist does.

On her 2020 double-CD Nocturnal Animals though, Miss Eckemoff attempts something rather extraordinary – and succeeds beautifully. On these fourteen songs Miss Eckemoff delves into the world of therianthrophy – or put in a more appropriate manner, she becomes a nagual spirit. What this means that she is shapeshifting – her human form is metamorphosing into animal forms; nocturnal animals, to be precise. This is much more than merely a fabulous idea; it’s a belief. But to make it work she rightly assumes the form and character of individual animals and “sings” to us in their voices. The notes of those songs collide with her human form and from here they are given voice.

The French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, an extraordinary figure in 19th century music and further inspiration for the French Impressionist School and whose students included Gabriel Fauré, wrote the iconic, humourous suite Le carnaval des animaux (1886) co-incidentally also in fourteen movements. T.S Eliot wrote whimsical “light” poems and these became Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. But Miss Eckemoff’s work is altogether different even if it shares some characteristics of both M Saint-Saëns’ and Mr Eliot’s works. Moreover, Miss Eckemoff seems to write with the nerve endings on her fingers rather than a pencil and thus her work is much more visceral. Her poems – printed in the booklet – may be made up of words and metaphors that communicate to human beings, but the emotions and feelings – especially when imparted to the music are pure and seem to come from a preternatural place.

Shapeshifting is powerfully and constantly evoked and Miss Eckemoff assumes many different forms. The music changes accordingly. It is affecting in the crafty vibrations on songs such as “Fox” and “Wolf”, for instance. It has a certain roar on “Grizzly Bear” and is full of menace on “Rattlesnake” and also weaves in and out of harmonic and disharmonic structures on the latter just as a snake would when it wends its (seemingly) aimless way – until it spies a likely victim, that is. Like those pieces – cited at random – on Disc Two, the music has an extraordinarily sharp bite on “Scorpion” and is majestically languorous on “Sea Turtle”. Best of all, this is not something that the composer implies or scripts into her music, but using every available technique – from touch, dynamics, pedaling and other expressive gestures (from pianissimo to fortissimo and beyond) Miss Eckemoff turns the music into an elegantly primeval experience.

(Left-right) Jon Christensen, Yelena Eckemoff, Arild Andersen and Thomas Strønen

Miraculously, Miss Eckemoff has drawn the bassist Arild Andersen, drummer Jon Christensen and drummer Thomas Strønen into her musical wake. So compelling is her creative spirit that these musicians also perform as if they were shapeshifting themselves. It’s hard not to feel as if they too inhabit the music not simply idiomatically but as each of the beings they are drawn to portray as if they were those very natural beings too. There is a bittersweet aspect to this recording. It was the last one ever made by the great Jon Christensen. Moreover the legendary engineer, Jan Erik Kongshaug – another musical associate of Miss Eckemoff’s – also passed away after this recording was made. What a fine way to sign off on their individual legacies. Miss Eckemoff has also much to thank Rich Breen who mixed and mastered the music. The genius of this technical team shines throughout the warm and vivid sound of this ever-so-memorable recording.

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A musician like Yelena Eckemoff comes once in a lifetime – if at all. Ceased by a boundless imagination that is expressed in prodigious musicianship and pianism, in painting, and poetry, Miss Eckemoff has also proved beyond doubt that she has also been born with the Gift for Discernment. She proves all of the above once again on Colors, an hour and ten minute journey through what can only be described as a musical vortex through which she turns sound into colour (and texture), and vice-versa, fleshing both with out with – as ever – poems that are so sensual that reading them whilst listening to the music gives one the feeling of rolling in raw silk. Moreover, just to clarify Miss Eckemoff’s Gift of Discernment she has on this disc delivered a miracle in the form of sharing this music not just in duet with a drummer, but that too with the inimitable Manu Katché.

There are few musicians who seem to transcend time and school (of music) – in other words a period in history, telescoping everything from the distant past to the distant future in a collection of music. On Colors Miss Eckemoff simply picks up where she left off which appears to be sometime in days of future-past. And as with every preceding recording she has reached a new pinnacle of her compositional and pianistic powers, as if scaling a newer and greater height in her visionary career. Through it all her vivid imagination creates joyously work which is always rooted in idiomatically concrete nature. On Colors she seems to place herself in each piece inside a particular pigment. Magically then she emerges engaging you with a dancing personification of each colour, examining it from the inside out as if it had flesh and blood and palpitated with a heart of its own.

“White”, for instance emerges like a child pirouetting with evanescent joy. “Pink” rises like the body of a ballerina almost nude to touch, complete with the feeling of hot breath brushing tantalizingly past your ear as the pianist teases with the pirouetting melody. The heat is turned up with “Orange” to the extent that the music has an element of raw carnality. “Violet” unfolds in a slow mysterious ballad as if “sung” by a troubadour with a rueful feel. And on and on as we traverse with the pianist and Mr Katché through the myriad colours of this musical palette… Everywhere the music features thoughtful, melodic duets Mr Katché contributing to this music with what can only be described as rhythmic mysticism as he responds telepathically to what Miss Eckemoff sometimes barely suggests. Both musicians continue to ceaselessly ring in the changes in moo, structure and tempo, making for a constantly miraculous programme.

Once again Miss Eckemoff – this time together with Mr Katché – brings a considerable degree of balance and integration of melody, harmony and rhythm, of composition and improvisation, of exploration, individuality and tradition impressively maintaining and controlling it all throughout another mystic recording; this one like the one before and before that one, a suite of music captured once again in detail and warmth by incomparable engineering wizardry of Rich Breen; a record to absolutely die for.

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Yelena Eckemoff – like many artists enthralled by Biblical scripture – find themselves attracted to the Psalms – lyrical songs in praise of and addressed to the God of the Universe. The Psalms – together with The Song of Solomon – is one of two poetic works that have been included in the library of the Bible. Few books have been more inspirational to poets than The Psalms and The Song of Songs throughout the ages, firing up the work of the 10th century Hebrew poet Shmuel, “The David of (his) age”, great mystics such as Ibn Hazm of Niebla, Spain, Judah Halevi, the pillar of the Andalusian Jewish community, and the Sufis. Moreover, anyone familiar with the oeuvre of Miss Eckemoff will recall that there is a profound meditative quality to her music (even music in the recent past of her repertoire). So in a sense the arrival of this recording Better than Gold and Silver is not entirely unexpected. However, that this music – all of which is breathtakingly original is so filled with and once you’ve heard it even once the Miss Eckemoff’s interpretation of these Psalms (six in all) is startling; her interpretations of each is – quite stunningly – authentic in that she captures the utter simplicity of their ancient creators making these works at once old and new so much so that it is safe to say they will become part of the continuum of spiritual music even if the form of their creation is indeed of a secular nature.

In a sense guiding principle of this music is vividly reminiscent of the Stylus Phantasticus that was first spoken of by Athanasius Kircher’s Musurgia universalis a (1650) treatise on harmony in music that derived from phantasiren or “the art of improvising”. Evolving out of that Stylus Phantasticus of that era, Miss Eckemoff’s music also seems to represent a form of liberty in the composition of instrumental (and here, vocal music too) and does not attempt to confine the composer’s imagination or force it to abide by strict rules; in her case, of course, because Miss Eckemoff abides by the guiding principles of Jazz improvisation. This is another way to appreciate the extraordinary erudition of Miss Eckemoff’s music. And it provides a kind of road map for us to re-approach all of Miss Eckemoff’s music as it arrives at this point, which is her highly successful attempt to score these six Psalms in her unique style of (writing) secular music.

The title of this album Better than Gold and Silver comes from the “Teth” sequence of “Psalm 119” – the ninth set of stanzas of the Psalm where the psalmist praises The Lord thus: “The Law of thy mouth is< .em> better unto me/Than thousands of gold and silver.” This is not only the centrepiece of this two-disc set, but it is also one of the principal Psalms of the Biblical Psalter. Bishop A. F Kirkpatrick, Dean of Ely in The Book of Psalms (Cambridge University Press, 1902) reckons that this is the “great ‘Psalm of the Law’, based upon the prophetic (Ezra ix. II) presentation of the Law in the Book of Deuteronomy, with the spirit and language of which the author’s mind was saturated”. Mr Kirkpatrick’s description of that Psalm seems a perfect characterisation of Miss Eckemoff’s own interpretations on Better than Gold and Silver. Certainly Miss Eckemoff’s efforts as she lays out in the booklet notes follow her heartfelt and extraordinarily personal account of her journey out not only out of Soviet rule, but also into spirituality.

Miss Eckemoff’s musical setting of these Psalms – both in the vocal renditions and the instrumental ones – succeeds magnificently. The music here suggests that she as arrived at the pinnacle of her creative musicianship which is born of the great Russian Romantic tradition which reached its own apex with The Five, five prominent Russian composers who worked together to create distinct Russian classical music. Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin who all lived in Saint Petersburg, and collaborated from 1856 to 1870. Although Miss Eckemoff has always adopted a Jazz-centred approach to improvisation, in a sense her music has seemed to belong principally to the vivid palette of that indelible canvas. And in this regard she is supremely alone among all of her contemporaries – irrespective of cultural background – who rely on that Jazz-centred approach to music. It is exactly this aspect of her music that makes the music of these Psalms incandescent, profoundly human and intoxicating in their celebration of The Divine not only in the abject fervour, but also – the Spirit of The Psalms – in their lyricism as well.

What makes this highly personal interpretation appealing even as the Psalms are placed in a whimsical sequence – even truncated in the case of “Psalm 119”, is certainly the choice of the Psalms, which if followed in conjunction with Miss Eckemoff’s notes, becomes clear in the context of the Eckemoff’s search for existential meaning in the historic collapse of the only ideology they knew growing up in the erstwhile Soviet Union, which again is reminiscent of a kind of Dostoyevsky-like struggle with his conscience that led to his works like Crime and Punishment; and there are parallels in the turmoil of Miss Eckemoff’s music also with perhaps even some of Nikolai Gogol’s writings. Miss Eckemoff’s music here focuses on the life-affirming qualities of the Psalms rather than their ceremonial aspects (both in the vocal and instrumental versions). There is a genuine urgency in “Psalm 131”the opening of which is beautifully shaped and paves the way for the rest of the repertoire right through to the infectious joyousness of “Psalm 147” with which the discs end.

The musicians who accompany Miss Eckemoff on this journey – like those on all of her previous ones – are unfailingly responsive to her vision and artistry. The use of Christian Howes on violin and Ben Monder on guitar, as well as Ralph Alessi on trumpet is inspired and they respond in exemplary fashion conjuring harp, lute and shofar while Drew Gress and Joey Baron’s work often calls to mind rumble of gravitas and echo of timbrel. Miss Eckemoff is captivating and her pianism mixes wild mystery with coruscating brilliance. This becomes especially important when Miss Eckemoff leads the musicians into a decidedly modern interpretation of the ancient worshipful music used by Psalmists, obviating the need for the listener to make teh proverbial “philosphical leap” when “imagining” the sentiment of the respective Psalms, so crucial to approaching Disc Two. The vocal versions of this music on Disc One has a beauty all its own. Much of this has to do, of course with the vocalists. There is also superb solo singing: Kim Mayo is radiant in every appearance throughout and Tomás Cruz’s tenor is both resonant and dramatically compelling. This is, in short, Miss Eckemoff at her finest on a disc to die for…

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To allow oneself to be seduced by the music of Desert by Yelena Eckemoff is to be transported to edge of sand dunes in the Rub’ al Khali (“The Empty quarter” of Arabia). Even if Miss Eckemoff never experienced it by being physically present in that seemingly endless, undulant landscape her music captures its spirit that is at once unforgiving as it is capable of wrapping itself around you. The truth and veracity of the music is all-encompassing, just as Edmund Meisel’s score did for the drama of Battleship Potyomkin, (Mosfilm, 1925) the Soviet silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein; as it brought to life the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potyomkinrebelled against their officers. 

Not that Miss Eckemoff is in need for that kind of endorsement. However, the idea is to propose that a musician such as Miss Eckemoff is able to create her music in a manner that suggests the kind of out-of-body experience that artists of significant repute undergo in the act of creation. As it is with all of her work, Miss Eckemoff has created the music of Desert as if experiencing something of that nature – a musical séance – that seems somehow to have transported her to the vast expanses of sand and camels; the land of the Bedouin. It is true also that Miss Eckemoff seems driven by such European influences as might include Jean Sibelius and Bedřich Smetana should be counted – recalling, of course their profound works such as Finlandia and Má vlast (which included the piece De Moldau).

Miss Eckemoff’s Desert may comprise shorter vignettes than those of more chamber or orchestral scope by late classists. This is, after all, how the pianist conceived the album; each piece accompanied its own story using the written word in prose and verse. Similarly, with each work Miss Eckemoff may be seen (and heard) to open windows, through her mind’s eye into the Desert that she saw, and sometimes even “tasted”. Her melodies are unique and come from an exquisite ephemeral prosody, born of singular musical metre which is a collision Phrygian and Lydian modes, complete with undulating dyads, glistening arpeggios and dazzling runs as may be heard in “Bedouins”, “”Oasis” and “Dust Storm”. The latter is powerful and so potent that one recalls the experience of just such an intense ha’boob like it.

What is even more remarkable is that Miss Eckemoff was able to get the rest of the musicians to buy in to her experience and thus fulfill their parts in this music with vivid detail. The master-stroke, of course, is the inclusion of Paul McCandless. One feels fairly certain that this music may not have been anywhere near as successfully interpreted without his keening oboe and lonesome cor anglais. Add to that his masterful sojourns on soprano saxophone and bass clarinet and you have one of the most eloquent performances on any kind of chamber work anywhere in the world today. No less magical is Peter Erskine, whose genius here – far-removed from the groove of his erstwhile associations – is firmly in the pocket as well as redolent of the undulating rhythms of walking camels, while Arild Anderson’s bass comes with a majestic stoicism all its own.

Miss Eckemoff is at her best and in her grand, spacious pianism evokes the babbling voices of a souk dappled by the light and shade of the desert sun. She brings to life both the starless, ink-black desert night sky as well as a star-filled, purple one. Moreover, listened to in the warm acoustic of Rich Breen’s superb recording, after having been subsumed by the drama of her booklet notes, one is transported to a place of imposing dunes and moonlit oases, of soaring heights and mysterious depths, expectations, frustrations, doubts and hopes like the sheltering sky in a Paul Bowles novel.

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Robert Schumann once said that “…everything extraordinary that happens impresses me, and impels me to express it in music.” So saying, Schumann encapsulated his artistic vision as defining the Romantic era. Yelena Eckemoff is driven by similar impulses, except that in her case, it is not only the “extraordinary” that impels her, but also the “ordinary”. And like her compatriot, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, which imparts to her short pieces of music a kind of operatic sweep adding to displays of an unusually wide stylistic, emotional range and innocuous charm often found in Tchaikovsky’s salon works of innocuous charm and symphonies of tremendous depth, power, and grandeur. In Miss Eckemoff’s unusual pianism – which sometimes suggests use exotic harmonic devices such as the whole tone and octatonic scales – can also be found broad hints of the moguchaya kuchka (The Five); but only just…

Rather unusually, Yelena Eckemoff is also often spoken of in terms used to describe a Jazz musician. In actual fact she is not and the music on In the Shadow of a Cloud proves this as do the ten other albums that came before it. Her similarity to the Romantics and to Jazz seems to dissolve in her compositions and playing both of which are subsumed in an almost anthropophagic manner by the Romantic Era in classical music (and indeed all of classical music) as well as by the trickery of Jazz improvisation, and in the convention of classical polytonality as well as in the polyrhythms of Jazz, so much so that while others like her are said to “blur the (artificial) lines between the two musical styles, Miss Eckemoff actually blurs the musics themselves – as if in an agitating beaker containing both in liquefied form. And it is this ceaseless agitating action that Yelena Eckemoff creates music that is quite singular unto herself and no other musician.

So unique in fact is the music that it is only on Disc Two of this two-record set In the Shadow of a Cloud that we hear something resembling a familiar musical form; a waltz (the first of two) which appears under the name “Waltz of the Yellow Petals”. However, even here (as on the earlier, prancing “Picnic in the Oaks”) and perhaps characteristically so, the (latter) song is transformed, at its end, into a giddying dance performed by two characters – mother and daughter – chasing each other as if around a maypole. Indeed “mother and daughter” are the main (or the only) characters in this extended opera that unfolds under the shadow of the clouds – that, in their turn, change from dark and ominous to wispy and flirtingly beautiful. Thus too does the music, which is, by turns celestial and terrestrial, and full of glinting lights, mysterious depths, expectations frustrations, hopes and doubts, and at times like in “Vision of a Hunt” and “The Fog” like the shattered shadows of a sinister quasi-Borodinian scherzo, glimpsed by moonlight in a forest she left behind.

Yelena Eckemoff appeared full formed, ever since her very first recording; a creative time-bomb, primed and awaiting activation as if by the first bars of each of her compositions that she plays. Deeply autobiographical in content (which is also more concretely brought to life in the accompanying poetic booklet notes) each opus is like a public confessional of her Romantic tendencies and fertile imagination. However, unlike that arch-Romantic, Robert Schumann, Yelena Eckemoff does not employ ciphers and codes to say and sing what’s on her mind. Rather, like classic-James Joyce she lets it all flow out like a stream (in the opening bars at first) that becomes a flood (at the end) as the music surges on to its inevitable conclusion, with her accompanying poetry tumbling in harness as if loosed by the memories of her childhood. On In the Shadow of a Cloud Miss Eckemoff is accompanied by Chris Potter, Adam Rogers, Drew Gress and Gerald Cleaver, and James Farber (who recorded these events,)  and Rich Breen (who mixed and mastered the tapes) all of whom bear witness to her testimonials with the sensitivity of most apt confessors.

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Yelena Eckemoff is a singular musical voice. With every new performance in the studio or on stage Eckemoff puts a greater distance between herself from virtually all other musicians – pianists or otherwise. Every time that you listen to her and believe that that you have finally figured what she is ‘trying to say to you’, or believe that it is safe to give voice to her voice, it changes – not ever so slightly, but dramatically. It’s not as if you don’t know who she is anymore. It’s just that you feel as if you’re meeting someone who looks and sounds vaguely familiar, but then you soon realize it’s someone else; not in a frustrating, or in an agonizing manner either. Eckemoff has just enough of the ‘changeling’ in her to constantly elude you in every sense of the term: she is from the realm of the fays; a Tuatha Dé Danann who comes to life just long enough to make a tantalizingly beautiful record.

Eckemoff’s Blooming Tall Phlox has been positioned as her tenth album “since shifting gears from the classical music of her early career”. However, in this music one hears ghostly echoes of that music and an ethereal cosmos of other aural palettes, which assault the senses of the brain as if the memory was educing something so vital that it just had to be remembered. There is a science for that. Dr. Lewis Thomas writes about it in On Smell, one of ten unforgettable essays in his great collection Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. The magic of the olfactory jumps excitedly to mind because in all the fifteen pieces of music on these two discs, powerful smells trigger a myriad of magical memories, each of which somehow, equally magically, of course, is transformed into a moveable feast of sounds – melodies set free by Yelena Eckemoff on a gloriously tuned piano and harmonized by Verneri Pohjola, a young Finnish horn player, together with Panu Savolainen on vibraphone, Antti Lötjönen on bass and the percussionist colorist Olavi Louhivuori.

Not unexpectedly, Yelena Eckemoff embellishes the music with words – which in this instance have been written in irregular metre. Brought up on a heady mix and constantly changing mixture of classical and jazz music, one is torn between the extremes of Miles Davis – who frowned up on notes to music – and the scholarship of music historians and factotums without whose notes the study of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms was expressly forbidden. In the case of Blooming Tall Phlox your approach to this music will be suitably enriched. Disk 1 recalls the often sinfully delicious aromas of “Summer Smells”, as the pianist choose to subtitle the disk. “Old-fashioned bread store’, ‘Fish fried on open fire’ and ‘Pine needles warmed by the sun’ are particularly alluring. In the former piece, the moisture and viscosity of ‘greasy wooden shelves/(Are) soaked with the hearty odor of generations of/Loaves, baguettes, boules, kuliches, bagels and rolls…’ and somehow Eckemoff makes sure that you are able to separate the harmonically bittersweet berceuse of carefully gauged intensity in the exchanges with Savolainen’s vibraphone.

Disk 2 features music that is just as highly characteristic, intense in feeling, restless (sometimes), harmonically rich and well worth getting to know. This time Yelena Eckemoff conjures “Winter Smells” and each of the seven miniatures, no matter how unexpectedly brief, are equally poignant, slow and often fugal, and concentrated. “Smoke from the house chimneys in frosty air” beckon as the ‘snow crunches under the feet’ herald the welcoming ‘holiday cheer’ that no matter how dark and lonesome it is under ‘the low-hanging winter sky’ the music – especially that released from the resonating bell of Verneri Pohjola’s horn is always beckoning. Throughout, of course, the music is surrounded by a tonal style that embraces a wide array of influences from the traditional and the modern, the preternatural to those anchored in the cold, naked sod. At every turn is a witty interplay between the musicians – whether in the arco playing of Lötjönen, punctuated by the tuneful rat-a-tat of Louhivuori’s drums and Savolainen’s tinkling vibraphone. Always, too, is heard the many-splendored playing of Yelena Eckemoff – sometimes shining in a short solo whose scampering vivace passages which alternate with the gloss and glitter of a more stately andante.

Yet it is a performance, the like of which will never be the same the next time around because – well – that’s just how things are with Yelena Eckemoff.

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Raul da Gama for Jazz da Gama

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This is an enthralling disc, the first of the two that Yelena Eckemoff will probably do in 2016 as she, by her own admission, has been producing two each year since 2010. It is compelling on many different levels. To start with there’s the sense of sharing the sheer physical thrill of Eckemoff’s keyboard-writing. This is particularly evident in the faster movements such as the fierce and brilliant fugal piece ‘Love Train’ that features a three-way counterpoint between Eckemoff, violinist Mark Feldman and bassist Ben Street and in the outer sections of ‘A Date in Paradise’. Common to both is a sense of being fleet but never breathless, with time enough for textures to tell.

At every turn you get the sense of Yelena Eckemoff flexing her compositional muscles in this through-composed music that leaves plenty of room for improvisation. There is of course nothing innately classical or jazz about them and the origin though clear in in the title still has elements that are shrouded in mystery and need some decoding to get to, though in Yelena Eckemoff’s unabashedly trusting notes, reveals the true and deep effects of a gut-wrenching displacement of family is so memorably presented and so memorably recorded in eleven episodes. There’s a sense of Eckemoff demonstrating just how much variety she can introduce into a suite built the elements of that form which she has turned into her own and then extended into one she has made her own. In Eckemoff’s hands – and in those of the other musicians – ‘Mushroom Rain’ and ‘Spots of Light’ occupy their own worlds in terms of mood. Thus there’s a palpable delight in the rhythmically ungainly themes from which Eckemoff invites drummer Billy Hart to fashion his musical responses inventively, which are at once strong-jawed and supple. We’re always aware here of the subject, for instance, as it peeks through the texture in different registers or reappears stood on its head, yet it’s never exaggerated as is sometimes the tendency with less imaginative pianists – and drummers.

How Yelena Eckemoff can dance at the piano in the movements of every piece which are urged into life through subtle dynamics, voicings, articulation and judicious ornamentation. The very same brilliance is in evidence in the playing of Mark Feldman, who is the other main character in this wondrous narrative. And you can also say of both that the way they have considered the touch and dynamic of every phrase played means that these are readings that constantly impress with fresh details each time you hear them. Even in the most apparently unassuming numbers such as ‘Ocean of Pines’ there is a sense of intrigue, again bringing multifarious shadings to the music. Here, while Feldman revels in its echoing harmonies, Eckemoff draws you daringly into her own world as grandiose sonorities become more and more withdrawn.

You can be in no doubt of the thought that has gone into this enterprise, from Yelena Eckemoff’s ordering of the pieces, the story behind each, which she explains in the booklet, to the programming of the music itself right from the opening ‘Prologue’. At every turn she harnesses the power of the piano in the service of the music to mesmerizing effect, all of which is captured by a warmly sympathetic recording and engaging booklet-notes by the composer herself. Let’s cherish this disc, like we ought to do with every one that Yelena Eckemoff produces.

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