Mike Nock Trio - An Accumulation of Subtleties

Sydney Morning Herald Rreview - four and a half stars

In 1981, amid the chill of an Oslo November, Mike Nock recorded one of the great piano trio albums. Manfred Eicher, the German perfectionist and long-term Nock fan who runs the prestigious ECM
label teamed the pianist with American bassist Eddie Gomez and Norwegian drummer Jon Christensen. The resultant "Ondas" was, by turns, magnificent, ravishing and touchingly fragile. Eicher, whose stable of pianists has included Keith Jarrett, Chick Coreaand Paul Bley, counts it among his most cherished releases.   (Don't try to order Ondas - it is out of print. i.e it's deleted, you can't get it anywhere on planet earth - we've searched everywhere, so don't ask).

Since that time Nock has recorded many albums here or abroad: projects reflecting his multifarious musical interests, but nothing approaching the diaphanous beauty of "Ondas". Until now.

The studio disc of this double album scales those heights once more. Of course it is a different mountain, but the mood and effect is the same: rampant lyricism, high drama, impossible delicacy and a three-way dialogue that often banishes role playing.  

The latter is only possible with a bassist and drummer who are innately melodic, able to hear the band as one instrument, and can let the music play that instrument without imposing themselves.  

The crowning glory is the title track. The way Nock's gorgeous theme modulates makes the mood slightly enigmatic rather than being purely wistful. Drummer James Waples shades and colours the
emotional contours rather than embellishing the slow pulse, and all Ben Waples' bass parts have a sumptuous, velvety quality that is carried into his supremely apt solo.

There are five free improvisations, with "Joyous Awakening" an object lesson in just how rigorously form can be applied to spontaneity. This has always been a Nock hallmark, and the Waples brothers match him at every turn. Again the bass fattens the melodic content rather than just the bottom end, and the drumming is like a shadow cast by the other instruments.

James Waples sets up the wind-in-the-rushes rustling of "Rite of Passage", and Nock seizes the foreground of the "Makeru Ga Kachi". "Apotheosis" grows from sparse bass into a minimalist,
percussive dialogue, and the manner in which a groove emerges and the players generate a fantasia on their own creation is, indeed, the apotheosis of collective improvising.

Just as the first disc displays the trio's rigour when free-improvising, the second, recorded live at the Seymour Centre's Sound Lounge, highlights its open approach to compositions. A highlight is "The Wind", with its bewitching bass solo and immaculately weighted drumming. For "House of Blue Lights" theynestle into a groove across which Nock scrawl loping lines.  

On both discs the various strands of the pianist's playing find highly articulate expression: exquisite touch, a flair for misty melodies that ache with sadness and a playfulness that manifests itself in both humour and adventurousness.

John Shand
 

Australian Review:

“Apart from the subtlety mentioned in the title, this double CD from Sydney pianist Mike Nock’s trio exhibits innovative exploration and far-reaching diversity. The title track opens with a minimalist, classical-style piano in a gentle, out-of-tempo theme, soon taken up by Ben Waples’s double bass, with effects gradually added by James Waples’s brush work.

Intensity builds  towards the final  chorus with  the  piano  marching  grandly to a stately conclusion of solitary high treble  chords. The other four tracks on disc one, all originals, display a similar approach, tempo-less at times, texturally expressive, and all with Nock’s instinctive compositional flair. Three of the six tracks on disc two are by other composers and two of those, House of Blue Lights and The Gypsy feature the strongest grooves of the collection although Nock’s Beautiful Stranger employs a soft bossa beat and some exuberant piano and bass solo work.

The  Gypsy opens in strong rhythmic mode and drives into a rousing piano solo, a fast-running skilful bass sequence and forceful four-bar exchanges between piano and drums.

Throughout the album’s performance, recorded live in 2008, there are two standouts: fist, Nock’s consummate, artful playing across a miscellany of moods; then the impressive way the trio integrates organically into a seamless yet discursive ensemble.”

John McBeath,  The  Weekend  AUSTRALIAN,   June  19-20,  2010. 4.5 star review.

Disc 1: Accumulation of Subtleties

1. An Accumulation of Subtleties, Composer: Nock
2. Joyous Awakening, Composers: Nock / Waples / Waples
3. Rite of Passage, Composers: Nock / Waples / Waples
4. Makeru Ga Kachi, Composers: Nock / Waples / Waples
5. Apotheosis, Composers: Nock / Waples / Waples

Disc 2: Live at the Sound Lounge

1. Elsewhen, Composer: Mike Nock – Fourth Way Music – ASCAP
2. Beautiful Stranger, Composer: Mike Nock – Fourth Way Music – ASCAP
3. The Wind, Composers: Freeman / Gladstone – Encore Music – ASCAP
4. House of Blue Lights, Composer: Gigi Gryce – Twenty-eighth Street Music – ASCAP
5. A Tree Has Its Heart in Its Roots, Composer: Mike Nock – Fourth Way Music – ASCAP
6. The Gypsy, Composer: Billy Reid – Domino Publishing – ASCAP