Bone Bells

Bone Bells marks the third recorded duo offering by pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson. It follows their covers set Crop Circles (Relative Pitch, 2017) and Searching for the Disappeared Hour (Pyroclastic, 2021). While those outings were a showcase for the pairs mutually knotty, imagination-stimulating dialogue in composition and improvisation, Bone Bells is almost on another level, reflecting a highly developed rapport. The eight tunes are alternately composed: Halvorson on odds, Courvoisier on evens. The guitarists songs are more abstract, while the pianists are more earthy, though they exchange places often in playing them with a kaleidoscope of expressive emotion, playfulness, and dialogic conversation. Various musical traditions are referenced, yet their boundaries are stretched and ultimately shaped to fit the collectives vocabulary as they cohere. Halvorsons title-cut opener is based on Trust, the experimental novel by Hernan Diaz. They introduce it by quoting a well-known 20th century TV cartoon, and the women begin morphing it to their own ends, gracefully cutting across the blues, folk, jazz, classical, and pop. Courvoisiers "Esmeralda" was inspired by a sculpture by the late Dutch artist Cornelis Zitman. Its strident dynamics offer mood changes, and the tempo shifts illuminate an idiosyncratic and intimately detailed conversation that juxtaposes playfulness in embracing a rounder harmonic sensibility, then feverish agitation whispers down into near pianistic tenderness. Halvorsons "Folded Secret" showcases the guitarist and pianist offering a gently dissonant swing. Courvoisiers prepared piano holds down and asserts the bassline as the guitarist crosses flamenco, Latin jazz and post-bop in a semi-angular vamp. In one sequence, the pianist touches on the NOLA R&B piano tradition and gets answered by Halvorson playing (almost) straight blues before returning the tune to its loopy rhythmic dance. Arguably one of the sets best numbers is Courvoisiers "Nags Head Valse," which commences with the piano and guitar playing a nightmarish carny tune, and it retains a rhythmic precision throughout that underscores a truly out-there duo improvisation. Its followed by the guitarists "Beclouded," a sprawling composition that joins vintage film noir soundtrack music to a scalar interlude from the pianist before they venture off into intricate yet forceful improvisational dialogue that cuts across swinging mutant jazz with chromaticism, style, and impressive harmonic invention. Courvoisiers "Cristellina e Lontano" closes the album with a 12-beat cycle under an eight-note piano vamp. It collides with Halvorsons triple-meter guitar playing with rapid-fire lines that are eventually played in unison before it evolves into provocative improvisation. There isnt a moment on Bone Bells that isnt compelling or fascinating. It showcases the trust these musicians have in one another as they take risks in varied stylistic and harmonic approaches to modern jazz composition and collective improvisation. ~ Thom Jurek