The latest releases reviewed.
INGRID LAUBROCK/LIAM NOBLE let's call this... Babel ***
The acclaimed young saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, who opens a Music Network tour here next week, duets with another exciting talent on the UK scene, pianist Liam Noble, on some standards and originals (by Mingus, Monk, Ellington, Konitz and both players), with a further six freely improvised pieces. Although half the CD is given over to familiar material, there's not a whiff of the comfort zone to what they do with it, as they edge obliquely into each performance with often the barest nod to the original line. With both players adventurous but always acutely responsive to one other, the interplay is impressive (and, frankly, doesn't need the electronic extras on some tracks). Some free performances seem inconclusive, but the improvised I'm at Your Throat Now is, despite the electronics, one of the most satisfying on the album. www.babellabel.co.uk Ray Comiskey
ANAT FORT A Long Story ECM ***
Pianist Fort got an initially reluctant Paul Motian to play on her recording debut, and the drummer liked the results so much he recommended them to ECM. Mixing trio, quartet, duo and solo settings with her and Motian are Ed Schuller (bass) and Perry Robinson (clarinet and ocarina), and though Fort is by nature a free improviser, she's also a distinctively melodic "inside" player and composer, whose folk-like music reflects her Israeli and Middle Eastern roots. This is especially true of spare, simple pieces such as Lullaby, As Two/Something 'Bout Camels and the striking Just Now, heard in three separate configurations, all elegantly developed. And Chapter One, spontaneously created by her and Robinson, is a lovely, ruminative performance. But it's the pieces with Motian and Schuller that seem the most fully realised. www.musicconnection.org.uk Ray Comiskey
STEVE KUHN Oceans in the Sky Owl ****
This is a re-release of an impressive encounter between pianist Kuhn, Miroslav Vitous (bass) and Aldo Romano (drums), which produced some arresting interplay between the three players, who are as comfortable staying within the harmonic boundaries as they are venturing outside them. Familiar options - In Your Own Sweet Way, La Plus Que Lente, Passion Flower, The Music That Makes Me Dance (Kuhn bookends it with Erik Satie) - are mixed with jazz originals, all treated with an obvious determination to approach it with a sense of discovery and mutual engagement. But it's the sheer mobility of the three parts - piano, bass and drums - and their intuitive understanding of their roles in this fluid dialogue that lifts this above most such one-off encounters. www.musicconnection.org.uk Ray Comiskey
