reviews / 2015

DETAIL - First Detail

Name: DETAIL – First Detail
Item: First Detail
Rating: 7.5
Author: Gianfranco Marmoro

2015 (Rune Grammofon)

free jazz

by Gianfranco Marmoro

7.5

Three decades of career and a solid reputation: that's the calling card of Scandinavian band Detail (1983-1994), the subject of a historical reissue by Rune Grammofon, which has published the earliest recordings of the trio made up of Frode Gjerstad (soprano and tenor sax, bass, clarinet and alto flute), Eivin One Pedersen (piano and keyboards) and John Stevens (drums).

In truth the group started out as a quartet, but already during the earliest recordings the South African bassist Johnny Dyani left the’ensemble.

“First Detail” brings together a previously unreleased 1982 live set: Frode Gjerstad's respect for the two musicians who died prematurely (Stevens in 1994, Pedersen in 2012) kept him from even listening to these recordings for years.

The group remained active until 1994, releasing several albums considered fundamental to the evolution of jazz in Europe, with the album live “Last Detail” in 1996 closed a fundamental chapter not only in Scandinavian free jazz.

When we think of those far-off lands, the name of Jan Garbarek resonates powerfully, but there was also another sonic reality that this album documents with excellent artistic results.

It's worth remembering that John Stevens was a member of the prestigious Spontaneous Music Ensemble, which gathered around it important musicians such as Derek Bailey, Paul Rutherford, Dave Holland. Their philosophy was to increase the intensity of the music rather than its volume, with atonal, arrhythmic solutions that never raised the stakes in some mad rush to pile musicians on top of one another - a radical, at times abstract jazz that, as this rediscovered document confirms, retains a fascination alien to much of modern free jazz.

Behind the three phases of “First Detail” lies a powerful idea, a sonic spirituality that draws a clear line between this incredible trio and the mountain of junk that's often passed off as improvisation.

Hypnotic, often endearingly excessive, the free jazz you'll hear on this album is almost sensual (as if wrapped in the smoke of dozens upon dozens of cigarettes lit one after another), with a central section where the blood runs slow and the playing becomes more cerebral, set between two furious, epic free-jazz excursions, always rich in detail and far more evolved than other contemporary offerings.

An album that unfortunately will only be heard by genre devotees, yet one that possesses an unexpected appeal, that could draw new converts into these pages of rhythms full of refined nuances, sax roars that are never devoid of logic and lyricism, and piano counterpoints that shine with inventiveness and ingenuity.

A listen that steals not just a few smiles, but even a round of applause.

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03/07/2015

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Gianfranco Marmoro, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition