Following three consistently fine recordings as a leader—2009's The Stars Are All New Songs Vol. 1, 2010's Balladeering and 2011's Time (all on the Danish guitarist's own Loveland imprint)—in addition to international visibility gained through work with Paul Motian on the drummer's Garden of Eden (ECM, 2006) and trumpeter Tomasz Stanko's Dark Eyes (ECM, 2010), Jakob Bro takes a considerable detour with Bro/Knak, a collaboration with Danish electronic musician Thomas Knak. Bro's laconic and, perhaps, more to the point melancholic playing is fundamental to much of this two-disc collection, but the emphasis is largely on composition and, ultimately, recomposition, as Knak takes Bro's eight pieces on the first disc, and transmutes and transmogrifies them into altogether different "rebuilds" on the second.
That's not to say improvisation doesn't figure into the picture. Nearly one-third of the first disc's 51-minute running time is taken up by Paul Bley's "Roots Piano Variation," a stunningly lyrical, free-flowing piece of spontaneous creation that clarifies the debt owed to the expat Canadian in pianist Keith Jarrett's formative years. Bley's from-the-ether musings make a great deal out of Bro's relatively sparse source material—a gentle Dane-Americana miniature that reenlists guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Thomas Morgan from Time—but the pianist's greater emphasis on the lower register lends a weight and strength entirely different from his more commercially successful progeny.
"Color Sample," the other lengthy contribution at over ten minutes, is more clearly composed, with Bro layering his voice into a gentle one-man choir, and a middle section that combines the guitarist's ambient and occasionally reverse-attack swells with cellist Jakob Kullberg's poignant arco and harpist Tine Rehling's delicate pizzicato. But it also allows for plenty of extrapolation—collective and singular; first from Kullberg, and later from Kenny Wheeler, whose flugelhorn solo is the perfect fit for Bro's dark-hued writing.
Frisell may have been an early influence, but the way he interacts with Bro on "Roots" and "Northern Blues Variation No. II" (which, with The Royal Danish Chapel Choir, feels like something out of a Sergio Leone spaghetti western), it's clearly less a matter of imitation and more a matter of inspiration, as the two wind their way through Bro's music with the epitome of anti-alacrity.
Knak's work ranges from the electro-tinged and considerably altered ("Northern Blues Variation No II Rebuild I") to the more ethereal "Rebuild II" that closes the second disc. In between, he turns Bro's rubato "Roots" into a surprisingly propulsive, repetition- centric "Roots Rebuild," with Bro layering some additional piano. Pianist David Virelles' lyrical "G Major Song" solo is re-imagined into curiously abstract form, while the oriental textures of "Izu" becomes a little less Zen, Knak's electronic percussion giving it a more fervent pulse than Anders Mathiasen's acoustic guitar on the original.
Ambitious in scope but introspective in delivery, Bro/Knak reveals another side beyond Bro's growing reputation as a guitarist. He's already proven himself a fine participant in a growing international network of musical performersd; here, with Knak, it's a different kind of collaboration, and one to which the guitarist/composer is clearly and equally well-suited. - John Kelman
Jakob Bro is a Danish guitarist with excellent acquaintances, see Bill Frisell and Lee Konitz in the splendid Time, and again Frisell, Kenny Wheeler and Paul Bley in this latest double effort. Precisely the presence of Bley constitutes the most interesting point of the CD, also in relation to the fact that the eighty-year-old Canadian musician carves out a solo piano performance lasting almost seventeen minutes! And indeed “ Roots Piano Variation ” lights up the entire first part.
Bley's interpretation has the slow pace of a river near its mouth, with fragments of piano styles that are recomposed in a phrasing that is sometimes discursive, sometimes elusive, with essential notes amplified by the particular use of space and with an unusual romantic side in nice evidence. The rest of the CD unfolds between dreamy melodies, relaxed atmospheres, children's choirs, cellos and harps, electric guitars that smell of prairies, and theremin modulations.
The pictorial plates of the artist Tal R shown in the booklet provide a vivid representation of the sound collage orchestrated by the Danish guitarist (the various songs were recorded in different studios and on different dates) which he finds in the dilated sound of his guitar and in the intimate, laconic and melancholic traits of his compositions the unifying factor.
Six months after assembling these recordings Jakob Bro sends all the material to Thomas Knak electronic musician, producer, film music composer, DJ. The result is the second CD in which the nine compositions are dismantled and reassembled in an unpredictable way by Knak, between loops, soundscapes deformed by reverbs and microchips and abstract forms that retain, despite a dimension of electronic sophistication, the painful vein and reflective of the entire work. - AAJ Italy Staff / allaboutjazz.com
Tracks
1.1 Northern Blues Variation No. I (Jakob Bro)
1.2 Color Sample (Jakob Bro)
1.3 Epilog (Jakob Bro)
1.4 G Major Song (Jakob Bro)
1.5 Izu (Jakob Bro)
1.6 Roots (Jakob Bro)
1.7 Mild (Jakob Bro)
1.8 Roots Piano Variation (Jakob Bro)
1.9 Northern Blues Variation No. II (Jakob Bro)
2.1 Northern Blues Variation No. II Rebuild No. I (Thomas Knak)
2.2 Roots Rebuild (Thomas Knak)
2.3 G Major Song Rebuild (Thomas Knak)
2.4 Izu Rebuild (Thomas Knak)
2.5 Color Sample Rebuild (Thomas Knak)
2.6 Epilog Rebuild (Thomas Knak)
2.7 Mild Rebuild No. I (Thomas Knak)
2.8 Mild Rebuild No. II (Thomas Knak)
2.9 Northern Blues Variation No. II Rebuild No. II (Thomas Knak)
DAVID VIRELLES piano (1.1 & 2.1)
PAUL BLEY piano (1.8)
JAKOB KULLBERG cello (1.2)
JAKOB HØYER drums (1.2 & 1.5)
JEFF BALLARD drums (1.7)
JAKOB BRO electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals, piano (2.3)
KENNY KHEELER flugelhorn (1.2)
TINE REHLING harp (1.2 & 1.3)
OSCAR NORIEGA clarinet (1.3)
ANDERS MATHIASEN acoustic guitar (1.5)
JONAS WESTARGAARD electric bass (1.5)
PAMILIA KURSTIN theremin (1.5)
THOMAS MORGAN double bass (1.6, 1.7 & 1.9)
BILL FRISELL electric guitar (1.6 & 1.9)
THE ROYAL DANISH CHAPEL CHOIR vocals (1.9)
Recorded at Avatar Studios, The Village Recording and STC Studios
Loveland Records – LLR016 (Denmark)