The Next Door

ドイツのピアニスト/コンポーザー、ユリア・ヒュルスマンによるカルテットの2019年の『Not Far From Here』以来3年ぶりの新作!

彼女と彼女の同僚であるテナー・サックス奏者のウリ・ケンペンドルフ、ダブルベースのマーク・ミュールバウアー、ドラマーのハインリッヒ・ケッバーリングが作曲したほぼオリジナル曲のみによる多彩なプログラムで彼女独自のピアノ・サウンドを披露。
60年代のポスト・バップやモーダル・ジャズで培われたジャズの伝統に対する深い敬意がこのセッションに浸透し、カルテットのモダンな工夫によって、非常に表情豊かなソロと深い相互作用の舞台を作り出している。

【パーソネル】Julia Hulsmann (p) Uli Kempendorff (ts) Marc Muellbauer (double-b) Heinrich Kobberling (ds)

Though the Julia Hulsmann Quartet won a Deutscher Jazzpreis for 2019s Not Far from Here, it was only her second outing with that lineup. Most of her recording career has been spent leading a trio with drummer Heinrich Kobberling and bassist Marc Muellbauer. She discovered a more balanced musicality with greater potential for dialogic intimacy when gig partner and tenor saxophonist Uli Kempendorff joined the ensemble. The expanded configuration offered a textured airiness and more possibilities for group subtly, in addition to greater harmonic and rhythmic potential, and they worked together live as often as possible. Even during the pandemic, when most live activity was shut down, the quartet participated in alternative performance projects and played socially distanced live streaming concerts. They spent months vigorously rehearsing new material. The fruits of that period are readily evident on The Next Door. Hulsmann wrote five of the sets 12 tunes and spread the composition credits around. Each of her bandmates contributes. Also like Not Far from Here, she includes a cover, this one of Prince and Wendy & Lisas "Sometimes It Snows in April." Opener "Empty Hands" commences with an optimistic 14-beat piano ostinato. Muellbauer and Kobberling follow, and Kempendorffs entrance begins an expansion of the melody. He and Hulsmann exchange lines and then solos that co-exist somewhere between focused conversation and breathable drift. Her subsequent "Made of Wood" is a glorious exercise in post-bop swing with remarkably syncopated harmonics. Muellbauers "Polychrome" begins with an intricate lyric statement played in unison by bassist, pianist, and saxophonist. Hulsmann contributes an elliptical solo, but Kempendorff joins in, adding bluesy asides resulting in a multivalent dialogue; the rhythm section fills and accents while anchoring them. The drummers "Lightcap" owes a great debt to the Ornette Coleman Quartet, despite the use of a piano. Following its nearly hummable head, his time-shifting style urges on his bandmates with an impressionistic backwards approach to the method trademarked by Paul Motian. The Prince cover is at once reverent and resonant. Hulsmann carries the melody, framing it in sparse yet luscious chords as Kobberling paces along using brushes. Kempendorff follows the pianist, delivering a sparse yet emotionally bright solo before Hulsmann employs the changes in an airy solo that alternately touches on gospel and nursery rhymes. Kempendorffs only contribution is "Open Up," a jaunty post-bop number with interlocking improvisations atop imaginative, syncopated breaks from Kobberling, and canny interaction between saxophonist and pianist. The drummers elliptical "Post Post Post" displays a mysterious softness in tone even as it weaves in harmonic development through the pianists intuitive comps and Muellbauers exceptional bass solo. He composed the set closer, "Valdemossa," a progressive, nearly avant take on bossa nova with slippery piano harmonics, a lush, haunted melody, and inventive, tempered soloing from Kempendorff. The Next Door finds the Hulsmann quartet intuitively and purposefully exploring music that moves forward some from Not Far from Here while retaining an intimately familiar sound and conversational approach. ~ Thom Jurek