CODA

March 2005

Jan Kopinski - Earth, Slam CD255

There’s long been interest among improvisers in working with silent films, whether classic or contemporary. It’s a special experience having form determined by visual narrative, whether the music is closely attentive or otherwise. There’s now a small but significant body of recordings by composer/improvisers, including Bill Frisell (various Keaton Projects), Mark Dresser (Cabinet of Doctor Caligari); Schiano/ Kowald/ LÃ'andre (Battleship Potemkin); Luis Sclavis (Dans La Nuit); Sakis Papadimitriou (Nosferatu); and Gary Lucas (The Golem). The present CD is music composed by saxophonist Kopinski for live performance with Earth (Zemlya), made by Ukrainian director Aleksandr Douzhenko in 1930. It’s music of great pathos and beauty, clearly fuelled by both the film’s grandeur and by the painful historical ironies of its propaganda component.

Kopinski is joined here by his children, violist Janina Kopinska and bassist Stefan Kopinski, and pianist Steve Iliffe. From the outset there’s a lovely convergence of materials and approaches, the Eastern European-flavored opening theme gradually giving way to Kopinski’s Trane-like flutters. At times it almost feels like litany on an unknown text, as on “Dream road” a dream of love and utopia,- which mixes contrasting modes in a particularly arresting way, and the beautiful “Falling Bells”- religion rejected, with Iliffe’s bell-like piano. Kopinski often seems very close to Coltrane’s elegiac period, circa 1965--A Love Supreme, Crescent (the concluding “Black Earth”_ suggests ‘Wise One’)--and it’s a mobile profundity, meshing beautifully with his themes and the chamber music aspects of the instrumentation. Even without the film, this is music that swims in history, somber and richly allusive. It’s a worthy addition to the genre.

Stuart Broomer