Breath
(Newmarket)
8/10
Christopher Young is something of a maverick on Melbourne’s jazz scene, only occasionally releasing albums, but always having something worth saying. He’d known Dom Cheviet, a fellow reeds player from France, for 25 years before they finally got around to collaborating, and what a project it is. They laid down rhythmic beds and soundscapes in a Paris studio with drummer/percussionist Nicolas Lelievre, over which they then free-improvised with startling clarity and emotional intensity. The music’s as moody as it is texturally exotic. On Morning Jungle, for instance, Cheviet’s kalimba provides a dancing backdrop in tandem with Lelievre’s drums and percussion, over which the horn players interweave, with Young primarily playing bass clarinet, and Cheviet soprano saxophone. On Black Is the Colour they both play flute against Lelievre’s portentous textures and deep groove. The wonder is their unerring instinct for space and contrast, as if one mind is making the music. The dialogue is completely organic as to who plays when, when they overlap, and when they swap from foreground to background. A recurrent feature is Young’s mighty bass clarinet, rumbling and coiling beneath Cheviet’s flights, or suddenly arching up with its own dramatic cries.