Craig Taborn Trio
Chants
ECM ****
There’s a rapport easy to ascertain on Chants but it is elusive in its individuality, as Taborn, recently heard making an important contribution on the Chris Potter album The Sirens, hides the harmonic direction of his improvisation in a virtuosic sleight of hand. The hypnotic repetition, a lot easier to detect in some electronic music it eerily resembles, part of the collective improvisational cues he equips bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Gerald Cleaver with. But it’s on the slower numbers, for instance the brooding ‘In Chant’, where Taborn and Morgan summon a kind of hidden-in-the-undergrowth atmosphere that provides a very different approach. Cleaver is very attuned to Taborn’s lead, but it’s the drummer’s offbeats and points of entry that really set him apart sometimes leading into brilliantly swinging passages. Taborn’s atonal sense is very strong as is his tenderness and controlled calm on the long ‘All True Night / Future Perfect’ the centrepiece of a very fine and rewarding album.
Stephen Graham
Craig Taborn, above
Photo John Rogers / ECM