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Rating: "We will still be romantic
and we will enter the dense forest,
seeking silver flowers,
of invisible airy goblets.
Sitting on the stones, in the shade,
we will breathe the coolness
of the enchanted green kingdoms
of the lianas and the pure spring"
Who knows if it is ever possible to truly describe what ecstasy is.
Ecstasy like two bodies searching for each other, breaking one against the other like the wave does with the rock. The ecstasy of tilted necks, short breaths, the ecstasy of a love dizziness and lips biting lips. The ecstasy of hands intertwining hands, hands united in the silence of a kiss as in a prayer. But above all, the ecstasy of eyes closing and the finding each other anyway, understanding each other in silences and speaking to each other with puffs and smiles. This is ecstasy. The one of eyes half-closed, of the head lost in that gaze and in the notes of a record like this.
A mesmerizing record. A hypnotic record that kidnaps you and breaks down all your defenses, all your small, useless daily routines. Because this is an uncommon record, it is a record that transcends. A record made of telepathy between two giants of jazz. A record to listen to with closed eyes, then to reopen them and find a cascade of blond hair shining on your face, as if caressing you. This is ecstasy, and the beginning of "Twilight Song" is also filled with ecstasy. With Barron's right hand moving gently and wisely on the piano to draw drops of notes that shine brightly like in a chromatic rainbow. Until slowly, without the haste that poisons our every gesture, finding the glimmer of tonality. A musical search wisely guided like an Ariadne's thread by Haden's bass, in the colossal musical labyrinth constructed between blues and improvisation by Barron's pianism.
"I find myself in the crystalline wind, the more I lose myself, I transform and flee from the restless world of yore"
A live album, this. An album where even the audience's applause seems scarce, timid, almost not wanting to violate an artistic creativity that has something absolute, unrepeatable. And above all, an album that pulses with life, with rebirth. And they are the ten minutes of "For Heaven's Sake". That when you listen to it again it's as if you feel that cheek pressing against yours, in that rocking and welcoming theme, where you hum inside yourself the deep and dark notes of Haden trembling like your hand as you caress it. Or the solipsistic ecstasy of a long solo bass cadence, like in "Body and Soul", or the uncertain playfulness tinted in deep blues shades in "The Very Thought of You". Or again the musical diadem shining with tender melancholy in "You Don't Know What Love Is". That tender melancholy of when you felt like the crown of a flower without petals, and instead, you were just a corolla closed into a tight fist on itself, yet to bloom.
"Cold star of your hand. Faint crystal, slight flower. Ah, snowing love!"
No, now it no longer snows love. Now April is here, it is spring, it is rebirth. And "Spring Is Here". This is absolutely the masterpiece of the record. Spring is here. There's everything in this version of "Spring Is Here". There is emotion, there is tenderness, there is a primordial broth of the soul teeming with life. A big bang that creates by exploding light, where Haden’s bass notes rise from the deep to bubble like a mixture of colors, while Barron’s piano notes flutter like petals chasing each other in the air. Petals that seem like snow. And with what sweetness Barron's left hand paints a real harmonious aurora, on which the thought of an any-night rolls happily towards the ecstasy of a new day, like a carefree child sliding down a slide.
Because truly
Life, life, life
is only possible
to reinvent.
As spring does, which is here, every April.
[The verses of this review are by Brazilian poet Cecília Meireles]
Tracklist
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