Anat Fort Trio: Colour
Sunnyside Records
That pianist Anat Fort, bassist Gary Wang, and drummer Roland Schneider have been making music together for twenty years is borne out by the trio's extraordinary rapport on Colour. Issued on Sunnyside, the nine-track set follows earlier ones on ECM, 2010's What If and, with clarinetist Gianluigi Trovesi, 2016's Birdwatching. After moving to New York from her native Israel to attend William Paterson University (where her teachers included Harold Mabern and Rufus Reid), Fort discovered she had a special chemistry with Schneider and Wang, which resulted in the trio's formation in 1999. And though 2008 saw Schneider move back to Germany and Fort to Tel Aviv a year later, Colour demonstrates that physical distance has done little to diminish the trio's connectedness. From start to finish, the recording accentuates the impression of familiarity, comfort, and ease that accrues from years spent playing together.
The relaxed, free-flowing explorations in “BBB” and “Part Trio” (the ruminative latter also included in a graceful solo piano version) testify to the ease with which the three advance through the pianist's originals. Whereas “Goor Katan” exudes elegance and lyricism, the trio's propensity for blues and gospel forms emerges in the sultry “Sort of”; a subtle Eastern vibe, on the other hand, infuses the gentle swing animating “The Limp,” which sees Fort delivering one of her more abstract solos alongside her partners' loping undercurrent.
Admittedly, the satisfactions on Colour have less to do with Fort's compositions, which are credible enough, but in the moment-by-moment interactions between the three and how responsive each is to the other. Fort deliberately chose to highlight the trio's range and spontaneity by adopting a freer approach (one chart-less piece even titled “Free”) than that used for the earlier releases, making for oft-introspective music of remarkable sensitivity. While she's by default the primary melodic source, all three are equally pivotal to the group identity.
As I listen to Colour, I'm sometimes reminded of the similarly easeful playing of Geri Allen's unit with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian (interestingly, the latter drummed on Fort's 2007 ECM debut, A Long Story). You could be forgiven for thinking of Haden, for instance, during Wang's solo on “Sort of,” and Schneider's playing likewise evidences a rather Motian-like rambunctiousness in the wide-ranging, eleven-minute closer “Heal and...” and lively “Tirata Tiratata.” There's a like-minded elasticity in the handling of the material, with Fort's trio showing itself comfortable whether playing in accordance with regulated metre or in a rubato style. In liner notes included with the release, Sam Newsome refers to “an alluring quality about this recording that compels one to stop what they're doing and listen,” a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly concur: spending fifty-four minutes in the trio's company is time well spent, the satisfactions many and the rewards plentiful.August 2019