Life In Leipzig
There is an art to the duo performance -- many jazz artists have tried it and accomplished it beautifully in many settings, live and in the studio. That said, there are very few recorded live performances between an electric guitarist and a pianist. Life in Leipzig is one. Recorded in 2005 by Germany's MDR radio as part of its broadcast of the city's jazz festival, this marks the debut live offering by pianist and composer Ketil Bjørnstad (and his first recording for ECM since 2000). It is also the first time this wonderful duo with guitarist and composer Terje Rypdal has been documented on tape for release. These two artists have been working together since the 1993 when Water Stories, Bjørnstad's debut recording for ECM, was released. They have also traveled and performed together as a duo extensively; the depth of shared language that such familiarity and rapport brings is displayed in spades here. The material comes from both volumes of Bjørnstad's The Sea as well as Water Stories and Rypdal's Skywards and If Mountains Could Sing. There is also a fragment from Edvard Grieg's Notturno. As evidenced here, this was a magical evening: the sound is pristine, the instruments seem to remain in tune (Bjørnstad considers himself a hard hitter and was worried the Bösendorfer wouldn't hold his attack -- perhaps he's never heard Cecil Taylor's performances on this type of piano), and the communication between the two musicians is almost out of this world in its warmth, beauty, ferocity, and intensely emotional melodicism.