Return of the great American jazz trio that delivered the poll-topping "Nothing Ever Was, Anyway" in 1997. Material heard on "Amaryllis" is by turns thoughtful, touching, joyous and viscerally exciting. Some of the songs are well known - almost classics of new jazz - including Crispell's "Rounds", Peacock's "Requiem" and "December Wings, Motian's "Conception Vessel". There are also a number of startlingly effective free improvised ballads. As leader Marilyn Crispell says, "There's a great depth of communication, a rare delicacy. " Interaction between the musicians is exceptional.
Marilyn Crispell has made two of the most beautiful piano trio records in recent memory...Nothing Ever Was, Anyway gave the first intimation of a different Ms Crispell: elegiac, meditative, more inclined to let the spaces between the notes breathe. The Annette Peacock tribute which marked the beginning of her association with ECM, seems to have liberated her. Ms Crispell's new sensibility has grown even more pronounced on the new album. A richly melancholic collection of improvisations and compositions by each member of her the trio, Amaryllisis suffused with a romanticism that Nothing Ever Was hinted at but held in check. It's also a record by a mature woman who knows something of solitude: sorrowful, yet finally affirmative, in the way that Joni Mitchell can be. -Adam Shatz, New York Times |