An extraordinary debut album from a trio of extraordinary musicians…
ECM 2810 / 651 2008
Alice Zawadzki (voice, violin); Fred Thomas (piano, vielle, drums); Misha Mullov-Abbado (double bass)
Recorded June 2023
An extraordinary debut album from a trio of extraordinary musicians who have brought together a multi genre music that encompasses classical leanings (all three participants are from classically trained backgrounds), jazz, improvisation and folk song in a recording that is utterly spellbinding and has the narrative of short stories as its thematic concept.
Fitting then, that a translation of Za Górami literally means “behind the mountains” and is used, in a similar way to its English counterpart of “once upon a time”, to commence the telling of a story; and the stories that unfold throughout are collated from many parts of the world including Argentina, France, Venezuela, Poland and Sephardic culture.
The repertoire the trio advise has been “taught to us by our friends” and while some of the material has been in the band’s book for some time, all are open to constant change and re-invention. It is this ability to re-evaluate and modify the songs that bring them to the versions presented here, but perhaps not in the definitive arrangement yet as they continue to evolve in performance. Evolve they do, and it will come as no surprise to learn that producer Manfred Eicher helped shape and bring out the detail in the music during the time spent in the Lugano studio where the sessions took place.
The pervading feel of the music is that of a chamber ensemble with an infinite capacity for free flowing interplay between the musicians. All are master improvisers, and their innate ability to listen to each other and react to the subtlest of nuances is what makes this album so special. Everything is beautifully captured and the gentle swell and swoop of Zawadzki’s voice is framed perfectly by Thomas’s piano and drums along with Mullov-Abbado’s rich and warm double bass.
One only has to listen to the opening tracks to hear and feel how the musicians interact. From the delicacy of voice, drums and bass on the traditional ‘Dezile A Mi Amor’ and switch to piano for ‘Suéltate las Cintas’ by Gustavo Santaolalla along with the strength of Mullov-Abbado’s bass is utterly compelling.
The trio continue to mix things up on another traditional folk song in ‘Los Bilbilikos’ in which voice, bass and vielle, played by Fred Thomas, take the sound of the trio back an earlier time where the five stringed bowed instrument (similar to a deeper bodied violin) that was predominantly used in the medieval period.
Since its arrival this is an album that has rarely strayed far from my CD player, and every time I have sat and listened, I have been swept up by the beauty of the music and the contributions of the individual musicians and how they coalesce into this hypnotic trio. The power of Zawadzki’s voice on ‘Nani Nani’ to the fragility of ‘Gentle Lady’ is something to behold. As the only original composition on the album, ‘Gentle Lady’ sits comfortably alongside the folk songs with Thomas’s beautiful composition setting the words of James Joyce to music and finding once again a perfect place to exist with voice, double bass and piano seemingly playing very little but saying a lot.
Closing with the serene reading of the traditional Ladino song ‘Arvoles Lloran por Lluvias’ that breathes with an intimacy that is staggering there is the overriding sense that one has been privileged to be able to share in this exquisite music.
