The last time this quartet was together was on Polish pianist Marcin Wasilewski’s trio recording 2020’s Arctic Riff (ECM), where the masterful reeds playing elder, Joe Lovano, was the invited guest. This time, Lovano takes the lead on Homage (ECM) with this same backing trio, which has been intact as a unit since 1993. They are, in addition to Wasilewski, bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz. Homage has a distinctly harder edge than other Lovano ECM output, being highly creative and improvisational, but mostly lacking the ferocity of his Blue Note or Evidence Recordings. Fear not, however, Lovano has just formed his Paramount Quartet with guitarist Julian Lage, drummer Will Calhoun, and bassist Asante Santi Debriano.
Lovano penned the bulk of the album, two long-form compositions – “Golden Horn” and “This Side -Catville” as well as the title track. In fact, he wrote all five of the six except the opener, “Love in the Garden,” a lovely, flowing ballad piece authored by the Polish violin master Zbigniew Seifert, where Lovano, in his breathy way, is in full command of the melody. The other two – “Giving Thanks” and the percussion-filled closer “Projection” are brief, two-minute-plus improvisations. “Golden Horn” borders on the spiritual, somewhat Coltrane-like, as the saxophonist employs the four-note hook of “A Love Supreme” before ushering in a series of fragments that blossom into more swinging post-bop lines. A better comparison to Coltrane might be Charles Lloyd, although the pianist, Wasilewski, sounds similar to McCoy Tyner in his pulsating solo, prompting Lovano to play hand drums along with percussionist Miskiewicz. Lovano surprises in the last section, moving off the tenor to the soprano-like Hungarian tarogato, an instrument also found in Lloyd’s arsenal, but probably not in many others. He begins rather fiercely but morphs into softer tones, as the piece fades to the sounds of light piano, rattling percussion, and a few swipes of the gong, the latter courtesy of Lovano as well.
The title track begins with short bursts, Lovano again on tarogato, evolving into free, unaccompanied playing until the trio joins in after a minute. The quartet continues to play freely with the pianist and bassist making individual statements sandwiched between Lovano’s tenor excursion. However, he again switches to the Hungarian reed instrument in his return before the piece moves into an intriguing percussion coda for its last two minutes. “Giving Thanks” is a series of unaccompanied tenor figures leading into the album’s strongest piece, “This Side – Catville,” because it contains more melodic lines than most of the others, coupled with a steady, sturdy groove underneath. Unlike his sustained, elongated lines that marked his work on the Trio Tapestry offerings, Lovano plays mostly in snappy, short phrases, somewhat akin to his phrasing that I witnessed live a few weeks ago. He and Wasilewski alternate equally free-ranging solos on this exploratory journey, complete with drum-sax exchanges that produce an explosive finale. This track, along with some of the freer improvisations, makes this a significantly different album from Arctic Riff, although many of the softer tones remain as well.
Lovano’s creative well remains deep. So, going forward, you can expect to hear more from Lovano with this trio as the recording session apparently captured five hours of free exchanges. We can also likely expect to have music from his newly formed Paramount Quartet at some point too.
