…almost 75 minutes first-class very calmly, very clearly Jazz trio pieces that undoubtedly deserve a perfect home at ECM (and accordingly have reached more music lovers). A fantastic trio, and yet it speaks for the boss that she dares a new line-up with each album and has not rested on this success afterwards.
Yelena is an expert composer who knows how best to use the talents of the musicians she collaborates with: the long flywheels of the double bass, the subtle play of the drum, everything perfectly enters a disc that is repeatedly listened with pleasure, despite the length that is over seventy minutes. ..The disc runs easily, without repetition, it is a journey into music, and words, if you read the booklet, which flows between the ice that melts off the first track and the March rain that ends the disc, between mists, moss, dreams, sunny days. There are so many emotions and sensations that surround and involve the listener.
Eckemoff translates her life experiences through the analogy of nature, humanizing the icicles, rain, clouds, and sun to reflect her own turmoil as an émigré and a survivor. She uses the harsh, relentless cold of winter that could represent the Soviet Union’s iron-fisted rule over its enslaved citizens, and the approaching spring as their way out.
Simply put, this is one of the best piano trio albums I have ever heard, and I am a big fan of Stenson, Jarrett, Taylor, Gustavsen, Wasilewski, and Bollani. Great playing, great composing, great production.
Eckemoff places very strong emphasis onto making melody as attractive to listener as possible and creating a range of kaleidoscopic mood changes. She is able to achieve a unique combination of subtle minimalism with climatic span of her music to obtain a truly captivating sound. Melody mostly oscillates around the peculiar darkness, beautiful sadness and reflection, and the pianist is more focused on creating the atmosphere than on showing her virtuoso technique. The greatest asset of Glass Song is that these tracks put listener in reflective frame of mind and give free ran to his imagination.
Music is so captivating, full of such contemplation that it makes it hard to stop listening in any point during playing. Unhurriedly in the agile, delicate pace, the artists create a world of sounds to the listener, which causes deep reflection to set it and provokes a variety of thoughts.
As a fan of the piano trio format you absolutely will not want to go without this CD, nor any of Yelena’s previous CD’s either.
A Russian of classical education, but since 1991 she moved to the USA and devoted herself increasingly to jazz, the pianist Yelena Eckemoff has been making trio albums with talented formations for some years, of which the latter – with two authentic “legends” such as Arild Andersen and Peter Erskine – it seems the spearhead. […]
Purchase Peter Erskine. This is the first time I hear this is the female pianist leader, Yelena Eckemoff (originally from Moscow), but when I look at the independent label Yelena Music site, she has released 19 albums including classical works. She entered jazz and started to work with drums since “Yelena Eckemoff / The Call” […]
The gifted and versatile pianist Yelena Eckemoff bridges different worlds, musically and attitudinally. She’s a classically trained player whose studies come through in various ways on her introspective and lyrical piano trio date. On these melancholic and bittersweet tunes, the immediate point of contextual reference and departure is linked to the ECM Records tradition. On the other hand, she carves her own way, cross-talking between genres while keeping her ear on the impressionistic endgame, with ample help from her collaborators.
Eckemoff’s classical background is audible in the intricacy and proportion and refinement of each song’s design, and in the measured caution of her improvisations. But she is more romantic impressionist than academic. Her forms, for all their order and precision, are heartfelt. Her sonic metaphors are often apt, like the pretty cycling phrases of high treble melody that stand for “Melting Ice,” and the splashes of light that represent “Cloud Break.”
Here and there is undeniably juicy creativity, the three not avoiding angularity or volume, but they also sustain an aura of peace. From the title of “Dripping Icicles,” we would expect to experience chilling, cave-like placidities. Instead, Eckemoff and her cohorts approach jollity; the pianist further demonstrates the great variety of expression she has at her fingertips; and the music swings. Each of Glass Song’s 10 tracks is pretty, powerful, and eminently listenable.
The lyrically inclined pianist Yelena Eckemoff’s new album, “Glass Song,” sounds like the best ECM album not released on ECM this year (it’s actually on L & H Production). Here, she enlists two formidable ECM regulars, the drummer [Peter Erskine] and the bassist Arild Andersen.
Peter is not “saving the world” with his drum-playing, he does very few things, but he does them in the right moment with his one and only art of playing drums. Arild Andersen contributes with beautiful melodies and solo-parts, Yelena is just Yelena: excellent! I love this work, it is already on my i-pod and on my car-music-stick. The hard copy has got a safe place at home. The cover and the music of “Glass song” wake up old ECM-feelings…anyway, a must-have-CD for real Trio-fans!
The slow, halting transition from winter to spring is captured in this gently meditative suite. Eckemoff, who comes in from a classical approach, writes beautiful, crystalline compositions and her trio has an organic, open sound, full of heartache and longing. The recording quality is stellar, the trio is very well balanced, and each musician gets plenty of time in the foreground. Lovely music.
The trio’s dynamic is highly interactive. Eckemoff’s restrained romanticism and gracefully unpredictable compositions leave plenty of space for Andersen’s assertive, at times overpowering, bass and Erskine’s remarkably understated drums. Poised on gentle dissonances, the hypnotic music soothes even as it animates.
From the silence opening first track “Melting Ice” through the closing notes of closer “March Rain,” pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff takes an aural odyssey through winter and the first hint of spring. ..Eckemoff has written poetry to accompany the songs, complementing the often-fragile compositions, but her pianistic poetry eloquently captures her reflections on nature.
Pianist Yelena Eckemoff is refreshing. She has carved a niche for herself with an eye constantly trained to still newer paths. ..This is not jazz about technicality, but rather about soul. And it’s only the beginning: Dreaming of good things yet to come, of love yet to bloom, of music yet to be made…
The look and sound of an ECM recording, but ….no, this gorgeous trio is produced by L & H productions out of Greensboro NC. All originals from classically trained Russian pianist Yelena Eckemoff, this trio is all balance, nuance and modulation— featuring the brilliant bassist Arild Anderson and drummer with a 1000 quiet beats in his kit, Peter Erskine. Day or night, this is a beauty.
Russian-born Yelena Eckemoff is a classically trained concert pianist who has more recently in her career taken on jazz, but has done so strictly on her terms. Her terms means she brings a European styled chamber approach to the idiom that doesn’t eschew using their chops, but does eschew showing off chops just for the sake of doing so. This means she isn’t giving us a not-so genuine take of over-tread standards aping Bill Evans or Brad Mehldau. For the record, I love how those guys played piano, but Eckemoff offers a refreshing break from those styles as she maintains a high level of musicianship, and that’s just as worthy of admiration, too. ..Yelena Eckemoff’s subdued musical character might require you to lean in like we often do when someone is whispering. In the same way as whispering, her music is rewarding for those who do make the effort to lean in.
Lovely piano trio album featuring pianist Eckemoff, and ECM Records vets bassist Arild Andersen, and drummer Peter Erskine. Actually, a self-produced recording, nonetheless, this music should appeal to the ECM crowd. Peaceful music that generates a lively warmth and thoughtful expressions of creativity.
While Manfred Eicher and his storied label have nothing to do with this record, Glass Song has that “ECM sound,” if ever it existed. Mystery, blooming musical thoughts and vaguely haunting notions are at the heart of this captivating album.
Pianist Yelena Eckemoff invites bassist Arilo Andersen and Peter Erskine (d, perc) to perform eleven new compositions collectively titled Glass Song. This is a peaceful yet dynamic program with lots of depth and texture. It is ethereal and relaxing as the band engulfs the listener in their musical cocoon. They border on free jazz but with very refined character.
“Glass Song” shows how successful trios can be in staying away from the boring threesomes that haunt lobbies and small clubs. “Glass Song” — with no reference to composer Philip — consists of 10 originals by pianist Eckemoff in a more-contemplative, sometimes-moody manner. Drummer Peter Erskine helps to provide a good sense of rhythm and percussive effect. The album has almost a chamber-like sound. On both, an individual approach to music stands out.
ssian-American pianist Yelena Eckemoff has made a career out of icily resonant, otherworldly themes that unwind at a glacial pace. Anyone who might hear her new album Glass Song and think “Windham Hill” isn’t listening closely enough. As brooding mood pieces go, this is just about as good as it gets: that the album’s catchiest and most upbeat track is titled Elegy pretty much says it all. The opening track, Melting Ice is characteristic. It begins so imperceptibly it’s almost unnoticeable, and then Eckemoff immediately engages Arild Andersen’s bass in a slow, prophetic conversation before the thaw sets in and the blues makes its way in through the cracks. Then they do it again, and again. What emerges is an uneasy blend of morose Satie-esque chromatics and casually bluesy tonalities.