Gary Peacock/Marilyn Crispell
Azure
ECM ****
If friendships and musical associations are about the ‘now’ and the ‘then’ Azure draws this sharply into relief with a burning intensity. The ‘then’ may have been the pairing of Peacock and Crispell with the late Paul Motian; the ‘now’, a music of risk-taking adventure and contemplation in equal measure. It’s also quite a moving album at times, and Crispell’s tune ‘Waltz After David M’ is just beautifully conceived within a post-bebop piano timeline that journeys back to Bill Evans but also reveals a significant compositional voice at play. There are goodbyes and lullabies, colours and dances on Azure, the duo performing tunes they each composed individually or in three cases, together. Crispell used to be a somewhat severe pianist – I’m thinking of the marvellous Kitchen Concert trio set for Leo recorded in the late-1980s – but Azure taps an elegiac sense with some tenderness on the lovely ‘Goodbye’. Listening to Peacock here is a wholly different experience to hearing the bassist with Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette, as on the recent Standards trio Lucerne live album Somewhere. The anti-grammar of the tunes on Azure, the role of Peacock as an equal soloist, and the radical conception of musical freedom they share make the experience of listening to him very rewarding. Azure challenges the listener with an accessible familiarity or so it seems; but it’s above all an album that values the mystery of experience, the seeking and the sought.
Released on 17 June
Gary Peacock and Marilyn Crispell above photo Elliott Peacock/ECM