After a 20 min setbreak it started with a Iverson/Delbecq improvised duo piece that was awesome. Then Benoit and Andy traded seats and Andy and Ethan played a song. Then it was Ethan and Benoit playing a Mal Waldron tune, "What It Is", my favorite of the night. It grooved. The last piece seemed to be another improvised with Andy and Ethan. It was all well worth the schlep.
Crystal Magnets Piano Duo – Andy Milne & Benoit Delbecq
November 28th – special guest: Ethan Iverson – piano November 29th – special guest: Fred Hersch – piano
November 30th – special guests: Greg Osby – alto sax & clarinet, Michael Attias – baritone sax, Vincent Chancey – french horn, Jacob Garchik – trombone
Crystal Magnets, the piano duo from two masters of contemporary
improvisation, reunites Canadian Andy Milne and Frenchman Benoît
Delbecq. They became friends in 1990 while studying with saxophonist
Steve Coleman at The Banff Centre Jazz Workshop. Both keyboardists took
Coleman’s teachings to heart, exploring distinctly different approaches
to expressing their experiences through music. In 2007, they received
The French-America Jazz Exchange and were commissioned by Chamber Music
America to develop and record “Where is Pannonica?” [Songlines – 2009].
Milne and Delbecq returned to The Banff Centre in January 2008 to
undertake this project. The scope of it grew to include extensive
collaboration with Banff Centre audio engineers throughout the
compositional, recording and mixing phases. Using the sonic landscape of
the 5.0 surround sound format for inspiration, the music was composed
in part to exploit the unique potential for placing specific
compositional elements in distinct regions of the mix. The engineers
created an acoustic array within each piano and analyzed the natural
acoustics to define a larger array within the room, enabling Milne and
Delbecq to compose for the medium and perform in harmony with their
environment. The New York Times lauded the recording as a “strangely
beautiful new album” from two “resourcefully contemporary pianists, both
drawn to quixotic interrogations of harmony and timbre.”Although Milne
and Delbecq have both created music for electronic and computer-based
instruments, Crystal Magnets is primarily an acoustic piano duo, equally
influenced by both pianists’ ever-expanding experiences and passions.
As an innovator in improvised prepared-piano performance, Delbecq has
synthesized sounds and concepts from Ligeti and Steve Lacy to Aka Pygmy
music. Milne’s long association with Steve Coleman inspired his unique
integration of rhythmic concepts from Cuba, Ghana, American jazz, funk
and hip-hop.Their shared respect and understanding for each other’s
approach to the piano and to improvisation, helped connect them in a
profound, almost seamless thought process throughout their
collaboration. While interpreting each other’s compositions and
collaboratively developing pieces, Milne and Delbecq discovered this
synchronicity and used it with great care to develop complex rhythmic,
melodic and harmonic relationships involving timbre and texture, room
acoustics, space, and time. In doing so, they have extended the scope of
the piano duo within the jazz world.
