JAN
GARBAREK
In Praise of Dreams
ECM
Jan Garbarek’s latest CD, In Praise
of Dreams, is his first in six years, and continues
his tendency, since the late 1980s, to move in a highly
personal direction, creating music that is often seen as
linked only tangentially to jazz. Garbarek has both consolidated
the innovations from his most recent previous releases,
Twelve Moons and Rites, and entered some
new territory as well, stripping things down to a series
of drum loops over which synth pads create an ambient canvas
for Garbarek’s diamond-hard, intensively expressive
soprano and tenor sax playing and the warm violin and viola
work of Kim Kashkashian. The only other participant is frequent
Garbarek collaborator, percussionist Manu Katche.
The music on this disc clearly strives for a mystic and
transcendental quality, and overall it achieves this aim
handily. Garbarek’s burst of sax energy is like a
burst of thought over a trancelike mantra, and Kashkashian’s
playing has a folk quality to it that is often hard to place
(was that a Celtic figure? Middle Eastern?). This all serves
to give the music its otherworldly quality that may cause
some to see Garbarek’s music as akin to popular New
Age artists. While this is somewhat true, the sheer musicality
and intensive focus of Garbarek’s vision is far beyond
the abilities of most New Age musicians.
One really outstanding thing about In
Praise of Dreams is the way that it demonstrates that
the use of loops does not automatically mean that one’s
music must slavishly obey the tenets of electronica. Gabarek
here uses a variety of rhythms, while the overlying music
is rich in influences, sometimes evoking Gypsy music (“Scene
From Afar”) sometimes Middle Eastern (“Cloud
of Unknowing”), at times Celtic (“In Praise
of Dreams”), and at others suggesting the Nordic folk
music that has long been an influence on Garbarek’s
work (“Conversation with a Stone”). Garbarek
has long been influenced by the music of different cultures,
and he does not exchange any of that for a more techno outing.
In Praise of Dreams thus manages to sound both
warm and human, yet utterly contemporary and not out of
step with the digital culture.
Garbarek’s saxophone voice has changed
little over the years, so how any listener feels about this
(or any of his recordings) is likely to be influenced by
one’s opinion of that voice. Early on he was clearly
influenced by John Coltrane, and his wide-open tone can
still evoke the master. However, there is little Coltrane
influence left in what Garbarek plays. He approaches the
soprano sax with the same open, masculine sound, never resorting
to the ‘prettiness’ that is often sought by
other musicians on that instrument. That is not to say that
his soprano sax playing is not pleasing to the ear, but
rather that it is much more like his tenor playing than
is generally the case with multi-woodwind artists.
Ultimately, In Praise of Dreams seems
to succeed largely because it evokes so much that seems
like a vague genetic cultural memory in the listener, regardless
of that listener’s ethnic origin. Listening to this
music one can imagine what it would feel like to be in a
mediaeval cathedral, in an inn in Chaucer’s England,
at Stonehenge when it was built, or contemplating the contemporary
world from frozen landscape above the Arctic Circle. It’s
music that hints at the mysteries that can be glimpsed only
when the veil of day-to-day life is lifted. It all this
sounds like mystic mumbo jumbo, it is only because there
are really no words that can adequately describe this music,
nor is a track by track analysis likely to be of much use.
In surrendering to Garbarek’s musical vision, the
listener is truly taken ‘off the map’ into a
place where definitions are meaningless. Some will refuse
to take the journey and will see this music as vague, inconsequential
sonic wallpaper. For those willing to take the trip, however,
In Praise of Dreams provides a heady listening
experience, indeed.
