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Sensitive
Philosopher of the Keys
The
pianist Mal Waldron and the saxophonist Nicolas Simion,
guest artists at the Nuremburg Jazz Studio.What does a painist
do to celebrate his seventieth birhtday? What he’d
always been doing anyway: he plays. Maybe he’s learnt
to conserve his energies, reduces to essentials, does without
acrobatics on the keys, concentrates on the content. Mal
Wadron, on a vist to the Nuremburg Jazz Studio didn’t
have to learn all this for the first time. He always was
a minimalist. He treats his piano with calculated care.
One doest see him banging or hammering away. The forte
suffices as a short and sharp contrast, every tremolo is
circled off, the blocks of chords are the fine work of a
skilled craftsman. His brand mark is the syncope.
The let the chords bounce, the intervals make the music.
Together with the Romanian saxophonist Nicolas Simion, who
took the place of Jim Pepper in the Mal Waldron Quartet
after the latter’s death four years ago, Mal Waldron
inspired the audience with his fine sensitivity and deep
creative philosophy on the black and white keys. He introduces
himself almost like somewhat of a yo-yo player, lets the
musical theme bounce back and forth with the pure pleasure
of movement, until these melodic short hand signs acquire
a magic life of their own. „The other Monk", as
he is also called, sets a few sparing accents: the tension
mounts slowly with the dynamics, culminates in the interval
- the morse code begins again from the top.
In
dialogue with the equally precise saxophonist, who avoids
garish colours, this musical Algebra develops and unfolds
into melancholy inner perspectives. A dissimilar pair: the
shy thinker and the rugged man of emotion. The one is afraid
of mere effects, the other plays them out, without lapsing
into gimmickry. The one is rooted in complex rhythms, the
other is driven by folkloristic melodies.
What
the young saxophonist puts forward is taken apart by the
ageless pianist, whilst they combine forces to put the chromatic
building blocks together again. Long lines and phrases distinguish
the soprano saxophone player - and give away the clarinettist.
His encore on the bass clarinette makes you feel like more
of the same.
Anja
Barckhausen / Nuremburg News
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