at27 duet
martine altenburger cello
john russell guitar
total time: 45:29
recorded in jarny, france, 22nd november 2008
audio excerpt
“Duet is a recording by Martine Altenberger (cello) and John Russell (guitar) it is one of a handful of new releases on the ever prolific Another Timbre label. Now, this CD will have its critics, mostly from those adverse to what seems these days to be called EFI, or European Free Improvisation, for reasons I have never quite understood, but the term seems to work well as shorthand for those that choose to divide improvised music up into convenient chunks. Duet will probably fall under the EFI heading because it is made by musicians that have been improvising for quite a while, involves acoustic instrumentation and in places can sound quite fast and busy. Still just sounds like an improvised music CD to me ;) So yes it is true that this CD could have been released twenty years ago without anyone blinking an eye. It isn’t as full-on and frantic as you might expect however, quite the opposite in many places, but certainly it is acoustic, doesn’t involve much in the way of extended technique and portrays a direct dialogue between the two musicians. In fact, its beauty all lies in that dialogue.
Duet was recorded live at a festival in France in 2008. I’ve no idea if Rissell and Altenburger had played together prior to this occasion, but it probably doesn’t matter. This is an unedited recording of a meeting of the two musicians, a conversation if you will, almost as if someone had sneaked a recording device into a semi-heated debate over afternoon tea, only the words here are replaced by the sounds of bowed and struck cello and plucked and strummed acoustic guitar. I actually do listen to this music as if I were listening to two voices, If other improv records might include a wider variety of sounds, so that the juxtaposition of disparate elements might add to the intrigue, break up the flow, so here this CD contains a simple, if intricate conversation between two musical voices. The sounds do seem to sing out as if articulating words, lines of interlocking sound do feel like sentences, sometimes squabbling with one another, sometimes in harmony. The lack of any edit suggests a warts and all discussion, the good bits thrown in with the awkward, the rushes of activity offset by the temporary gasps for air. If you just sit and listen here, separating the two sets of sounds in your head, thinking of them as individual voices but then listening to how they interlock and correspond then there is so much pleasure to take from this recording. This one isn’t about the overall impact of the music, or the laminal effects of layered sounds, its all about the interaction.
Now it would be easy to apply the above description to any one of dozens of improv releases, and perhaps when writing about improvised music releases of this kind there can be no other way of recommending the music than to just suggest people just follow the music in this way, unravelling the musical dialogue. Duet though is a great example of when improvised music of this kind really works. I have been a fan of John Russell’s wonderfully expressive guitar playing since the mid nineties, his trio with Phil Durrant and John Butcher making a big impact on me in my formative years. Altenburger I am less familiar with, but her confident but yet delicately subtle playing here is a great match for Russell, their sounds close enough to lock together tightly in places, but with a switch of the bow different enough to act in contrast of one another. They are both highly skilled however, and as natural improvisers as you might ever wish for, so the conversation is always engaging, always involving for the attentive listener.
So yes this CD will have its critics. I’m not amongst them however. Its also a great CD to listen to in preparation for this weekend’s festival. Russell will be amongst the musicians I see play tomorrow, looking forward to that. Oh yes and a nice sleeve design as well.” Richard Pinnell, The Watchful Ear
The following excellent article by Jesse Goin was written as an extended review of Duet on his blog Crow with no Mouth:
“How do you differentiate, when making evaluative judgments, between a musician producing strong work in a specific lineage, and a musician being merely derivative? How do you define, and privilege, innovation over the extension of a tradition? How, for example, is pianist John Tilbury deemed brilliant, even while nearly every critical response to his work contains the apt signifier Feldmanesque, while many other improvisers are regarded less kindly for their decision to essentially continue working through a self-limiting area of sound?
The century-old squabble, to place this question in the context of visual art, over whether Georges Braque or Picasso authored the Cubist revolution came to mind, as I researched the guitarist John Russell and found, again and again, guitarist Derek Bailey in nearly every entry. I am far from an art historian, but I think one thing is clear- Braque was well underway in improvising against the hold Cezanne and other antecedents had on his approach to painting, when he met Picasso. That encounter served as equal parts apprenticeship, catalyst and, eventually, co-creation of new possibilities. As Braque moved beyond the orbit of Picasso, he came to this idea- the painting is finished, Braque said, when the idea has disappeared. At some point in any apprenticeship, the student may develop beyond the original idea and conceptual approach of his teacher. His work is his work, when the idea disappears.
London-based guitarist John Russell has performed, organized festivals, and articulated his ideas about free improvisation for 40 years. He is well represented by a discography that includes some celebrated releases; for many, the most recent gem is the reissue of the sole available recording of the ensemble News From The Shed. This 1989 quintet date is now regarded as a seminal work in the transition for several of its members from the discursive, dialogical and, as one of its participants [trombonist Radu Malfatti] has it, on-and-on-going gabbiness of much free improvisation, to something new- a branch of improvisation that jettisons gabbiness, dialogue and high speed reactions, for a reassessment of the uses of elements like silence, erasure of foreground/background, and a heightened sense of attunement, to reference Malfatti again, to the lull in the storm.
I focus on this particular project, out of all those Russell had been involved with in the nearly two decades preceding News From The Shed, for a reason. While three of his fellows from the quintet- Malfatti, Phil Durrant, and John Butcher- would gradually move further into the radically quieter, less virtuosic and uncluttered area of improvisation called, variously, reductionist, lower-case and EAI, Russell would continue to hone and meliorate the basic elements heard across the decades in his approach- empathic, dialogical, interactive free improvisation; yes, often garrulous, using high-speed reactions and by now familiar extended techniques to draw forth any and every sound from his acoustic guitars. The collective sound of that ensemble was a fulcrum for some to leap into a new field, and for Russell to continue plumbing the more familiar ground established many years earlier in his association with guitarist Derek Bailey. I am reactive, Bailey stated more than once, and Russell's plumb-line, extending a true vertical of free improvisation, is reactive as well.
As I said earlier, I did some surveying of the writing about Russell on the internet; culled from reviews of records and live performances, whether enthusiastic or indifferent, the shadow of Bailey falls across nearly everything I read. In the years since Russell left his former teacher's orbit, whom he received lessons from in the early 70's, he has developed the germinal Bailey approaches-plectrum scrapes and string rasps, above-the-nut plinks, rapid successions of alternating harmonics, percussive chord attacks, and dense, dark harmonies. Anyone, whether intimate or merely acquainted with Bailey's guitar sound, can identify the elements in Russell's approach.
Russell has not remained, however, in that orbit. His approach to the guitar, exclusively acoustic since 1977, engages areas of sound possibilities with greater patience, lingers longer to develop a sound, permits much more silence, clarifies notes and tones through fragmentation and splintering; he reduces and settles, as much as he agitates and roils. In a way I do not believe we ever play music, but are sometimes lucky to get close to it, Russell once stated in an interview, and personally I find that free improvisation specific to a time and place is the best way to do this.
Russell gets close to the music in his duet with cellist Martine Altenburger, titled Duet, released in 2010 on Another Timbre. Duet is a live performance from a 2008 festival in France, edited into five tracks. The sound is excellent, warm and intimate. Wood and wire are heard with clarity, and the silences and rests sound equally live.
Cellist Altenburger is a new name to me, and most certainly to most of you as well. She is conservatory trained, but leaped into a pool of improvisers around 1989 that included Michel Doneda and Le Quan Ninh. Her name appears on only a few releases, despite Ms. Altenburger's consistent involvement with performance events for over 20 years. She moves between performances of Cage and Scelsi, and dates like Duet, in which she scrabbles and sings on the cello, engaging Russell confidently and, at times, mimetically. She pulls a wide range of sounds from the cello, pizzicatto as well as her rich, singing bow work. I do not hear either musician employ extended techniques irrelevantly, or in a show-boating fashion. Rather, Duet is another specific time and place for Russell and Altenburger to push out beyond the received ideas, into conference, engagement, and occasionally, bracing and beautiful confluence. The price of the ticket is met, for me, in the concluding several minutes of track 4, as the duo entwine Altenburger's keening, melancholy cello line, with Russell's odd, strummed folk chords, repeated just long enough to invoke an ancient song.
Duet isn't for anyone insistent on hearing a new innovation in every release; it is for ears that value, as Milo Fine titled his 1977 release, the constant extension of inescapable tradition. Or, as Braque said a little earlier in time, Progress in art does not consist in reducing limitations, but in knowing them better.” Jesse Goin, Crow with no Mouth
“Coming into this batch, this was the one I figured would be the least enticing. An unfair pre-assessment, perhaps, as I only know Russell's work a little bit and, to the best of my knowledge, had never heard Altenburger before, but I (admittedly) mentally grouped it toward the efi end of things. Well, it is, I suppose, but it's also a rather nice surprise. It's far more considered than most such improvising and both players tend toward the lower end of their instruments as well as imparting something of a melodic tinge to much of the music, not overt by any means, but felt. This is all to the good. Does it get too scratchy/scrabbly for my taste on occasion? Yes, it does. Will most readers here be interested? Not so likely. But it's a good set, one I would have enjoyed seeing and hearing.“ Brian Olewnick, Just Outside
“....A third duo, this time consisting of cellist Martine Altenburger and guitarist John Russell. 100% acoustic music, recorded live. European-style improvisation: serious, demanding, cerebral, rewarding attentive listening thanks to the intelligence of the interactions and the instinctivism current running through it. Russell is definitely not a crowd-pleasing guitarist. Listening to him is difficult. But fascinating nonetheless.” Francois Couture, Monsieur Délire
“Sommaren 1974 besökte jag som en mycket ung man Martin Davidson och hans nystartade skivbolag Emanem i London. Då vi samtalade om den nya improns framtid lade han på ett band med John Russell och Roger Smith, en gitarrduo som inte gjorde mycket väsen av sig, fjärran från allt vad kaputtspielen hette.
Snart träffade jag dem på Little Theatre och noterade: ”…jag fäste mig vid duon Roger Smith och John Russell. Vänsterhänte Smith spelar akustisk och Russell elektrisk gitarr. Men trots förstärkningen var Russell otroligt tyst och finstämd. Musiken var som en viskning. Höll man andan på Little Theatre kunde man höra tonerna blanda sig med musikernas andhämtning. Smith och Russell är kritiska. Fingrarna far i löpningar och ackord över greppbrädan, men spelhanden väljer bara ut en liten del att utföra. Inte en ton för mycket kom.”
Det känns som ett privilegium att ha varit med om det. Min förvånade entusiasm över detta low dynamic, gestlösa nyskapande spel, som redan visade en ny väg bortom den ännu långt ifrån - utanför specialkretsar - kände Derek Bailey.
Russells kvaliteter har långsamt utvecklats. Han har – liksom Roger Smith – sökt sig framåt utan att ha gjort alla de omfattande projekt och samarbetsjobb som Bailey. De har funnits nära sina konstnärskap, koncentrerade på dem. Här liknar de flera andra engelska impromusiker från pionjäråren. Maggie Nicols och Paul Rutherford räcker som exempel. Deras insatser är lika omätliga som deras framtoning är lågmäld.
Det kan också ha en grund i att se sitt eget konstnärskap som huvudsaken och inte riktigt bekymra sig om huruvida det är stort eller inte, om publiken är väldig eller fåhövdad. Det är en ovanlig inställning, men ofta finner man de intressantaste profilerna här. Här kan man fördjupa sig sedan man vadat i spektakulära album som liknar varandra.
Och jag minns min häpnad, då jag diskuterade med Martin Davidson om impron hamnat i en återvändsgränd publikt och han svarade med att sätta på duon Smith-Russell. Jag glömmer det aldrig.
På nya skivan i Another timbres gitarrserie möter Russell franska cellisten Martine Altenburger, som har ett ben i samtida konstmusik och ett annat i impro. Den duon är mycket livligare än vad jag hörde för många år sedan.
Båda använder instrumenten som de klanggivare de är avsedda som. Men sedan! Russell är mjukt fåtonig, pauserande, lyssnande, Altenburger också, men hon är samtidigt explosiv. Hon både förmår sluta gitarren i sitt sound och liksom pilla underifrån med små mikrotoner.
Musikerna är ovanligt expressiva för att röra sig i brittisk impros vardagsrum. Till och med Russell kastar ur sig litet högljudda (nåja) staccatti och cluster som Altenburger elegant fångar upp.
Detta är en ovanligt lycklig skiva med fokus på en av stora, men också avsiktligt konstlösa, musikerna. Russell är utmanande oflirtig, obekymrad om effekterna, bara helt försjunken. Och han trivs uppenbart med den mycket sin yviga och uttrycksfulla virtuoskompis på cello.” Thomas Millroth, Sound of Music