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Crossing life and strings |
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Monday, 19 May 2008 |
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Jean-Sébastien Simonoviez features on another
recommended new release: a strangely arousing pot-pourri
of style and sound, ‘Crossing life and strings’. Quite aptly, the
double bass comes to the fore in almost an obsessive, if
sometimes samey way. There are no fewer than three bass
players featured on this disc as well as Steve Swallow’s
persuasive and melodic bass guitar.
Simonoviez is rapidly coming to the fore as an interesting
jazz pianist and, equally, as an arranger. He is also active
cementing the French jazz scene with the one in New York
where recently he’s been gigging with James Cammack, Ari
Hoenig and Essiet Essiet, among others. Simoniviez’s own
compositions feature on this disc in various styles and
formations. His somewhat more experimental work in an
acerbic, overtoned rhetoric neatly buffers softer pieces like
John Coltrane’s opening ‘Welcome’, with the Quatuor
Opus 33 in melancholic form, and ‘Genèse’, again with the
quartet but this time more as a backing ensemble, exploring
fumey double bass pizzicatos.
‘Crossing life and strings’,
Jean-Sébastien Simonoviez and
friends, La Buissonne,
RJAL397006
Distribution by Harmonia Mundi
www.labuissonne.com
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