AAJ Review: Louis Sclavis Quartet's Silk and Salt Melodies

[jkelman]

My review of Louis Sclavis Quartet's Silk and Salt Melodies, today at All About Jazz.

After reinventing himself with a completely revamped ensemble on Sources (ECM, 2012), reed multi-instrumentalist Louis Sclavis expands the purviews and possibilities of his Atlas Trio by adding percussionist Keyvan Chemirani to the mix for Silk and Salt Melodies. Sclavis has, in his 33-year career as a leader—and since coming to ECM Records in 1991 with the recording of Rouge (1992)—made a life's work of regular reinvention, both contextually in terms of lineup and stylistically through a broad cross-section of projects ranging from the fully unplugged, improv-heavy but still composition-based Acoustic Quartet (1994) and image-inspired blend of form and freedom on Napoli's Walls (2002), to more fully structured endeavors like Dans La Nuit (2000), a soundtrack to Charles Vanel's silent movie of the same name.

Retitled from Atlas Trio to Louis Sclavis Quartet, the clarinetist and sometimes soprano saxophonist once again focuses exclusively on the wooden reed instrument but, if returning keyboardist Benjamin Moussay and guitarist Gilles Coronado continue to explore broader textures with effects and/or electronic instruments, there are less sonic extremes and more emphasis on natural timbres on Silk and Salt Melodies; even when Coronado employs a touch of distortion or a bit of reverb, it's more restrained, making the record feel more intrinsically organic. The addition of Chemirani provides a more decided pulse that frees his newfound quartet mates from having to pull double or triple duty, though every member of the group still helps propel the music forward, whether it's through Sclavis' serpentine melodies on tracks like the Middle Eastern-inflected opener, "Le parfum de l''éxil," or the similarly labyrinthine, more Indo-centric "Sel et Soie," where the composer delivers his most exhilarating bass clarinet solo of the set, driven by the remarkably expansive colors of Chemirani's zarb, a Persian goblet drum also known as tombak, donbak , dombak or tompak.

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