Joëlle Léandre: Contrebasse et voix. Betsy Jolas: Episode huitième, Giacinto Scelsi: C’est bien la nuit, Le Réveil profond, Maknongan, John Cage: The Wonderful Widow, A Flower, Jacob Druckman: Valentine, Joëlle Léandre: Réflexions, Sylvano Bussotti: Naked Angel, Sharon Kanach: J’ai tant rêvé. Adda 581043 (1988) no barcode
Reissue in “Double Bass”, CD 1 “Recto” of 2 CDs L’empreinte digitale ED 13250 (2018) barcode 3341348159461:
Recorded 22-24 December 1987 at the Swiss Cultural Center in Paris
Outlandish – but you wouldn’t expect less of Joëlle Léandre
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 29 October 2015
A recital of avant-garde double bass music, recorded in December 1987. Be prepared for something wild, no melodies here but an exploration of the vast array of outlandish sounds that a double bass can emit, and Léandre’s vocalizations on top of that in some, various horror screams even in Scelsi’s Maknongan and (less extreme, and with various other vocal sounds, some of them orgasmic) in Jacob Druckman’s Valentine (track 5) and Sharon Kanach’s J’ai tant rêvé (track 10). Beautiful soprano voice, too, in the two pieces of Cage. You’ll hate it if you hate avant-garde music and believe that music is just about beautiful romantic melodies, but if you are into that kind of exploration, it’s very entertaining. My favorites are Betsy Jolas’ Episode huitième (“Eighth Episode”) track 1, Scelsi’s Le Réveil profond (“The Deep Awakening”) track 3 (a typical Scelsi obsession with single tones and harmonics), and Léandre’s own Réflexions, track 6. TT 57 minutes. See also my review of the companion Adda CD “Urban Bass”, Adda 581254 (1991) with improvisations by Léandre. Both are collected on the L’Empreinte Digitale twofer mentioned above.