Ada Rave /Marta Warelis — Peel / Mondo (Relative Pitch)
Freedom from, or freedom to, that is the question. When the word was first applied to jazz, it was mostly the former; free jazz rebelled against increasingly confining practices and expectations. But when Argentine sopranino and tenor saxophonist Ada Rave and Polish pianist Marta Warelis play together, it’s more a matter of the latter. Do they want to form a tune on the spot, or sink deep into a sonic texture? Rip it up, or wax reflective? The answer is yes. When they recorded this album in concert on June 3, 2024, the Amsterdam venue Splendor’s stage was a free zone where anything was permitted.
But these are players who sincerely reckon with the responsibility that accompanies such freedom. They have responsibilities to each other as people, and also to whomever listens to them. On “First Strawberries,” Rave’s tenor starts out pushing against the grain of Warelis’ lean, romantic melody. But she only pushes for a bit, long enough to generate some tension, and then she adopts a more congruent stance, a tad more bristly than Warelis, but sympathetically resonating with the pianist’s emotional energy.
Both players treat extended techniques less as sources of novelty or ends in themselves than as part of a big bag of resources that they are free to use as needed, but also obliged to use well. The combination of peppery, laceratingly high sopranino phrases and vertiginous, conventionally voiced piano lines during the latter moments of the title track are as thrilling as a tightrope dance. And on “Rain Into Flood,” the way slithery inside-piano glisses swarm puffs of air and furry tones simply makes sense. Similarly, resort to an Warelis and Rave are as committed to creating compelling outcomes as they are to enacting a process that is compelling to experience as it unfolds.
Abdou - Gouband - Warelis - Hammer, Roll, And Leaf
Hammer, Roll, and Leaf is an audacious exploration of sonic intimacy, collaboration, and the spaces between sound and silence. This collaborative effort between saxophonist Sakina Abdou, percussionist Toma Gouband, and pianist Marta Warelis feels less like a recording and more like a shared meditation, a soundscape that invites listeners into its vast, fluid architecture. Their collaborations…
