FRANÇOIS COUTURIER & DOMINIQUE PIFARÉLY

PRELUDES AND SONGS

ECM Records

Franҫois Couturier, piano; Dominique Pifarély, violin.

This seemed to be the perfect album to listen to on a Sunday morning: peaceful, classical, warm and beautiful.  The delicious sounds of just violin and piano fill the house with serenity.  This duo is spectacular, with a bit of Avant-garde thrown into the musical soup like cayenne pepper.

Couturier began his study of piano at age six.  He has always been drawn to duo situations. As soon as he earned his degree in Classical Piano and Musicology, he met bassist Jean-Paul Céléa. They formed a duo, performed and toured together from the late 1970’s until Couturier accepted a gig offer from John McLaughlin, where he played Fender Rhodes and keyboards.  They made an album together.

This project is a familiar reacquaintance, because Couturier recorded with French violinist Dominique Pifarély on his album “Poros” in 1997.  Pifarély is known to work in avant-garde jazz, as well as being proficient in post-bop music.  He was born in Southwestern France, a small city called Bègles, nested on the shores of the Garonne River. In the late 1990s, he began duo work with pianist Franҫois Couturier.  So, they are old familiar friends. Twenty years later, they bring something more polished, yet still deeply emotional and free that infuses their duet presentation.  Jazz is what puts inspired freedom into their music.  With all the classical roots and technical cleverness, it is the essence of improvisation that colors this music with rainbow brilliance.

On the familiar “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” Pifarély begins with his violin solo.  Midway through, the piano of Couturier enters, then spirits away with the flutter of mid-range piano keys sounding like bird wings, shivering to be free. When Pifarély re-enters, the bird takes flight.

This album is a good example of why jazz is called America’s classical music. For the most part, it is based on the European music scales, but when you incorporate blues, slave songs and most importantly improvisation, the music becomes jazz. I hear ‘the blues’ in this ‘Nightingale’ song (perhaps not the slave songs) but the excitement of freedom and improvisation is palpable. These two incredibly talented musicians both add their own composing talents to the mix. But when they ‘cover’ tunes like “I Loves You Porgy,” you hear how in touch they are with jazz and the universal freedom it brings to music.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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