Music of startling, breathtaking beauty . . .
Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 05/14/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
". . . but also of immense creativity: a very unusual combination. Usually it's either one or the other--beautiful but somewhat sappy or original but hard to access.
It helps that these three musicians are among the very top jazz performers on their respective instruments (Ben Monder, guitar; Chris Gestrin, piano; and Dylan van der Schyff, drums and percussion), but it's more than that. Their collective interaction and uncanny musical intuition result in a disc of constant surprise even as the artists interact and communicate with such dexterity and casual aplomb as to render the listener stupefied.
It's hard to single out who's primarily responsible for this musical legerdemain. Van der Schyff, I think, is the leader, but there's such a democratic spirit about the whole thing, even as each member insouciantly delivers mind-blowing statements while fully tracking with the group vibe, that it's really a case of everybody magically landing on the same musical page.
That said, I think Ben Monder makes the biggest impression. His playing's so freakin' at once apposite and out there as to give the impression that he's almost single-handedly reconfigured the world of guitar playing and come up with a new thing. To me, this is light years beyond his latest solo disc, Oceana--not from a chops standpoint, but from an integration-into-the-whole perspective. Maybe he works best in an entirely democratic setting, where no one (and everyone) is the leader.
Chris Gestrin on piano also greatly impresses. I was very taken by his disc as leader, Stillpoint, but he seems to have considerably advanced his art since that outing. Employing extended techniques and a very attractive touch and attack, he deftly employs the full range of his instrument's possibilities, but never in a merely virtuoso manner; his playing's always at the center of the developing proceedings.
Van der Schyff, who has played with that other jazz piano great, John Wolf Brennan, provides wonderful coloration as well as rhythmic drive when called for, as on "View from the Road," a kind of twisted American anthem tinged not only with huge Indian sensibilities but also a bracing Desert Southwest vibe smartly recalling much of Peter Garland's oeuvre and Alan Pasqua's brilliant Milagro.
Songlines, that frankly avant-garde label, has come up with a disc that magically bridges the worlds of out-jazz and startling beauty. Quite an accomplishment, and not to be gainsaid. The Distance is easily my disc of the year so far, and one that I'm sure I'll be coming back to again and again.
You'd be a fool not to pick up on this one."
Track Listings (10) - Disc #1