TRANDANS by DUO BAARS HENNEMAN & DAVE BURRELL

Liner notes:
Sometimes it is better not to react, or, to be more precise, to react with silence. Listening to this delightful record by Ab Baars, Dave Burrell and Ig Henneman will help you to remember why. There are many great examples of silence as a suitable answer to be found on Trandans. My favourite episode in this adventure is the part where pianist Dave Burrell lays out for a long time, letting the viola of Ig Henneman and the shakuhachi and tenorsax of Ab Baars do the powerful and sometimes even frantic talking. I remember seeing Burrell sitting at the Bimhuis piano, hands in his lap, just listening, but listening with an almost manifest eagerness. It is only when Henneman and Baars end the wonderful pieces titled Regn segel (Rain sail) and Rassel runt brunnen (Jangle around the well) that Burrell starts to play, at another pulse and adding ideas from a different source like some stride piano, but still as an obvious reaction to what is happening. Henneman and Baars now prove their excellence by keeping their calm and staying collected till their turn comes. No, it is wrong to say it comes, they catch it, or rather, find it, create it, bringing it to life by being loving, attentive and determined. Their quiet re-entrance into the music is perfectly timed, we can hear that, but the brilliance of this trio is proved most powerful when we start to think about all the other moments they could have uttered a note and most certainly would have changed the direction of the music, maybe would even have ruined it. There are no ruins on Trandans, from beginning to end this is marvellous, improvised music. A music so marvellous that we tend to forget that it did not exist before Ab Baars, Dave Burrell and Ig Henneman stepped on the stage of the Bimhuis that one night in September. And which after that intriguing concert did exist only as a memory. Until now.
- Mischa Andriessen

Reviews:
Trandans is a 2016 recording with the Dutch duo of ICP saxophonist Ab Baars and violist Ig Henneman. The latter pair have been releasing recordings for the past ten years, developed a method of communication that skirts the boundaries between notes and enjoy inviting other people into their world (they did a successful album with pianist Misha Mengelberg, Sliptong, in 2008). Burrell is another excellent choice for collaboration: he understands their methodology and the music unfolds organically. Baars’ tripling on tenor, clarinet and shakuhachi assures variety and his focusing on the latter (his main instrument on three tracks) gives the music an otherworldly ambience, Burrell fitting in nicely with his harmonic palette. The final track begins with an eight-minute piano solo, beautiful in its abstraction and brought to full fruition when Baars (on clarinet) and Henneman enter to conclude as a trio. It’s a remarkable moment, bringing the album to a satisfying conclusion.
Robert Iannapollo NYCJR 2017

Trandans is op die manier een zoveelste fraaie toevoeging aan de Wig-catalogus, met muziek vol dosering en delicaatheid die ze haast uit de lucht lijkt te plukken en verenigen met persoonlijke expressie én het vermogen om binnen die vrijheid toch te zorgen voor even ongrijpbare als niet te negeren interactie.
Guy Peters 18 April 2017 enola

Burrell sound just as convincing in a fully improvised context on Trandans (Wig), a recent recording made in Amsterdam with the great Dutch improvisers Ab Baars and Ig Henneman. The austere performance leans towards a more Eurocentric aesthetic, and Burrell excels in responding, whether offering sharp-edged clumps of dissonance to the splintery tenor honks of Baars on 'Fyllevägen', or the staccato figures and elliptical phrases he uses to connect to Baars's serene shakuhachi lines and Henneman's astringent viola stabs on 'Dis vid Hulan'.
Chicago Reader Peter Margasak 29 sept 2017

(...) For large of the album, the mood is dark, with a focus on texture, silence and space. It's a rich kind of darkness though, its inky density blurred by wwisps of cloud and shafts of light.
Stewart Smith The Wire August 2017

Having played together in many contexts for more than a quarter century, Dutch reedist Ab Baars and violist Ig Henneman are like draft horses, so long in harness that they can respond to each other’s motions before they even happen. Although this mixture of strained, sul tasto resilience from the fiddler and outpourings that range from shrilly atonal snarled blares to mere breaths, depending on Baars’ use of clarinet, tenor saxophone or shakuhachi, would be distinctive in itself, they up the ante on Trandans by playing with veteran American pianist Dave Burrell, with whom neither had previously recorded.
As meditative and whimsical in his hunt-and-peck narratives as the other two are penetrating, as demonstrated on his mostly solo musings on Korsekebacken, Burrell’s basso-directed fills are low-key in both senses of the word. Yet as tracks such as Fyllevägen and Laggareno demonstrate, his unflappable keyboard command adds a certain formality when involved in counterpoint with the duo. Especially illustrative is Laggareno, since the harshness engendered by the fiddler’s tempered-blade volatility, in broken octave concordance with altissimo reed shrieks, is warmed to a finer-tuned narrative via the pianist’s even-tempered chording. On their own as captured on Rassel runt Brunnen, the duo follows multiphonic paths the way a grizzled guide uses trail markers. They’re never lost and are constantly interesting, since Baars’ crying split tones or lows from the tenor saxophone’s bottom notes help regularize the near-atonal exposition, even as Henneman brings her own spiny individualism to the tune.
--Ken Waxman thewholenote.com jazzword.com may 2017

(...) Burrell is another excellent choice for collaboration: he understands their methodology and the music unfolds organically. Baars’ tripling on tenor, clarinet and shakuhachi assures variety and his focusing on the latter (his main instrument on three tracks) gives the music an otherworldly ambience, Burrell fitting in nicely with his harmonic palette. The final track begins with an eight-minute piano solo, beautiful in its abstraction and brought to full fruition when Baars (on clarinet) and Henneman enter to conclude as a trio. It’s a remarkable moment, bringing the album to a satisfying conclusion.
NYCJR May 2017

(...) De combinatie had niet mooier uit kunnen pakken, want de Amerikaan (bekend van zijn werk met freejazz- zwaargewichten als Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp en David Murray) voelde de muziek van het Nederlandse tweetal haarfijn aan. Vanaf de eerste serene improvisatie in het titelstuk ‘Trandans’ (met de breekbare shakuhachi van Baars in een hoofdrol en bedachtzame lange altvioollijnen) begrijpt hij net als Baars en Henneman dat zwijgen soms een even zinvolle bijdrage kan zijn als spelen.
--Herman te Loo Jazzflits april 2017

Trandans werd opgenomen in het Bimhuis ter viering van het 25-jarig jubileum van Wig, het label van Ab Baars en Ig Henneman.In diezelfde periode had pianist Dave Burrell daar een reeks soloconcerten en hij kon worden uitgenodigd als derde bij dit vaste duo. De stukken hier zijn evenals op de vorige albums van het duo sterk bepaald door sfeertekeningen, ditmaal via Zweedse teksten. Er is relatief veel van Baars' shakuhachi te horen dat steeds meer in het verlengde van zijn spel op klarinet en tenorsax lijkt te liggen. Burrell is meer dan een gast, hij is echt onderdeel van het trio, zowel melodieus als ritmisch. Dit onderscheid is op dit album sowieso nauwelijks te maken want Hennemans altviool is hier nadrukkelijk ook ritmisch aanwezig. Burrells verschuivende rol gast- en aanvullend musicus naar mede-initiator is te horen in Laggarebo. In het laatste stuk Korsekebacken zijn de rollen omgedraaid en laat hij horen altijd oog te hebben voor de jazzgeschiedenis.
--Ken Vos Jazzism 05 2017

(...) In sommige gevallen valt er voor de over muziek schrijvende liefhebber niet gek veel meer te doen dan ademloos de weergaloze muziek die er op dit zilveren schijfje gezet werd trachten op te nemen. Het trio Baars-Henneman-Burrell stapten die ene avond (September 14 2016) in het Bimhuis op de planken en speelde muziek dat het een lieve lust was. Vrije, improvisatorische muziek die in volle creativiteit bedreven wordt, terend op de heerlijk spontane interactie van dit trio.
(...) Eigenlijk had dit stukje ‘de kracht van suggestie’ kunnen heten. Want net daarin is dit trio zo ontzettend bedreven in. Het zijn muzikanten die muziek kunnen schilderen. Uit verschillende potjes halen ze wat kleuren, ze mengen en brengen het soms ruw soms erg precies op het doek. Het beste komt de groep letterlijk uit de verf op afsluiter Korsebacken, dat zijn titel meer dan waarmaakt. Applaus is terecht hun deel.
--Philippe de Cleen March 2017 writteninmusic.com