Jan Klare / Wolfgang Heisig

Christine Abdelnour/Magda Mayas

The setting sun is beautiful because of all it makes us lose

SOFA 577

One of the simplest configurations for music making, the piano-saxophone duet developed from the time those instruments became common. While the intimacy projected from this one-on-one meeting often eliminates the extraneous to focus on the sound’s essence, this similarity to clean architectural lines also widens the scope for improvisational ideas. Like the facades of modern dwellings the result can be original and outstanding, but as these duets prove vastly different in scope.

One timbre less oblique than chamber improv, this third recorded meeting between French alto saxophonist Christine Abdelnour and German pianist Magda Mayas is a single-track, 35-minute evolutions of already established parameters. Evolving at a languid pace, the interaction of the two involves sonic friction. But Mayas, who also plays with the likes of Tony Buck and Abdelnour, who has recorded with among others Chris Corsano, are up to the challenge. With the saxophonist’s exposition unfolding from whistling shrieks, unadorned breaths and dissected flutters and the pianist depending on stopped piano key pressure and implements jiggling on prepared internal strings the effect is reflective as well as resonating. Although the odd piano harp glissandi is inserted into Mayas’ leisurely strategy, gamelan orchestra-like gong echoes and buzzing string stops and scratches are more common. With piano tones unfolding from a solid centre, climactic intensity is maintained as the saxophonist’s response of intense reed squawks and tongue-tolling multiphonics brushes against string strums as partnership – not challenge or accompaniment. By the climax, without upsetting the perambulating landscape, the saxophonist’s irregular split tones and the pianist’s echoing string pressures finally speed up and then align. This is done with such craft that the surface sequence is not upset.

Much more upfront, the eponymously titled other CD involves sounds created by, and recorded on the spot, by Germans, alto saxophonist Jan Klare and keyboardist Wolfgang Heisig using the phonola, an air-operated piano substitute in which the performer influences the punched note sequence by nuanced pedal work and changing dynamics and tempos. Although influenced by American composer Conlon Nancarrow’s experiments with player pianos, Heisig, who has composed for ensembles like Musica Temporale and L’art pour l’art and Klare who is involved in many groups including the Dorf big band, produce a program that’s more complex and shaded than Nancarrow’s, but just as speedily staccato. “Study for player piano #3b” for instance is almost R&B, with Heisig’s cascading pumps near-Teutonic boogie woogie and Klare’s pressurized glissandi sweeping to triple-tongued extensions. The two up the tempo as they harmonize. And in spite of the walking bass sweeps from the phonola, continue to story tell among the cascading stresses. With the keyboardist using pedal pressure to create percussive clips and smacks among his tremolo motifs, and the saxophonist interpolating an occasional Bebop-like lick, the robotic interface is minimized and almost forgotten. Another standout from the steamrolling sequences is “Study for player piano #3d” which perfectly joins strums and glissandi from Heisig’s machine and Klare’s heavily vibrated tongue flutters. As the two hopscotch up and down the scale the broken octave duet opens up into a final crescendo of widening split tones from the saxophonist and an augmenting waterfall of note sputters from the phonola,

Although the phonola timbres may dampen the comparison between this CD and the other, both discs show that duo programs are only limited by the participants’ imagination.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: setting: 1. Thousand and One

Personnel: setting: Christine Abdelnour (alto saxophone) and Magda Mayas (piano)

Track Listing: Heisig: 1. Study for player piano #11 2. Study for player piano #3b 3. Prinzenrolle 4. Study for player piano #3d 5. Doppelrolle 6. 13865 nuclear weapons

Personnel: Heisig: Jan Klare (alto saxophone) and Wolfgang Heisig (phonola)