专辑简介

Ellen Rowe专辑介绍：by Dave LynchIf you spend much time perusing articles or reviews about jazz musicians, sooner or later you'll read that a particular artist has "big ears" -- and that has nothing to do with physical attributes. Rather, in many cases the writer is remarking about the artist's openness to a wide array of influences and willingness to draw upon a whole world of music in expressing his or her particular identity. One listen to Denali Pass, pianist, composer, and educator Ellen Rowe's second CD as a leader, and it becomes clear that Rowe certainly fits that categorization. Rowe and her Ann Arbor, MI-based quartet (which features saxophonist Andrew Bishop, drummer Pete Siers, and bassist Kurt Krahnke) are firmly based in the jazz piano quartet tradition, drawing particularly on post-bop and modal approaches, and Rowe herself is widely known for her melodic and lyrical sensibility in addition to her impressive chops. But Rowe also pushes herself and her bandmates; on Denali Pass the quartet moves effortlessly from a warhorse standard like "Time After Time" through pieces that encompass influences ranging from Carole King to Michael Brecker to Afro-Cuban jazz and even serial music (on "12 Ton Blues" [get it?], composed by multi-instrumentalist Don Thompson and recorded during an NPR performance at the San Jose Jazz Festival). One might presume from the Denali Pass title (and the title of Rowe's previous CD, Sylvan Way) that the music contained within would tend toward new age lightness, and while Rowe's music should certainly have broad appeal to the modern straight-ahead jazz fan, it doesn't fall into the footsteps of the Paul Winter Consort, Oregon, or their new age or smooth jazz followers. Even on "Lullaby" -- dedicated to Bishop's and Siers' children and one of seven Rowe originals on the disc -- the music is intended, as Rowe describes in the liner notes, to "reflect the more complex range of emotions that children experience at night and the sense of comfort and security that their parents provide." On the more uptempo pieces, however, the predominant feeling is exhilaration, as on the multi-part title track reflecting composer (and outdoor enthusiast) Rowe's emotions upon reaching the summit of North America's highest peak in Alaska's Denali National Park -- and safely getting back down again. This is music about tackling both physical and artistic challenges, not about introspective navel-gazing. And a piece like "Third Dimension," highlighting Bishop's formidable tenor chops, is as exciting and adventurous as anything penned by jazz musicians whose natural habitat is the late-night big city. After all, Rowe's principal inspiration for this CD is a jagged, rocky, imposing, and -- as the liner notes make clear -- sometimes dangerous mountain peak. There are sheer precipices that can be navigated only with the help of an expert crew. She's got that crew here in the Ellen Rowe Quartet, and they all have ears big enough -- figuratively speaking, of course -- to match hers and the music she brought down from the mountaintop.