Tracklist:
1 Patterns
2 Goodbye
3 Leapfrog
4 Bass Solo
5 Waltz After David M
6 Lullaby
7 The Lea
8 Blue
9 Piano Solo
10 Puppets
11 Azure （high recommend)
Personnel:
Marilyn Crispell (piano)
Gary Peacock (double bass)
Recorded January and February 2011
ECM 2292
Editorial Reviews
Gary Peacock and Marilyn Crispell made outstanding music together in her trio with the late Paul Motian, the three kindred spirits recording the ECM albums Nothing ever was, anyway (1997) and Amaryllis (2001) each a modern classic. The New York Times called the pair two of the most beautiful piano-trio records in recent memory. The Peacock-Crispell duo project also has a history, albeit one undocumented on disc until now, with Azure. This extraordinary new album proves that these two musicians shared sense of lyricism, their distinctive compositional styles and their profound backgrounds in free improvisation make them exceptional musical partners in the most intimate of settings.
The albums highlights range from the sublimely melodic (the Peacock-penned Lullaby) and lyrically pensive (Crispells Goodbye) to the athletically bracing (Crispells Patterns) and folksong-like (Peacocks moving The Lea). Then there are the duos freely improvised pieces of astonishing cohesiveness (including Blue and the entrancing title track), as well as utterly absorbing solo features for each instrument. The albums title, Azure, came from Crispell, from the sense of spaciousness I felt with the music, she says. The image of an open blue sea or sky came to me.
The duo conjured the aura of Azure at Nevessa Production, just outside Woodstock the town in Upstate New York that Crispell has called home for nearly 36 years. (Nevessa is also the studio where Crispell recorded her 2010 ECM duo album with clarinetist David Rothenberg, One Dark Night I Left My Silent House.) Peacock lives not far away, in more rural environs. Along with their shared geography and longstanding musical ties, Crispell and Peacock have in common a certain life rhythm. We have a connection via meditation and Buddhism, the pianist points out. We have even meditated together while on tour.
Review - by Thom Jurek
The release of Azure, a duo recording by bassist Gary Peacock and pianist Marilyn Crispell, may have been inevitable, but it sure was a long time coming.
Peacock and Crispell have played together on tour for years, but this is their first opportunity to record as a pair.
Under Crispell's leadership, they teamed with the late Paul Motian on two of the finest piano trio offerings of the last two decades: Nothing Ever Was, Anyway and Amaryllis.
There are three tunes composed by each artist, three duo improvisations, and each has a solo track.
Crispell's "Patterns" opens the proceeding on a lively note. A complex, knotty, muscle-flexing duet that is full of quick call-and-response motivic thought and counterpoint, it reveals the duo's considerable dialogic power.
On the other end of the spectrum is Peacock's lovely, melodic "The Lea," which extends naturally from both the folk and blues traditions. He opens with his solo; it states its loose theme followed by his improvisation upon it for half the tune's length. When Crispell enters, she underscores the song-like nature of the piece, painting its frame with melancholy, minor-key chord voicings, and brief, luxuriant fills.
The set's longest cut, "Waltz After David M," by Crispell, is elliptical and graceful with a gorgeous melody. Peacock's support offers avenues for more expansive -- yet subtle -- thought in the middle's long improvisational section.
Though these pieces are quite satisfying, the duo's real poetic is displayed in their improvisations, especially the hypnotic "Blue," with Crispell's Monk-tinged chords and tight, angular lines. Peacock's playing reveals so much wood in his tone that it feels percussive -- despite his continual bluesy, swinging riffs and vamps. The title cut that closes the proceeding is crystalline, full of space, elegance, and grace. It sounds like the seamless interplay between the two is not improvised but composed and arranged.
On Azure, the effortless communication between these players is like a conversation that is so intimate it can, at times, feel as if the listener is eavesdropping. Hopefully these two will be motivated to do this again.
故人重遇
久違的聲音
那一刻，直如醍醐灌頂
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