Three States of Freedom – Tom Soloveitzik, Korhan Erel, Kevin Davis

Jerusalem-based journalist / music critic Eyal Hareuveni has recently published a review of the album Three States of Freedom on allaboutjazz.com. Hareuveni writes for allaboutjazz, squidoo and other websites and was among the audience at the trio’s performance at Barbour Gallery in Jerusalem in June 2010. Besides being a keen listener, he dreams of living near some of the finest jazz clubs of Oslo, or the Shinjuku Pit-Inn club in Tokyo or just as well near Stockholm’s Glenn Miller Café. He is a peace activist, a cyclist and a father of three female cats.

These three experimental musicians— Israeli saxophonist Tom Soloveitzik, Turkish electronics player Korhan Erel (founding member of the Turkey’s pioneering free improvisation group, Islak Köpek), and American expat cellist Kevin Davis met in Istanbul in 2009. This album was recorded a year later, in June 2010, following a short Israeli tour, conducted during troubled political times, both between Israel and Turkey and within Israel itself.

The seven free improvisations focus on sounds at their most abstract and vulnerable. Soloveitzik plays the saxophone but for him it is simply a metallic instrument into which one can breathe. Respectfully, Erel electronic kit produces light, fragile sounds that rarely have an obvious shape, while Davis sticks to the John Cage philosophy that all sounds are beautiful, and researches the sonic continuum of his cello with extended techniques.

Oblivious to the political storm outside the recording studio, the three musicians manage to articulate their own patient, respectful, compassionate and always thoughtful and cerebral multilayered sound worlds, letting each interplay evolve organically. The weightless sounds float and change their elastic form, kinetic volition and energy levels through delicate microtonal interactions. On “Shmoneh,” “Eser” and “Arbah,” silence and near-silence are of equal importance, and possess the same intensity as more audible percussive sounds.

A very interesting sonic exploration.

Link to the original review on allaboutjazz.com