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CD Reviews: CLAIRE RITTER: Greener Than Blue (Zoning Recordings. ZR 1008)
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Posted by: Adminon Monday, November 01, 2004 - 12:00 AM |
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By Paul Donnelly
I always enjoy the pleasure of coming across someone unfamiliar whose music deviates a little from the expected. Seeing the line-up of Ritter’s trio made me think this would be one of those experiences in that her trio is composed of piano, sax/bass clarinet and percussion augmented in a couple of places by viola/erhu. Her compositions are also refreshingly brief, sometimes only a minute or two in length. Brevity can enhance communication.
The combination of her piano style with Stan Strickland’s lyrical soprano makes for a balanced approach, for instance on the ballad, ‘Into Turquoise’. Here each player demonstrates their flair for creating a reflective, bittersweet mood, whilst on ‘Funky Feet’ Strickland switches to the more lugubrious sound of the bass clarinet and delivers uncluttered lines that allow the piano more solo space. Aside from these more pensive moments there are a few slightly up - tempo pieces for trio, such as ‘Soho Rag’ where soprano and stride piano conjure a moderately Monkish few minutes. ‘Up To You’ is briefly bluesy and rhythmically angular, a little like the soprano and piano interactions of ‘Imagine That’. Bob Weiner’s percussion, unfortunately, makes barely any impression, here and elsewhere, appearing almost as an afterthought.
What is probably the main focus of the cd, the suite ‘Opus 21: World Poems For Peace’, contains 8 sections that once more deliver brief meditations this time on events during 2001. It may have had its genesis early in that year but is inevitably coloured by September. The sequence moves from the evocatively rhapsodic piano solo, ‘While The Leaves Are Changing’ to the ‘Hymn Of Greener Than Blue’ where Ritter is joined by Todd Low on erhu. This is where one departure from the expected occurs as Low creates an eerie sound I can only describe as that of a vocalised string instrument, forlorn and gossamer frail. The erhu reappears alone on the final track, ‘Rising Star’ which is based on a traditional Chinese melody. Making use of both plucking and bowing techniques, it is a stirring fusion of that vocal sound with ecstatic rhythms.
There is clearly an attempt here, both through the use of the Chinese instrument and some ‘exotic’ percussion, to embrace a ‘world music’ perspective and suggest a musical antidote to those that pose a barrier to peace. It is a laudable sentiment but we have to judge the music on its own merits and, in its clarity and eloquence, it speaks to body and soul without haranguing or overblown rhetoric. For that alone it ought to be widely heard.
Paul Donnelly
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