Review of REVERENCE in Jazzpodium, Germany by Thorsten Meyer, May-June 2020

Review of Muri­el Gross­mann — Reverence
in Jazz­po­di­um, Germany
by Thors­ten Mey­er, May-June 2020

 

MURIEL GROSSMANN — REVERENCE
Dream­land Records

One step fur­ther each time.  Ever sin­ce Muri­el Gross­mann dis­co­ve­r­ed dro­nes for herself, she has con­ti­nued to refi­ne the play­ing of her quar­tet.  The late Col­tra­ne and the Afri­can heri­ta­ge of jazz were alrea­dy the mile­stones on the last record »Gol­den Rule«.  On the suc­ces­sor, the saxo­pho­nist turns the poly­rhyth­mic screw a litt­le and turns from John to Ali­ce Col­tra­ne.  The mul­ti­fa­ce­ted dro­nes are again com­ing from gui­ta­rist Rado­mir Milo­j­ko­vic, dou­ble bass play­er Gina Schwarz and drum­mer Uros Stam­pen­ko­vic.  The sound spec­trum is expan­ded to inclu­de the organ sounds from Llo­renç Bar­celó.  Gross­mann trans­fers Count Basie’s cre­do, the ide­al for his band to “sound like one big drum”, to her group and achie­ves exact­ly that.  Only one of the eight pie­ces is (even just bare­ly) less than nine minu­tes.  Gross­mann immer­ses with her group into the ecsta­cy of rhyth­ms and sounds.  In con­trast to the examp­le of Col­tra­ne, Grossmann’s ges­tu­re is simi­lar­ly medi­ta­ti­ve, but pro­vi­ding a lot more air for the dif­fe­rent events.  She lets indi­vi­du­al tones stand, does not line up motifs like pat­terns one after the other, but loo­ks for the­ma­tic con­sis­ten­cy.  No end­less gar­lands, but a lot of melo­dic inven­ti­ve­ness in the rhyth­mic mael­strom.  If you can and want to, you should con­si­der the excel­lent vinyl edi­ti­on by RR Gems: thick vinyl, lar­ge, hea­vy card­board cover with impul­se! Aes­the­tics.  And then this music with its tonal depth and its wide dyna­mic spec­trum.  A musi­cal and hap­tic moment of happiness.
THORSTEN MEYER

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