SYLVIE COURVOISIER & MARY HALORSON

BONE BELLS

Pyroclastic Records

Sylvie Courvoisier, piano; Mary Halvorson, guitar.

These two female musicians have shifted between contemporary chamber music and avant-garde jazz for several seasons. Each musician has been heralded for her unique approach to both piano and guitar as singular talents. So, you can imagine the magic that happens when these two creative forces merge.

Courvoisier and Halvorson pour duo talents into a single voice with this project called “Bone Bells.” The title tune is eerie and mournful, with Halvorson’s guitar singing atop the piano chordal rhythms like a lost voice at sea. I can almost see the fog and the sailboat riding waves in the grayness. Halvorson has composed all the odd-numbered tracks. Courvoisier has composed the even-numbered tracks. On this arrangement, the piano is tinged with blues bites that answer the sadness of the guitar voicings and splash, like the sea beneath a lost boat. This duo feeds my imagination. The song ends suddenly, as though the boat has capsized.

Track #2, titled “Esmeralda,” was named after a sculpture by Dutch artist Cornelis Zitman. It is both beautiful, melodic, and wildly unpredictable. The composition changes moods suddenly, like a tempestuous female sometimes does. The guitar and piano merge, boiling hot like lava flowing from an unexpected volcanic eruption. On her solo, it sounds like Halvorson’s guitar overdubbed itself. The pianist builds suspense and drama in the mid-register, then bursts into arpeggios. Halvorson accompanies now, playing rhythm guitar beneath Courvoisier’s creative piano exploration.

“Folded Secret” tugs at my ear like a whisper between friends. I lean into the song. The guitar plays a line like a bassist and lets Courvoisier’s fingertips dance across the black and white keys, resembling tiny pink fairies.

The duo’s ‘live’ presentation is as dynamic and unfettered as this recording.

Sylvie Courvoisier is a Brooklyn-based native of Switzerland and the winner of Germany’s International Jazz Piano Prize in 2022. Guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson was celebrated as a guitarist, rising star jazz artist, and rising star composer of the year by DonwBeat Critics Polls. She was also awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.

Together, this combination of raw talent and creative composing brings duo art and music together like parmesan and pasta. They deliciously complement each other.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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