Tags
John Paricelli, Lars Danielsson, Liberetto, Magnus Ostrom, Music review, Scandinavian jazz, Tigran Hamasyan
I SAY jazz doesn’t as a genre, do it for me, then I hear this. Thanks to a recommendation which mentioned the magical words Scandinavian, melancholy and SHORT all together, I had a 30 sec mp3 listen and then immediately bought this. Because I do like, a lot, Jan Garbarek’s blue, spacious, melancholy sax, and Liberetto definitely also has that slightly exhausted 4 in the morning feel, which hooks me in.
The easy , sleazy, languorous piano of Tigran
(who of course I had never heard of, till now, not being a jazzer) is impressive and seductive. This is definitely music for a certain mood – for me, you’ve sat up all night, talking, one of those nights where conversation is deep, smooth, easy. Everyone has had a good time, no one wants to leave, you have become too tired to make the effort to crawl away to sleep. It’s 4 in the morning, dawn is on the edge but
somehow the dawning light is not yet cruel enough to show the spilled glasses, the overflowing ashtrays, the tired faces (clearly this is a long ago memory fragment – overflowing ashtrays and all), and you are at that edge where the smudged and tired faces hold a kind of beauty. You know you should leave….but maybe not quite yet.
Most of the CD is right in there in its blue smokiness. I wasn’t quite so keen on the track where Tigran moans and mumbles lyrics, Hov arek sarer djan (sorry Tigran!) I think he should let his fingers do the talking! But the foray into song aside, great stuff!
Photo of Tigran – Wikimedia Commons
Liberetto Amazon UK
Liberetto Amazon USA
Lady Fancifull 
Love your description, overflowing ashtrays as a bygone era and all. :o) I’ve got to give this one a listen. Have you ever listened to Bill Evans “Conversations with Myself”? I think it has a certain blue smokiness, too.
Hello Jilianne – thanks! Well I might slope on over and see what Amazon has to offer on mp3 – I don’t know Bill Evans, so will have a listen, to make sure I’m not spending TOO much time with the beloved very dead composers!
I’m working up the photographic skiills to photo the shelves of shame – its not the books, its the higgledy pigg, its the DUST. – all your shelves look SO WELL ARRANGED! But i think (so far) you definitely get the award for ‘this is a blogger who lives in a library that just might have a bed and a cooker in it as well rather than ‘this is a blogger who lives in a house and has a lot of books’
Yes, I have disclosed my obsession. Please, please, please, don’t let a little dust or higgledy pigg stop you. It makes for a much more interesting view. Besides, a good coating of dust gives everything a hazy glow. :o)