Kris Davis - Duopoly '2016

Tracks list

Tracklist:

1. Prairie Eyes (feat. Bill Frisell) (06:04)
2. Surf Curl (feat. Julian Lage) (04:15)
3. Fox Fire (feat. Craig Taborn) (08:58)
4. Beneath The Leaves (feat. Angelica Sanchez) (05:58)
5. Eronel (feat. Billy Drummond) (05:29)
6. Dig & Dump (feat. Marcus Gilmore) (06:04)
7. Trip Dance for Tim (feat. Tim Berne) (06:34)
8. Prelude to a Kiss (feat. Don Byron) (04:21)
9. Don Byron (feat. Don Byron) (04:04)
10. Tim Berne (feat. Tim Berne) (04:05)
11. Marcus Gilmore (feat. Marcus Gilmore) (03:34)
12. Billy Drummond (feat. Billy Drummond) (04:15)
13. Angelica Sanchez (feat. Angelica Sanchez) (04:12)
14. Craig Taborn (feat. Craig Taborn) (04:27)
15. Julian Lage (feat. Julian Lage) (03:24)
16. Bill Frisell (feat. Bill Frisell) (03:09)


 more“We decided to limit the instrumental palette of the
guests,” writes Davis in her booklet text, and so she chose guitarists
Bill Frisell and Julian Lage, pianists Craig Taborn and Angelica Sanchez,
drummers Billy Drummond and Marcus Gilmore, and reed players Tim Berne and Don
Byron. It was only later that the album’s two-part structure emerged, and
within that structure, “a symmetrical, palindromic sequence,” Davis
writes, “with what [Breskin] calls a ‘mobius twist’ in the
middle.” In other words, the players rotate once through and then again in
reverse order, with Frisell starting and finishing. The midway shift from
structured writing to free improv feels entirely fluid and continuous.

“Additionally,” writes Davis, “the tracks are paired by
instrument, for cohesive focus and the suggestive hint (or illusion) of a
‘phantom duo’ between each of the guitarists, pianists, drummers,
and horn players.”

The DVD portion of Duopoly brings the music even more vividly to life: “We
also chose to make a visual record … which we hoped would be as live and
uncompromising as the music. Shot by Mimi Chakarova with one fixed camera and
one handheld, the goal was for this film to have a kind of 1:1 or indexical
relationship to the music itself.”

With Davis at the center of it all, her pianism a marvel of dynamic control,
harmonic mystery and sonic invention, Duopoly opens with the richly contrasting
sounds of Frisell and Lage: first ethereal Telecaster-plus-effects on
“Prairie Days,” then the pure, warm timbre of Lage’s 1939
Martin acoustic on “Surf Curl.” The duos with Taborn and Sanchez
bring out yet more facets in Davis’s playing: “Two pianos is a
unique experience,” she remarks. “I can lose myself in the sound.
Angie and Craig are such great listeners, and it was an especially freeing and
spiritual experience for me.”

The drummers, too, are a study in contrast, hailing from different generations:
Drummond the veteran, Gilmore the rapidly rising newcomer, both with
complementary approaches to sound and pulse and a remarkable gift for listening.
Berne and Byron, on their respective free improvisations, create one of the
album’s most captivating transitions — from legato,
middle-register clarinet to wrenching, extreme extended techniques on alto
saxophone.

There are five Davis originals as well as two standards, in keeping with
Davis’s approach on her solo piano discs: the Hakim/Sulieman/Monk classic
“Eronel” features Drummond while Ellington’s “Prelude
to a Kiss” features Byron in a gorgeously oblique clarinet rendering.
There is one piece by Sanchez, “Beneath the Leaves,” a satisfying
contrast with Davis’s vehicle for Taborn, “Fox Fire.”
Davis’s original piece for Berne, “Trip Dance for Tim,” takes
inspiration from the title of a great Berne composition, “Hard Cell (for
Tom).”

The free pieces still convey a structural logic, as Davis remarks in the notes:
“In some cases, the free playing sounds more ‘composed’ than
the tunes do.” Some are first takes; other pieces needed more thinking
through: “There was reconfiguration, experimentation, exploration: these
were searching dialogues. This album captures the rawness, intimacy, and
immediacy of that process.”

Kris Davis - piano
Bill Frisell – guitar
Julian Lage – guitar
Craig Taborn – piano
Angelica Sanchez – piano
Billy Drummond – drums
Marcus Gilmore – drums
Tim Berne – alto sax
Don Byron – clarinet



Kris Davis - Duopoly.rar - 272.9 MB

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