Free Spirit Crispell Twists And Turns On An Evocative Journey

The Age

Tuesday September 16, 2008

Jessica Nicholas, Reviewer

MARILYN CRISPELL

Bennetts Lane Jazz Lab Sunday 14 September www.marilyncrispell.com

MARILYN Crispell's most recent recording, Vignettes (ECM), is a collection of compact pieces that resonate with luminous beauty. The pianist's debut Melbourne performance on Sunday was also ravishingly beautiful, though it featured more extended explorations than discrete musical miniatures.

Most of these explorations were improvised, though they were constructed with such natural logic that they sounded like fully fledged compositions.

Typically, Crispell would begin each "movement" of the evening's journey with a free improvisation - though there was no way of predicting where it might lead. She might pull us close with a series of delicate, rippling arpeggios, spontaneously shaping melodic and harmonic contours to cast a hypnotic spell. She might create intricate, scale-like patterns, then veer off on tangents to develop and dissect small musical motifs. Or she might startle us with a burst of percussive energy, stabbing at the keyboard with atonal clumps that somehow never sounded forbidding.

Often, these in-the-moment investigations began with fragments of ideas that gradually arranged themselves into recognisable shapes, as chord changes and time signatures slowly came into focus. Here, Crispell worked as a sculptor, smoothing away layers of wet clay to reveal the form underneath. At other times, she was more like a cinematographer, evoking images of swiftly changing landscapes.

As I listened, I often imagined water in its various forms - from droplets of melting snow to powerful, gushing cascades.

Perhaps it's no surprise to discover that Crispell feels a close kinship with northern European musicians.

She may be American, but her spiritual home lies closer to Scandinavia. On Sunday, she played an enchanting folk-like piece (Stilleweg) by a Norwegian composer, as well as several improvised sequences reminiscent of Scandinavian folk songs and lullabies.

She also played a gorgeously lyrical piece by Tisziji Munoz, and referred to Coltrane, Monk and Gershwin at various points in her improvisations. Mostly, though, what we heard was Marilyn Crispell herself: a beguiling amalgam of classical rigour and emotional warmth; abstraction and lyricism; strength and tenderness; open heart and open mind.

© 2008 The Age

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