Down Beat
May 2002
page 57
Ellery Eskelin
Vanishing Point
hatOLOGY 577
****
As a jazz saxophone/string project, Ellery Eskelin's "Vanishing Point" invites comparisons to Greg Osby's recent "Symbols of Light (A Solution)" (Blue Note). But to compare them is to appreciate the boldness of Eskelin's work. Whereas Osby wrote innovative charts for string quartet and played against them, Eskelin sets three stringed instruments free to find ways to engage his tenor. "Vanishing Point" is a rare example of a jazz player employing a viola, cello and bass in a truly interactive way.
Eskelin took violist Mat Maneri, cellist Erik Friedlander and bassist Mark Dresser (along with Matt Moran whose vibraphone is used sparingly) into Avatar studios in New York and cut this totally improvised album in six hours. There are eight tracks, probably named after the fact as Eskelin attempted to characterize what his quintet had evolved. "Scatter Brain" is a hubbub of five voices that never settles. "Still Life" is made of larger blocks of sound in meaningful juxtaposition. "Horizon Blue" ends with the cello and viola laying down a long ground layer of tone, suggesting a far horizon toward which Esklein's tenor scurries.
Given it's creative processes, it's remarkable that "Vanishing Point" sounds so organized. The fact that the principles of organization are radical, subjective and new makes them more, not less, valuable. These five players are daring in their trust for one another. Their agitations of materials in a never-ending present suggest the action paintings of Jackson Pollack. Like Pollack's drip paintings, Eskelin's music delights in purposeful accident. But there are five artists flinging color on this canvas; somehow, they don't make a mess. They listen closely, react instinctively and find complex counterpoint sonorities on the fly. Individual movements contrast and congeal. Microtonal details (from stringed instruments plucked and bowed) accumulate to dense yet delicate texture. Within the multiple calls and responses are sudden revelations of space and light.
"Vanishing Point" is a challenging work that repays a listener's imaginative and emotional investment because it's diverse gestures almost always coalesce into startling, counterintuitive form.
-Thomas Conrad
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