Guitarist Torsten Papenheim from Berlin is always surprising us with each new release – from his duo work in Rant, to his live solo guitar project documented on Tracking / Racking, and his composed-jazz music in the group Tru Cargo Service…here on Halfway To Dawn (MA RECORDS M 22), he’s now teamed up with percussionist Daniel Kartmann of Stuttgart (from Ixtar, Zebularin, and other groups) to form the duo Sunswept Sunday, and they’ve recorded a set of eight compositions by Duke Ellington!
I need hardly inform the reader of the importance of this great American composer of the 20th century, a figure whose achievement is finally beginning to be recognised and understood (by listeners and scholars outside of the jazz domain). People need to inform me though, as I’m only a fairly recent convert to the vast world of Ellington’s music (and though I have managed to collect over 30 releases over the last 2-3 years, that’s just a drop in the ocean). However, I think Papenheim and Kartmann have developed their own very individual and unusual take on the music; right away you can tell this is not some sentimental “tribute” album, nor is it marred by too much respectful awe, as might have happened in the hands of other less-radically minded musicians. They declare their aim is to “focus on one central aspects of Ellington’s music” on each of the eight tunes they perform, sometimes paying attention to the “timbre, tone, [or] sound’ of the music, sometimes using the melody as a starting point, other times interpreting the “mood” (a very subjective approach), and sometimes simply drawing inspiration from the tune’s title. This last one may seem very experimental, but when you have such resonant and powerful titles as ‘Money Jungle’ or ‘The Star Crossed Lovers’, I’d say you can’t go far wrong.
The duo’s other approach is to simply get into the “groove” of an Ellington work, again a very subjective method, but when you have musicians as talented as these, the results will cause sparks to fly. All of this verbiage of mine will become clearer as you listen to the album, but clearly we’re not just talking about a conventional “jazz” album, nor note-for-note cover versions, nor improvisation where the players “jam” alongside a set of Ellington chord changes. Sunswept Sunday have worked very hard – almost deconstructing the music at some level – to produce something possibly quite new, certainly very personal, and yet remain true to the spirit of Ellington. It’s reflected to a large degree in the choice of instrumentation – one guitar, one drum kit – stripped down to essentials, with occasional appearances from melodica, snare drum, hackbrett and cornet. In places, it’s the kind of minimal set-up and the sound we’d associate with New Wave post-punk bands of 1978-1980, a million miles away from Cotton Avenue. Rather than attempt to replicate the rich chords and harmonic structure that Ellington achieved with his scores and his big bands, our German duo provide a much more intimate take on the music, suggesting the musical complexity rather than reproducing it outright.
The press release provides an Ellington quote “Jazz is the freedom to play anything, whether it has been done before or not”, which persuades this listener that the Duke himself would have completely endorsed this interpretation of his music, and hopefully been pleasantly surprised by it. We must of course mention Billy Strayhorn, joint composer of five of the pieces here, a composer in his own right, and pianist, and responsible for the arrangements of many Ellington triumphs. Very high recommendation for this unusual record, modestly presented, yet in its quiet and understated way, it represents a truly radical rethink of the music of this Afro-American genius. From 2nd December 2022.