Ecm Records
2006
Compass
About This Album
Susanne Abbuehl startled listeners in 2001 with her debut release, April, in which she took on the poems of e.e. cummings, and created lyrics for a Carla Bley composition. A studied and original vocalist -- she worked with Jeanne Lee -- she is also a solid composer. Her aesthetic and restrained approach lend themselves easily to Manfred Eicher's production M.O. On Compass, Abbuehl and her band, which features the wonderful clarinetist Christoph May, dig deep into the words of James Joyce, William Carlos Williams, and the music of Sun Ra and Chick Corea. The project is once more refined and mannered yet utterly ambitious beginning with her original composition "Bathyal." Here May's bass clarinet introduces Wolfert Brederode's piano that is given dimension by drummer Lucas Niggli's brushed cymbal and snare work. Abbuehl's voice enters not as whisper but as soft yet full-throated, "Do not run just yet/Do not hide..." ushering in a call to wait and observe, to look around and be touched by the bloom of flowers, by the environs as a balm for a fallen heart. The rippling piano sends waves just above the lyric, and offers the listener a way in. On "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair," (a daring chance in a jazz setting after Patty Waters '60s recording broke all the rules), is not so much referential as reverential.
Track List (try tracks 2,5,10 and 11)

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