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Thread: AAJ Review: David Virelles, Mbókò

  1. #1

    AAJ Review: David Virelles, Mbókò



    For a relatively young musician nearing his 31st birthday in 2014, pianist David Virelles has managed to both garner a strong reputation and emerge with a singular voice in a relatively short period of time. While his early experiences in North America were within the confines of what might be expected from a Cuban expat, playing with Canadian saxophonist Jane Bunnett, whose career has been predicated on a decades-long fascination with the music of Virelles' native country, in recent years he's emerged as a much broader artist. The first recording to give notice was, perhaps, saxophonist/composer David Binney's wonderful 2011 Criss Cross date, Barefooted Town, but it was not long after that Virelles began to garner even more significant attention with his own 2012 recording Continuum (Pi), but even more so when he began appearing on ECM recordings, specifically saxophonist Chris Potter's 2012 label debut as a leader, The Sirens , and in label stalwart Tomasz Stanko's New York Quartet on the equally impressive Wislawa (2013).

    Clearly, even at this relatively early stage in his career, Virelles has nothing to prove and so, with his own leader debut for ECM, Mbókò, he has fashioned a recording whose success is absolutely founded on the musical excellence of his chosen band mates, but which is nevertheless anything but a showcase for overt virtuosity and instrumental pyrotechnics. Instead, its subtitle says it all: Sacred Music for Piano, Two Basses, Drum Set and BIankoméko Abakuá, with the emphasis on Sacred Music. On this set of ten Virelles originals, the emphasis is more about evocation, whether it's the blockier angularity and energy of "Seven, Through the Divination Horn," where drummer Marcus Gilmore and biankoméko expert Roman Diaz create a polyrhythmic stew made denser still through the contributions of double bassists Thomas Morgan and Robert Hurst, or the lyrical beauty of the sparer "The Highest One" where, with ECM's characteristic attention to detail and sound, everyone's contributions are there to be heard with pristine clarity and absolute transparency.

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    Member Wounded Land's Avatar
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    Virelles adds a lot of texture to The Sirens, but I totally forgot that he's on Wislawa.

    I must admit, this new one sounds interesting.

    NP: Anubis Gate s/t

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Wounded Land View Post
    Virelles adds a lot of texture to The Sirens, but I totally forgot that he's on Wislawa.

    I must admit, this new one sounds interesting.

    NP: Anubis Gate s/t
    And Dvid typically has toured with Chris in support of Sirens because Craig T is, as ever, in intensely high demand. Love Craig, big time, but david can stand just fine on his own...as he demonstrates with Stańko...and on this new recording of his own, which is really exceptional.

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    Yeah, Taborn is burning on The Sirens. My impression of Virelles on that record (and you'll excuse, I hope, the prog analogy) is that Taborn:Virelles::Bruford:Muir.

    Does that make any sense?

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    Member Oreb's Avatar
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    I'm looking forward to this. IMO David was the shining light on The Sirens.

    Does it matter that this waste of time is what makes a life for you?

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Wounded Land View Post
    Yeah, Taborn is burning on The Sirens. My impression of Virelles on that record (and you'll excuse, I hope, the prog analogy) is that Taborn:Virelles::Bruford:Muir.

    Does that make any sense?
    Sorry, not at all. David was more a colorist on Sirens, but that is far from what Muir was with Crim. He was thnx factor that brought a sense of the unexpected into the music....and that is something both Taborn and Virelles do on Sirens, imo' just in different ways.

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    Hmmm...I don't know. Taborn seems to be more conventionally filling the role of pianist in that ensemble, just like Bruford was more conventionally filling the role of drummer on LTIA. If you subract Muir from LTIA, I don't think the tracks would totally fall apart...they'd just be less interesting. I think that Virelles does the same thing on The Sirens.

    Just my two cents...

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Wounded Land View Post
    Hmmm...I don't know. Taborn seems to be more conventionally filling the role of pianist in that ensemble, just like Bruford was more conventionally filling the role of drummer on LTIA. If you subract Muir from LTIA, I don't think the tracks would totally fall apart...they'd just be less interesting. I think that Virelles does the same thing on The Sirens.

    Just my two cents...
    Sorry, but Muir's role was the diametric opposite of Bruford's...to be the "X" factor who would not just surprise the audience...but the band, as well. Yes, Taborn's role is more conventional (though what he plays is anything but), but the fact that the music wouldn't fall apart without, in Crimson's case, the participation of Muir and, in Potter's case, Virelles' contributions, doesn't make either of them any less essential to the recordings' fresh and unpredictable sound.

    Just because music won't fall apart is not the only factor in determining the value of a musician's contributions; that the music would have been inexorably altered without them absolutely is. That Potter could have made this music as a duo, a trio, a quartet....or a quintet is a significant point; that he chose to make it a quintet with Virelles aboard is absolutely key to its success, irrespective of whether it could have gone on as a quartet...as, indeed,it did in most live dates. As a quartet, its success was predicated on it also being different, just as the four-piece Crimson that continued on after Muir's departure demonstrated that Crimson's LTiA-era music could continue to exist...but that it would do so in a very different form.
    Last edited by jkelman; 10-24-2014 at 09:59 AM.

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    I don't think I said anything that indicated that I felt either Muir or Virelles are not essential to the awesomeness of LTIA or The Sirens. I don't think that they are of lesser value. They are similar to me in the type of coloration they contribute and what they aren't doing.

    The fact that there are two bands in which you have on the one hand two drummers and on the other hand two keyboardists is, I hope you'll admit, slightly unusual. And my only observation was that a) this is the case and b) the relationship between the musicians playing the same instrument is similar. I see your point that Muir is more assertive than Virelles, but he's still a colorist as far as I see it. Bruford is essentially filling the role of "drummer in a rock band." Taborn is essentially filling the role of "pianist in a jazz combo." Muir and Virelles are fulfilling a different but analogous function in the context of their respective groups. They're decorative rather than structural, to use an architectural metaphor. That doesn't make them any less a part of the finished product.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Wounded Land View Post
    I don't think I said anything that indicated that I felt either Muir or Virelles are not essential to the awesomeness of LTIA or The Sirens. I don't think that they are of lesser value. They are similar to me in the type of coloration they contribute and what they aren't doing.

    The fact that there are two bands in which you have on the one hand two drummers and on the other hand two keyboardists is, I hope you'll admit, slightly unusual. And my only observation was that a) this is the case and b) the relationship between the musicians playing the same instrument is similar. I see your point that Muir is more assertive than Virelles, but he's still a colorist as far as I see it. Bruford is essentially filling the role of "drummer in a rock band." Taborn is essentially filling the role of "pianist in a jazz combo." Muir and Virelles are fulfilling a different but analogous function in the context of their respective groups. They're decorative rather than structural, to use an architectural metaphor. That doesn't make them any less a part of the finished product.
    Well, there are plenty of bands with two drummers dating back to the Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers in rock to Norwegians like Eivind Aarset, Mathias Eick and Ola Kvernberg in jazz.

    As for two keyboardists! A little less common but Rare Bird's early incarnation was predicated on the concept, and there are other exampes, albeit less common. So, sorry man, no disrespect but I just don't see the comparison between two percussionists and two keyboardists. Glad to hear you see them (Muir and Virelles) as equally essential, but to say that they are decorative rather than structural isn't true either, at least not from my perspective. I know, for a fact, that a lot of thought - both compositional and interms of how they engaged improvisationally.- went into how Tabornand Virelles worked together. Can't speak to Bruford/Muir, but in Potter's group Virelles 'role was as structurally important as Taborn's, even if Taborn was assuming more of a "conventional" role....though I'd acutally even argue that.

    Again, with no disrespect intended, I think you are making these observations based,upon your preconceptions of what fulfills conventional roles and what does not. It's such conventions that someone like Potter (and certainly Manfred Eicher as well) fight against when putting together a group like this. And I really mean it when I say no disrespect intended; it's hard to get past conventionalcrole playing when it's been the norm for decades. But these are the ways that forward thinkers like Potter and Fripp look to push the envelope and try to find ways to actually hreak out of it entirely..

    A suggestion: try listening to Potter's album from Virellles' perspective rather than Taborn's; try to flip things around, and look for how Virellles' contributions don't just color the music, but define it. It's there....it's just not as clear-cut aa it is hen you put Taborn in the more dominant role.

    One of the things I liied about the LTIA box was that it had a version of "Easy a Money" where it was almost entirely Muir's part, woth just occasional cues from others, mixed very, very low. I found it helped me to appreciate just how significant Muir's role was...not just in augmenting the track, but in defining it.

    Cheers!
    John

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