| aus dem Booklet:
There
is a new generation of musicians with a bright look into the
future who try out everything to create a new music and two
of these new inventors are percussionist Jeff Arnal from New
York City and pianist and composer Dietrich Eichmann from Old
Berlin.
Jeff Arnal contributes a unique approach towards sculpting the
form, focus, intensity and dynamic qualities of the music. The
broad spectre of his capacity as an improviser may be underlined
by the fact that he frequently shares the stage in a duet setting
with one of the most spontaneous saxophonists of our time, Charles
Gayle.
A musician who seeks the challenge to play with Charles Gayle
on the one hand and Dietrich Eichmann on the other must be a
very special character. I hope to meet Jeff Arnal someday somwhere
– the sooner the better!
In the eighties Dietrich Eichmann understood himself as a pure
free improviser, as much as that is possible, of course, before
he turned into a composer. Today he includes ideas he originally
developed for his compositions in his playing which is freely
improvised, but out of a different conciousness. He told me
that he could not improvise the way he does today if he had
not concentrated on compositional structures all the time before.
Somehow Dietrich Eichmann works the opposite way of Portuguese
flutist Carlos Bechegas who would choose the better parts of
his free improvisations to ‘compose’ concerts and recordings
while Dietrich has his compositional skills at hand while freely
improvising. About both situations we could speak as forms of
constructed improvisation.
Im May 2002 Dietrich performed with The Straight Trio
at the Improvised and Otherwise Festival of Sound and Form
in Brooklyn, NY. Jeff is co-artistic director of this annual
festival of experimental music, dance and multi-media work.
During this visit the duet had their first musical meeting.
At their second meeting in December of the same year they recorded
at Hans-Rosbaud-Studio in Baden-Baden, Germany. Their wonderful
music is entirely improvised although determined by the compositional
ideas of both musicians.
One day Dietrich told me the following: ‘John, you’re almost
seventy and it’s highest time you get serious’, and I replied,
‘You’re right, Dietrich, let’s produce a CD together’. Of course,
there is another reason, too: Jeff and Dietrich have a lot to
offer and it’s right here for you!
John ‘Sugar Daddy’ Rottiers
Rezensionen:
'A rare collaboration between
a classical composer and a jazz/improv drummer. Arnal and Eichmann
belong to a new generation of musicians and are definitely counted
amongst the most versatile personalities in contemporary avant-garde
music. This exciting encounter brings into being a unique dimension
of music with fresh sounds of existential beauty. Their spontaneous
improvisations tend to emerge as structures. Sometimes tense,
sometimes dark and even disturbing, their music is always gripping.'
Leo Records
Two to be reckoned with on either side of the Atlantic!
Ken Waxman, Jazzweekly
A strong journey through consistently intriguing waters, which
takes its time to unfold.
Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery, NYC
My
last encounter with Eichmann was as the composer of the weighty
piano concerto "Entre Deux Guerres", written as a
response to the unprecedented violence of 20th-century history;
he is also composer of a concerto for Peter Brötzmann and twenty-piece
orchestra with the equally formidable title "Prayer to
the Unknown Gods of the People Without Rights". I'd not
quite anticipated his lightness of touch as an improviser at
the piano. The surface is tremulous, sometimes busy as a blackfly
swarm; more often it's pointillist taps of a single note, like
the proverbial crow dropping pebbles into a pitcher of water.
Eichmann works inside the instrument for much of the album,
and a lot of the real musical activity here occurs in the overtones,
though his use of preparations and the manual damping and bending
of notes is subtle, a far cry from the weird Dali soundscapes
conjured up by players like Denman Maroney.
Drummer
Jeff Arnal, a protégé of Milford Graves, is similarly preoccupied
with light, microscopic textures, rapid and evanescent. Like
Eichmann he likes to tap quietly and insistently, like a sculptor
gently chipping away at a block of marble.
The
album sounds fresh as paint.
Nate Dorward, Paris Transatlantic
A
fine duet featuring two lesser-known but extremely talented
players, the fine Brooklyn-based percussionist Arnal (who studied
with Milford Graves) and the explosive pianist Eichmann (who
studied with both Wolfgang Rihm and Alexander von Schlippenbach).
Though their partnership isn't too long-standing, they play
well together. "Swing dribble" is a nice study in contrast
with Eichmann exploring the lower register and the timbre of
prepared strings inside the piano as Arnal delicately delineates
the outlines. Though the feel here is often thunderous, there
are multiple details which convey the level of intelligence
and sensitivity here. "Pendulum" also begins from delicate
preparations or extended techniques (slashing inside-piano
harpsichord effects) and ramps up. Eichmann dances nervously
as Arnal generates a whirring drone sound - again, contrast
is one of this duo's specialties. These pieces don't ramble
on, much to the duo's credit (and this may also be adduced
to their tendency to think in compositional terms, trimming
the excess musical fat). Notice how patiently they trade lacerating
sounds on the menacing "Bermuda Triangle Boat Trip". "La Meduse" has
a claustrophobic quality to it, as well, enhanced by the insistent
minimalism of Eichmann's pattern - a nice one. "Radio Set" begins
very abstractly, though what's best about this piece is that
they vary their dynamic approach and explore a single mode
for the entirety of this performance. "Le Desir Froid" is a
palette-cleansing blast of noise before the long final track.
Overall, this is a contribution to an already existing "literature" -
the post-Cecil piano/percussion duo - but it stands easily
with some of the strongest entries..
Jason Bivins, Cadence Magazine
This piano and percussion duo offers a solid and imaginative
hour of improvisation.
Dietrich
Eichmann’s ideas of pacing, dynamic, and cadence inform the
proceedings here, fully articulating the form while playing
completely spontaneously.
Likewise,
Jeff Arnal, always walks the tightrope, playing instinctively
and with great surprise in knotty dynamic situations. He understands
the implicit directive that the music gives to play around his
collaborator as much as through him.
As
the pieces unfold, there are wonderful surprises, disconcerting
moments, and, of course, eternal movement through the terrain
of jazz, classical, and other musics that serve as touchstones
for their joint creations.
Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
Eichmann and Arnal cover a great deal of territory. Their intimacy
with their instruments allows them to bring forth an array of
fresh, unpredictable sounds; the music is alternately dissonant,
meditative, industrial, lilting, explosive, and stark.
In
the first suite, “Pendulum” is a particularly lovely piece,
simultaneously lyrical and free, and “Half Pint” works boldly
with silence.The highlight is “Four French Apparitions”; the
four songs shimmer with delicacy and beauty as Eichmann’s rapidly
cascading high notes create an otherworldy sparkle of sound.
They
hold to no particular limitations or rules as they work the
edge between music and sound; both are interested in dynamics
and the use of space as well as the orchestral sides of their
instruments. A playful element is at work as well; clearly they
enjoy the process.
Florence Wetzel, All About Jazz, New York, June
2004
L’improvisation est le meilleur exercice qu’un
compositeur puisse pratiquer pour savoir où il en
est dans sa musique. Pour Dietrich Eichmann et Jeff Arnal
la musique n’a d’intérêt que si
elle révèle les sentiments, la tension et la
passion des hommes qui la bâtisse. Cette idée
force est à la base de ce duo qui s’avère être à l’origine
d’une véritable réflexion sur la création
contemporaine. Enregistrée d’une traite à Baden-Baden
en décembre 2002 et livrée brute, sans mixage
ni retouches intempestives, la musique présentée
sur the temperature dropped again, résume
les intérêts des deux interprètes pour
la création dans ce qu’elle a de plus noble
et de plus sincère. Aucune retenue ni prédisposition
esthétique, la musique coule comme un fleuve capricieux,
se jouant des obstacles placés ça et l à pour
retenir sa pulsion naturelle. Dès lors la musique
prend son envol, construit son propre langage, son vocabulaire
qui s’enrichit d’autant plus qu’elle chemine,
qu’elle se grave sur la platine.
Pour
Dietrich et Jeff la recherche de la musicalité l’emporte
sur toutes les références techniques ou les
artifices fédérateurs, but avoué, elle
renvoie du créateur, cette image qui tend à s’estomper
de fragilité et d’opiniâtreté.
Sébastien
Moig, JazzoSphère
Ora
aqui temos um trabalho que se situa entre aquilo a que
se vai chamando música "clássica" contemporânea
- designação anglo-saxónica algo inexacta
(sim, como se pode ser clássico e contemporâneo
ao mesmo tempo?) -, e a improvisação de matriz
jazz, vivendo da própria ambiguidade formativa e
estilística dos seus dois protagonistas, o pianista
alemão Dietrich Eichmann e o baterista/percussionista
dos EUA Jeff Arnal. O primeiro começou por estudar
com uma das figuras cimeiras do free jazz europeu, Alexander
von Schlippenbach, mas depressa optou pela composição,
tornando-se aluno de Wolfgang Rihm e produzindo peças
concertantes ou para orquestra de câmara (ainda que
sem esquecer o seu passado como "jazzman": o
solista da sua «Prayer to the Unknown Gods of the
People Without Rights», uma obra infelizmente ainda
não passada para disco, é Peter Brotzmann).
Só muito recentemente Eichmann aceitou voltar à cena
da improvisação, ao lado de músicos
como Wolfgang Fuchs ou Takashi Yamane, mas avisando que
a forma como hoje improvisa tem tudo a ver com a sua dedicação às
estruturas composicionais. Arnal, por sua vez, é um
baterista com raízes no jazz (colabora regularmente
com Charles Gayle), mas os seus interesses levam-no até ao
domínio da "new music" - a música
dita "erudita" dos Estados Unidos, muito mais
experimental e inventiva que a do Velho Continente. Resultado:
uma música feita de células, deflagrada e
pontilhística, em que o piano volta, muitas vezes, à sua
condição primária de instrumento percussivo,
e a percussão procura ultrapassar o seu convencional
papel de gestor de métricas. Ambos os músicos
dão particular atenção à transmutação
de formas e estruturas. Não o fazem recorrendo a
padrões rítmicos ou a fraseados melódicos,
o que seria demasiado fácil e óbvio, mas
também não se contentam com a simples elaboração
de texturas. Uma prova de como a música espontânea
pode ser tão complexa quanto a escrita.
http://rep.no.sapo.pt/criticas_D.htm
Die
Begegnung des aus Georgia stammenden, aber in New York
aktiven Perkussionisten JEFF ARNAL (*1971) mit dem Berliner
Pianisten DIETRICH EICHMANN (*1966) verdankt sich der
beidseitigen Neigung, vom konservatorisch Gelernten weiterzustreben
zu den Ufern der Freien Improvisation. Arnal schloss
sich z.B. The Focus Quintet (-> BA 41)
an. Eichmann, der bei so renommierten Leuten wie Rihm und
Rzewski studiert hat und dessen Musik auf Wergo und seinem
eigenen Oaksmus-Label erschienen ist, wechselte vom Stegreifspiel,
das er bereits in den frühen 80ern bei Schlippenbach
gelernt hatte, zur Notation und wieder zurück, etwa
mit seinem Straight Trio. Die 10 Duette von The Temperature
Dropped Again entstanden sämtlich am 6.12.2002 im
Hans-Rosbaud-Studio in Baden-Baden und beeindrucken durch
ihren strengen Minimalismus, ohne sich allerdings dem Diskreten
zurechnen zu lassen. Beide Spieler ersparen sich nur ornamentale
Umschweife. Beide lassen sie ihre Klänge leicht ins
Geräuschhafte ausfransen. Vor allem Eichmann operiert
meist konsequent mit monotonen, spröden Repetitionen,
indem er ostinat auf eins, zwei Noten einklopft, Pianosaiten
anzupft oder hartnäckig kurze Arpeggios wiederholt.
Arnal ist ein Meister der kleinen Übergänge,
chromatisch oft Ton in Ton, indem er auf Metall oder mit
Steinen in gedämpften, dunklen Grau- und Erdfarben
klirrt, pocht und hämmert. Das Spiel mit dem Klang überwiegt
das Spiel mit der Zeit. Immer wieder kreist die Musik auf
der Stelle, scheint (über sich) zu grübeln, will
etwas Bestimmtem auf den Grund gehen. Das 16-minütige ‘...durch
offene Grenzen‘ summiert all diese Eigenheiten noch
einmal mit tachistischer Insistenz.
Rigobert Dittmann, Bad Alchemy 44
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