Christian Wallumrod - A Year from Easter (2004)

Christian Wallumrod - A Year from Easter (2004)

jazz | 1cd | eac-flac-cue-log-covers | 295MB

ECM 1901

Allmusic:
What must be heard by contemporary jazz generalists as a typical ECM type European music creation, pianist Christian Wallumrod has conjured up a nomadic series of themes that touch on various strains of ethnic music. Echoes of classical and chamber musics, and Manfred Eicher's brand of tonally reserved, emotionally balanced, and coolly rendered sounds provide a rich but predictable musical palette. The title A Year from Easter might suggest many themes of hope, looking forward, sudden dismay, prayers for peace and justice, and post-distress emergence. While all that and more is present in the music, there's also a sense of forgiving, mutual trust, love, and that balance so needed in a life of ups and downs. Wallumrod must inevitably be compared to ECM stablemates Keith Jarrett, Mike Nock, and Bobo Stenson, but also to fellow Europeans Lennart Aberg, Thomas Clausen, and American icon Paul Bley. His band with violinist Nils Økland and trumpeter Arve Henriksen further draw comparisons to Jenny Scheinman and Kenny Wheeler respectively. Their sonic union with Wallumrod's piano or harmonium is a marriage of sheer beauty, wisdom and mutual agreement, and the CD unfolds like an epic novel. The dainty chamber like "Arch Song" starts the voyage, followed by the French/Middle Eastern requiem "Eliasong," with Wallumrod on harmonium. "Stompin' at Gagarin" pushes up the fun quotient, albeit deliberate and stealth, while the sad "Wedding Postponed" and the invocation "Psalm" turn the music somber and reverent. Sporadic piano and stroked-over toned cymbals on the percussive "Unisono" leads to the long toned sonic text piece "Lichtblick," the faux "Horseshoe Waltz," with its breathing and clattering sounds not in 3/4 time, and the somber afterthought visage of the title track, again identified by the harmonium. There's a delicate two-note actual waltz "Japanese Choral," Økland's pensive violin featured for "Sketch," a repeat of "Eliasong," Økland's violin assimilating a flute during "Neunacht," and the closer "Two Years from Easter" with Økland and Henriksen in a more resolved and hopeful mood. This CD, obviously, needs to be heard in its entirety, as there are really no stand-alone pieces. It's a wondrous journey though the human condition, to be shared and not recommended to loners or disenfranchised separatists of the intelligent music world, still coming easily recommended.

Tracks
01. "Arch song" (5:25)
02. "Eliasong" (3:31)
03. "Stompin' at Gagarin" (4:23)
04. "Wedding postponed" (4:11)
05. "Psalm" (3:17)
06. "Unisono" (2:24)
07. "Lichtblick" (4:22)
08. "Horseshoe waltz" (4:27)
09. "A year from Easter" (3:45)
10. "Japanese choral" (5:18)
11. "Sketch" (2:51)
12. "Eliasong II" (3:31)
13. "Neunacht" (3:18)
14. "Two years from Easter" (3:05)

Personnel
* Drums – Per Oddvar Johansen
* Piano, Harmonium, Toy Piano – Christian Wallumrod
* Trumpet – Arve Henriksen
* Violin – Nils Okland

 sample & buy: Year From Easter 

Christian Wallumrod 2005 - The Zoo is Far

Christian Wallumrod - The Zoo is Far (2005)

jazz | 1cd | eac-flac-cue-log-cover | 320MB

ECM 171 7820

Allmusic:
Norwegian pianist and composer Christian Wallumrød has been experimenting with various sonorities and musical colors since his first trio recording for ECM, No Birch in 1998. That group contained the roots of this one with trumpeter Arve Henricksen and percussionist/drummer Per Oddvar Johansen. Saxophonist Trygve Seim made the group a quartet for 2005's A Year from Easter. The pieces juxtaposed improvisation against tightly constructed themes and melodies, using the interval as the chief vehicle for moving, ever slowly, from one place to another. On The Zoo Is Far, Wallumrød has dropped the saxophone entirely, but created a sextet by adding three string players who include Giovanna Pessi on Baroque harp (an instrument that is constructed differently from the contemporary classical instrument and has a deeper lower register), violinist Gjermund Larsen, and cellist Tanja Orning. The music here is in some ways radically different. Most of these 24 pieces are short and draw from some Baroque sources, most keenly Henry Purcell's "Fantasias," the long psalmist tradition in Norwegian sacred music, and even Pakistani music. Where improvisation is present, it is within tightly scripted parameters. The reason is that Wallumrød is interested more in textures, shapes, and tonality. Oftentimes it is difficult for the listener to pick out individual instruments. The melodies come out of sonority, as well as the use of intervals to gradually shift through one theme into another apart from basic lyric structures.
Indeed, most of these pieces are even grouped in alternating patterns to give the work a patchwork quilt feel, though no one work jars uncomfortably against another. Whether it is in the series of "Fragments," "Psalms," or the "Backwards Henry" (Purcell, of course) works, the sense of space and silence is the same, blending the individual pieces rather than simply juxtaposing them. During The Zoo Is Far's 70-minute duration, there are tracks that do stand out, such as the elegiac "Music for One Cat," where the lower registers of the harp, piano, and cello are blended almost symbiotically with the bass drum. Dissonance has its place here, but it carries no edges, such as on "Fragment No. 6," where the restrained tensions (the piano is in pianissimo for much of it) and the violin rise up from that silence to strike back at something in that chord pattern. One of the more delightful selections here is "Archdance with Trumpet," in which Henricksen plays his instrument nearly like some kind of flute; its sound is full of air and darkness, as Wallumrød plays repetitive -- nearly minimalist in structure -- patterns of single and double notes that bleed into and through one another, creating four chords from the echo of three. The hint of a glockenspiel is heard near the top of the mix. But it, too, is mysterious and ethereal. In contrast, the sketchy "Fragment No. 1" is outside the middle registers and rises from lower to middle on harp, violin, and piano. Henricksen plays these notes as well, but they are not immediately distinguishable. The final cut, "Allemande Es," seeks to combine virtually everything here in a very slow-moving, nearly murky piece. The sense of Baroque pomp asserts itself in the backdrop and in processional form, where the sharply juxtaposed tonalities of the "Fragments" are used in the spaces. Still more, the sense of the sacred that comes from the "Psalms" permeate the work, offering an anchored place for the music to unfold from and move back toward.
The Zoo Is Far is far from being an academic recording, though the music is studied. To listen to The Zoo Is Far in the abstract is almost like hearing Stephane Mallarme's poetry; it contains those elements of lines that carry over, stopping just shy of collision with others, or of those disappearing into another so that the poem reads as a whole instead of as a series of lines -- the musicality is in the language itself. It is nearly impossible to take in the entire recording at one sitting; it distracts you from whatever you are doing instead and draws you inside its sometimes eerie, sometimes utterly moving flow. Manfred Eicher's production, with its reliance on space, silence, and merely the hint of reverb, assures a snug and warm fit with the ECM aesthetic -- but more than this, Wallumrød is composing from an entirely different place than most. His attention to sonority and quiet, and the disappearance of sounds (even as they form melodies and lyric shapes) is not that far removed from the preoccupation of the late Morton Feldman with the disintegration of form, though his approach to it is entirely different. Wallumrød isn't trying to do away with form, but is looking to break it down enough to create something else, something clearly not definable from its parts. The Zoo Is Far is a major step for Wallumrød compositionally, and a major boon to anyone willing to encounter it on its own entirely strange but immediately accessible terms.

Tracks
01. Nash Lontano
02. Backwards Henry II
03. Parkins Cembalo
04. Fragment no. 6
05. Psalm Kvæn, solo
06. Fragment no. 2
07. Music For One Cat
08. Arch Dance
09. Psalm Kvæn, tutti
10. The Zoo Is Far
11. Fragment no. 7
12. Backwards Henry I
13. Fragment no. 3
14. Detach A
15. Need Elp
16. Psalm Kvæn, trio
17. Detach B
18. Backwards Henry With Drums
19. Arpa
20. Detach C
21. Arch Dance With Trumpet
22. Fragment no. 1
23. Psalm Kvæn, quartet
24. Allemande Es

Personnel
* Christian Wallumrød - Piano, Harmonium, Toy Piano
* Arve Henriksen - Trumpet
* Gjermund Larsen - Violin, Hardanger Fiddle, Viola
* Tanja Orning - Cello
* Giovanna Pessi - Baroque Harp
* Per Oddvar Johansen - Drunms, Percussion, Glockenspiel

 sample & buy: The Zoo Is Far 

 

Dans Les Arbres - Dans Les Arbres (2006)

Dans Les Arbres - Dans Les Arbres (2006)

jazz | 1cd | eac-flac-cue-log-cover | 270MB

ECM

ECM info:
Guitarist Ivar Grydeland (born 1976 in Trondheim) and percussionist Ingar Zach (born 1971 in Oslo) have worked together since 1998. Both are innovative and adaptive players, exponents of extended technique, musicians who’ve modified their instruments to meet the needs of the music. In 2000 they co-founded the record label SOFA providing a platform for improvised/intuitive music and, often, bringing improvisers from Norway together with players from around the globe. Collaborators have included Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Barry Guy, Philipp Wachsmann, Tony Oxley, Jim O’Rourke, Phil Minton, Susie Ibarra and dozens more. Several of these have worked also with the large ensemble No Spaghetti Edition (NSE), of which Zach and Grydeland are core members.
Clarinettist Xavier Charles (born in France 1963) and Christian Wallumrød (born 1971) have both performed and recorded with the NSE. Wallumrød first collaborated with the Zach/Grydeland duo in 2003: they had approached him after hearing the ECM release “Sofienberg Variations”, feeling there was common ground to be investigated. In 2004 what would become the Dans les arbres quartet convened for the first time. In 2006, all four musicians recorded together on NSE’s “Sketches of a Fusion” album a project that underlined, for all participants, the potential of further collaborative work. In July of that year Charles, Grydeland, Wallumrød and Zach recorded “Dans les arbres”, the album, at the Festiviteten gallery in Eidsvoll, Norway.

Tracks
1. La Somnolence
2. L'Indifférence
3. Le Flegme
4. L'Engourdissement
5. Le Détachment
6. La Froideur
7. L'Assoupissement
8. La Rettenue.

Personnel
* Xavier Charles: clarinet, harmonica
* Ivar Grydeland: acoustic guitar, banjo, sruti box
* Christian Wallumrød: piano
* Ingar Zach: percussion, bass drum.

 sample & buy: Dans Les Arbres

 

Christian Wallumrod - Sofienberg Variations (2001)

Christian Wallumrod - Sofienberg Variations (2001)

jazz | 1cd | eac-flac-cue-log-cover | 310MB

ECM 1809

Jazztimes:
During his development as a pianist and composer, Christian Wallumrod says, he moved explicitly away from "the need to play 'clever' lines over predictable chord sequences. I'm still intensely interested in harmonic structure and development but not in straightahead jazz contexts where you know exactly what to expect." On his new album, Sofienberg Variations, Wallumrod and his fellows-trumpeter Arve Henriksen, violinist and fiddler Nils Okland and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen-explore the style he has created in contrast to the straightahead: melodic fragments built up between deliberate pauses, gradual harmonic evolutions, inward, quiet playing from all the musicians and uniformly slow tempi.
It's certainly an approach that's different from straightahead jazz, but, unfortunately, over the course of an hour it proves to be dour, momentum-free and just as predictable as the music Wallumr_d has rejected. On tracks like "Memor," "Edith," "Psalm" and "Losing Temple," melodic fragments either don't go anywhere or go somewhere with such deliberateness that they might as well save themselves the trip. Diatonic melody as such has almost no place in Sofienberg, with the result that the listener is expected to anxiously sit through the relentlessly recurring silences to get to essentially random-sounding notes. The quietness and slowness of the music just become tedious when there is little loudness and no quickness to make a contrast.
The only successes Wallumrod has with his method are the "Sarabande Nouvelle" tracks and "Liturgia," where attractive melodies lend a natural structure to the musical line and improvisation that is otherwise lacking here. Otherwise there's too much nothing and too little change here to recommend these Variations.

Tracks
-1. "Sarabande Nouvelle" - 2:52
-2. "Memor" - 5:18
-3. "Edith" - 5:23
-4. "Alas Alert" - 5:07
-5. "Small Picture #1" - 1:31
-6. "Sarabande Nouvelle, var.1" - 4:26
-7. "Psalm" - 5:45
-8. "Liturgia" - 5:06
-9. "Small Picture #3" - 1:31
-10. "Small Picture #2" - 1:38
-11. "Small Picture #3 1/2" - 2:18
-12. "Edith, var." - 2:02
-13. "Memor, var." - 1:50
-14. "Sarabande Nouvelle, var.2" - 3:13
-15. "Losing Temple" - 5:27

Personnel
* Christian Wallumrød - piano, harmonium
* Nils Økland- -violin, Hardanger fiddle
* Arve Henriksen- -trumpet
* Per Oddvar Johansen - drums
* Trygve Seim - tenor saxophone

 sample & buy: Sofienberg Variations 

 

Christian Wallumrod - No Birch (1996)

Christian Wallumrod - No Birch (1996)

jazz, | 1cd | eac-flac-cue-log-cover | 330MB

ECM 1628

ecmreviews
Pianist Christian Wallumrød makes his ECM debut with No Birch, an album of uncompromising melodic integrity and further proof that ECM’s mining of Nordic jazz ore continues to yield sonic jewelry like no other. The press release places the album somewhere between Morton Feldman minimalism and Paul Bley free play, and certainly we can feel a likeminded appreciation for negative space throughout. Yet beyond this lies an active, fluttering heart that is so full of expressivity that it must pace itself in lieu of bursting.
Wallumrød is the youngest member of the group. From humble beginnings playing piano accompaniment at church (hence the reflective track “Before Church”) to intensive studies at Norway’s famous Trondheim Conservatory, where he developed an abiding interest in composition, he has found under producer Manfred Eicher’s purview the appropriate balance of space and atmosphere to open his emotional floodgates.
Freelance trumpeter Arve Henriksen has collaborated with a number of ECM stalwarts, including Jon Balke, Anders Jormin, and the great Misha Alperin, the latter of whom remains a touchstone of inspiration for this trio.
Take special note that Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen is credited as percussionist and not drummer, and you begin to imagine the group’s flavors before note one. Conservatory trained and much sought-after in contemporary jazz and classical scenes, he adds the subtlest edge, his palette elemental in the truest sense.
As a unit, these three friends have been playing since 1996, but what we hear in “She Passes The House Of Her Grandmother” implies generations of affect. Touching its feet to tundra soil as if it were the sun, it is the breath of blood and memory made manifest in the here and now. The unspoken becomes the flower of reality, plucked from the “Royal Garden.” This solo from Sørensen unravels a single cathartic and metallic cry, bowed at the edge of sibilance and time and carried across a landscape that was once pasture, since bordered and named under the banner of rule. It is the pulse of the soil, given light above ground in “Somewhere East,” a representative track that describes its directions only so that we might be aware of the center from which our perspective is realized. So locating us in the moment’s energy, the music sways, rooted. Next is “Travelling” in three parts, and which features some of the most delicate trumpet playing I’ve heard in a long while. Breathy, almost shakuhachi-like, it curls its fingers one at a time around a full glass, which is then tipped and spilled through the veins of “Ballimaran” and “Watering.” In the wake of these flowing sketches, the halting pianism of “Two Waltzing, One Square And Then” and “Fooling Around” cleanses the palette before “The Gardener,” the most somber of the set, refills with bittersweet aperitif.
Wallumrød’s “The Birch” is the album’s red thread, a four-tiered refrain that wipes its theme with the nostalgia of a hand across a foggy window. Tender and seasonally inflected, it brings liturgical wonder to the trio’s sanctity, as deferential as the day is long.

Tracks
01. She Passes The House Of Her Grandmother
02. The Birch 1
03. Royal Garden
04. Somewhere East
05. Travelling
06. The Birch 2
07. Ballimaran
08. Watering
09. Before Church
10. The Birch 3
11. Two Waltzing, One Square And Then
12. Fooling Around
13. The Gardener
14. The Birch 4

Personnel
* Christian Wallumrød - piano
* Arve Henriksen - trumpet
* Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen - percussion

 sample & buy: No Birch