Spark!
Jazz duos don’t come much better suited than Marty Ehrlich and Myra Melford, a pair of composer-instrumentalists whose imaginations are exponentially larger than their egos. As an acoustic pianist, Melford has a percussive style and a soulful, near-gospel, sensibility. Ehrlich, on alto sax and clarinet, frequently erupts with birdlike elation and alacrity. Cerebral enough to wield avant-garde tropes yet sensual enough to dance and luxuriate, they play with an intuitive kinship strengthened by mutual experience in each other’s ensembles, and a previous disc of duets seven years before this one.
Ehrlich’s “Hymn” gets Spark! off to a splendid start with pointillistic jabs and dabs of notes that steadily weave into needlepoint; then Ehrlich starts making swooping, deftly scooping passages, terse raptures neatly adorned by Melford’s soulful asides. Melford says the next two songs are meant as prayers for peace in Iraq and were inspired by the poet Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri, who wrote about war in that country in the 1940s. “A Generation Comes and Another Goes” is the better of the pair, opening with a percussive cascade of piano before the horn looms forth in bold relief — it is easy to imagine it as a bold, symphonic work.
“For Leroy,” Ehrlich’s tribute to the players’ late cohort, violinist Leroy Jenkins, opens with Ehrlich’s affectionate clarinet which yields midway through the song to Melford’s passionate, bright solo, her best on the disc. On “Blue Delhi,” Ehrlich’s impression of Melford’s trip through India, the duo create a tidy whirlwind, sometimes abreast of each other stride for stride like middle-distance runners, and sometimes with one acting as the fulcrum to set the other aloft, like figure skating pairs. As if the wellspring of ideas weren’t enough, both players have impeccable intonation, and the fidelity is likewise pristine and exacting. Review by Britt Robson
Spark!
Jazz duos don’t come much better suited than Marty Ehrlich and Myra Melford, a pair of composer-instrumentalists whose imaginations are exponentially larger than their egos. As an acoustic pianist, Melford has a percussive style and a soulful, near-gospel, sensibility. Ehrlich, on alto sax and clarinet, frequently erupts with birdlike elation and alacrity. Cerebral enough to wield avant-garde tropes yet sensual enough to dance and luxuriate, they play with an intuitive kinship strengthened by mutual experience in each other’s ensembles, and a previous disc of duets seven years before this one.
Ehrlich’s “Hymn” gets Spark! off to a splendid start with pointillistic jabs and dabs of notes that steadily weave into needlepoint; then Ehrlich starts making swooping, deftly scooping passages, terse raptures neatly adorned by Melford’s soulful asides. Melford says the next two songs are meant as prayers for peace in Iraq and were inspired by the poet Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri, who wrote about war in that country in the 1940s. “A Generation Comes and Another Goes” is the better of the pair, opening with a percussive cascade of piano before the horn looms forth in bold relief — it is easy to imagine it as a bold, symphonic work.
“For Leroy,” Ehrlich’s tribute to the players’ late cohort, violinist Leroy Jenkins, opens with Ehrlich’s affectionate clarinet which yields midway through the song to Melford’s passionate, bright solo, her best on the disc. On “Blue Delhi,” Ehrlich’s impression of Melford’s trip through India, the duo create a tidy whirlwind, sometimes abreast of each other stride for stride like middle-distance runners, and sometimes with one acting as the fulcrum to set the other aloft, like figure skating pairs. As if the wellspring of ideas weren’t enough, both players have impeccable intonation, and the fidelity is likewise pristine and exacting. Review by Britt Robson