Daniel Herskedal: Voyage
Edition Records
If your collection includes albums by Jan Garbarek, Tomasz Stanko, Simon Shaheen, and Arve Henriksen, do yourself a favour and add Daniel Herskedal's Voyage. The third outing by the Norwegian tubaist, bass trumpeter, and composer doesn't baldly mimic any of those artists' releases, but there's arguably some degree of overlap between his music and theirs. Voyage plays like a concept album of sorts, its track titles alluding to an epic sea journey of Homeric scope, and the performances and Herskedal's music make good on the thrill of adventure promised by its title.
Carrying on from Slow Eastbound Train (2015) and The Roc (2017), Voyage presents performances by Herskedal, pianist Eyolf Dale, percussionist Helge Andreas Norbakken, and violist Bergmund Waal Skaslien, and on two of the ten tracks oud player Maher Mahmoud. The musicians' playing is well-integrated and fluid, each voice a distinct part of an ever-evolving whole, and though the number of musicians is modest, they achieve the orchestral impact of a septet or octet. One caveat: a tinny quality arises in Norbakken's percussion in a couple of places that proves distracting, but as complaints go it's a minor one.
We tend to think of the tuba as a rather unwieldy instrument, better used for bottom-end support than front-line soloing. Not so here: rarely has it sounded as limber as it does on Voyage, with Herskedal bringing to the tuba a facility generally associated with the more portable trumpet or trombone. There are moments where his playing is a bit reminiscent of Henriksen's, with the tuba, especially when played in the upper register, exuding a softness characteristic of a flute. Yet when the music calls for it (e.g., “The Gulls Are Tossed Paper in the Wind”), he's equally adept at assuming a a bass player-type role. Simply put, one pictures tuba players everywhere excited by the possibilities opened up by his approach. As critical as his playing is to the outcome, Skaslien deserves mention, too, his beautiful solo in “Chatham Dockyard” merely one of many distinguished moments on the album. Of course singling him out risks downplaying the superb contributions by Dale, whose tasteful playing is a stabilizing force throughout, and his extended spotlight in “The Horizon” is also memorable.
Drama seeps into the opener “Batten Down the Hatches” within seconds, with a slow thematic statement offset by a jittery piano-and-percussion pulse (the title, of course, reinforces the voyage theme in referencing action preceding departure). A rousing melody sung in unison by viola and tuba abruptly sends the music in another direction before the dark tone of the intro reasserts itself, solo and ensemble playing tightly woven throughout this scene-setter. Elegant pianisms by Dale then introduce the less frenetic “Cut and Run,” his lyrical musings nicely ornamented by Norbakken's cymbal accents until the full band emerges to help the music blossom.
With Mahmoud prominently featured and a plaintive melody voiced by viola and oud, the music turns mournful for “The Mediterranean Passage in the Age of Refugees,” and anticipation builds as the music advances beyond the pensive opening, growing ever more expansive as it does so; on the later “Rescue-at-Sea Operations,” Mahmoud's playing amplifies even more vividly the material's Middle Eastern flavour. Still, as impressive as the album is in its first nine tracks, it's at its most affecting during “The Lighthouse” when an unaccompanied, multi-tracked Herskedal caps the recording with a stately lament of remarkable beauty, one final reminder of precisely how fully realized and poised this recording is. As much as Voyage speaks to the exceptional calibre of the musicianship involved, it accentuates as powerfully his gifts as a composer and arranger.March 2019