| Vignettes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 2007 | |||
| Recorded | April 2007 | |||
| Genre | Avant-garde jazz | |||
| Length | 68:23 | |||
| Label | ECM ECM 2027 | |||
| Producer | Manfred Eicher | |||
| Marilyn Crispell chronology | ||||
| ||||
Vignettes is a solo album by American jazz pianist Marilyn Crispell recorded in April 2007 and released on ECM later that same year. [1]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [2] |
| All About Jazz #1 |  [3] |
| All About Jazz #2 | [4] |
| All About Jazz #3 | [5] |
| The Guardian | [6] |
Writing for All About Jazz, Martin Gladu stated: "Drawing more on the tone-conscious, rubato balladeering of the Bleyian school rather than the cantankerous approach of Cecil Taylor... Crispell blends to her modernist factory a classical music informed eloquence and patina that is all her own. Mixing melodic free-ballads and spatial improvisations with all-over, gestural pieces, she maintains a high level of creativity in her playing throughout the sixty-minute plus session." [3]
In a separate All About Jazz article, Budd Kopman remarked: "With Vignettes, Crispell continues to make beautiful music with an intensity that is breathtaking. The seventeen tracks sound of a piece, connected by a searching concentration, regardless of whether the individual piece is a free improvisation or one based on a composition... Vignettes is a new high point for Crispell as she continues her musical journey." [4]
Another AAJ writer, John Kelman, stated: "Unerringly beautiful, Vignettes may be Crispell's most accessible recording to date. Still, with its innate lack of compromise, it's another compelling addition to a growing discography from the fearlessly open-minded Crispell that reveals new facets with each successive release." [5]
The AllMusic review by Thom Jurek states, "Vignettes is a remarkable and moving recording—one that is timeless and honest, and communicates directly, literally, and poetically to the listener in a manner that is gentle yet pronounces its emotional weight without hesitation or self-consciousness." [2]
In a review for Elsewhere, Graham Reid remarked: "Crispell stakes a strong claim to being one of the most daring yet considered pianists in improvised music today. Listening music, if you know what I mean." [7]
John Fordham, in an article for The Guardian, wrote: "There are hints of Paul Bley's lyrical precision and Jarrett's song motifs in this private, slow-moving, but exquisitely articulated, dreamscape. The melodies often bloom, Bley-like, in short motifs on to which asides fall and accumulate, and though there are a few jagged, more intense pieces... most of the episodes are meditative." [6]
In a review for Point of Departure, Stuart Broomer called the music "work of stunning economy and an emotional translucence in which keyboard touch reaches rare levels of communication," and wrote: "Crispell's intensity of focus lends this CD a special aura... It's music in which architectural rigor and a slow dance of liberation seem to define a common ground, music in which emotion is free to be both complex and direct." [8]
All tracks are written by Marilyn Crispell, except as noted.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Vignette I" | 2:19 | |
| 2. | "Valse triste" | 2:59 | |
| 3. | "Cuida tu espíritu" | Jayna Nelson | 7:47 |
| 4. | "Gathering Light" | 5:54 | |
| 5. | "Vignettes II" | 2:29 | |
| 6. | "Vignette III" | 1:08 | |
| 7. | "Vignette IV" | 1:48 | |
| 8. | "Vignette V" | 1:36 | |
| 9. | "Sweden" | 7:04 | |
| 10. | "Once" | 3:55 | |
| 11. | "Axis" | 3:45 | |
| 12. | "Vignette VI" | 2:56 | |
| 13. | "Vignette VII" | 4:02 | |
| 14. | "Ballade" | 5:11 | |
| 15. | "Time Past" | ||
| 16. | "Stilleweg" | Arve Henriksen | 6:18 |
| 17. | "Little Song for My Father" | 3:21 |
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