CD OF THE WEEK
A dy Sheppard Quartet Surrounded by Sea (ECM)
Any who took up my hint and bought saxophonist Sheppard’s work with the eponymous Trio Libero should also enjoy this very fluid release.
Retaining the Trio’s rhythm section of Michel Benita on double bass and Sebastian Rochford on drums, he completes the new band with Norwegian Eivind Aarset on guitar – although his work is so delicate that you could mistake it for an occasional keyboard wash.
Central to the disc is the Gaelic song “Aoidh, Na Dean Cadl Idir.” When Sheppard was working on a project with Hebridean folk singer Julie Fowlis, he showed how his band would blend with her voice by dressing an à capella version of this traditional work in their sound. For this ECM version they have strung three snippets from a 20-minute recording across the album.
It makes me wonder why the Fowlis project failed, as the quartet’s approach is unobtrusive and Sheppard, who has a lovely tone to his tenor and soprano saxes, continues to be highly sensitive to the mood of a song.
This is the case with Elvis Costello’s “I Want to Vanish.” Sheppard plays many of the notes with an almost-staccato phrasing, which, by contrast, emphasises the smoothness of his sonorous held notes. It is a textbook example of how controlled playing can release the emotion in a tune.
This is one of several highly melodic pieces dotted along the string of the Gaelic thread like pearls. The best are Sheppard’s own compositions, including “Medication,” built on a simple ascending bass line, “The Impossibility of Silence” and “Looking for Ornette.” Filling in the gaps are several more impressionistic tone poems (which may be a bit too noodly for some).
It all begins with a gently relentless bolero-like rhythm from Benita and Rochford on “Tipping Point,” basic enough for Sheppard to improvise freely around. That simplicity seems to be the key, giving the musicians ample room to make things as interesting as they want, which they do as an intuitive unit.
This release is recommended for lovers of smooth instrumental jazz with a blend of lyricism and dreamy space.