SIMON NABATOV – Roundup

Leo

The initial “Sunrise, Twice” – cellist Ernst Reijseger and trombonist Nils Wogram depicting a slow parabola under the leader’s melancholic figures – is already deserving of a mention among the classics. But Simon Nabatov won’t stop there: he’s indeed one of the few piano virtuosos around that doesn’t need to flex his technical muscles, preferring paths that lead to diverse embodiments of harmonic consciousness. The quintet, completed by Matthias Schubert on tenor sax and Tom Rainey on drums, enlivens the listening environment through comprehensible difficulties, each instrument furnishing a glorious contribution to a healthy combination of rationality, sentiment and – when necessary – bedlam. On the other hand, the principal’s huge sensibility throws everything that’s unnecessary out of the house when the moment is appropriate: “Stuck For Good” is permeated by a mixture of dissonant impregnability and profound reflection, the latter explicated by emotional passages that recall the earlier work of Rainer Brüninghaus with Eberhard Weber while touching an entirely different set of inner strings in those who listen. This juxtaposition of instrumental nimbleness and alleviating, if pensive serenity – not forgetting a touch of irony – corresponds to the concrete foundation of this superb release, ended by the beautiful ballad “No Doubt”, which sounds like a contemporary standard that nevertheless would have made Glenn Miller proud.