French violinist Dominique Pifarély has been a vivid influence in European jazz and new music since the late 1970s – and, like American violinist Mark Feldman, he has found a personal language that expressively adapts to orthodox jazz settings, cutting-edge improv, and contemporary classical music alike.
His last ECM release was a solo set, but this album reunites Pifarély with two long-time partners in bassist Bruno Chevillon and drummer François Merville (a former Pierre Boulez percussionist), and introduces keyboardist Antonin Rayon – usually a Hammond organist, but a subtle acoustic pianist here.
Spacey free-improv bass-plucks and cymbal flickers shadow Pifarély’s plaintive, sitar-like skids and sudden gleams of mellow tonality, before pumping grooves spring up, and cello-like bass sounds dance with fragile violin lines until minimalist piano loops intervene. There are collective jazzy chatterings against surging drums, piano reveries that unfold over soft mallet taps, and slow laments such as the dolorous Vague (Pt 2) become ghostly mid-range violin meditations over punctilious bass and drum details. Everything a Pifarély band plays sounds as if it has a rich and reflective old and new music history to it.
