Ingrid Laubrock-Tom Rainey Duo
Relative Pitch (CD)
Personnel
- Ingrid Laubrock (saxophones)
- Tom Rainey (drums)
Track List
- Buoyancy
- Twenty Lanes
- The Museum of Human Achievement
- Thunderbird
Review
The aptly titled Buoyancy is the new release by two of New York’s top improvising artists, Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey. This music was recorded at the end of a 17-date tour, and allows the listener to hear the beautiful results of so many nights of playing together, capturing the duo at the height of its prowess. Often these days music is documented and then put on tour, but when the music is allowed to ferment and grow, and the musicians are allowed to get more in touch with each other night after night, the results are often much more satisfying. This recording most certainly captures the duo in its developed group sound.
The four improvised pieces on this release showcase Laubrock and Rainey’s ability to keep the music in constant forward motion, truly up in the air at all times, and show how improvised music can express the same sense of form and movement found in its composed counterparts. All four pieces have a clear cut beginning, middle, and end revealing a mature sense of patience that these two players possess. They allow the music to unfurl at its own pace never in a hurry to run away from where they are in any given moment, yet pushing and developing just when the music is calling for the next phrase or sonic zone. Laubrock and Rainey manage to always keep the musical ball up in the air, flying forward and up throughout the whole CD, two individuals intertwine and combing into a larger whole in a way that is most satisfying to the ear.
This release is a testament to long-term musical relationships, and to artistic trust and growth. The sum of the parts is much bigger than the individuals, and represents just how two voices can be so much stronger than one. It leaves this listener waiting for the next musical chapter ahead from this truly buoyant dynamic duo.
–Sean Conly, May 26, 2016