Quick: how many female jazz trombonists can you count on one hand? Not too many, to be sure.
Priska Walss may not be a jazz performer, per se, but on this recording she presents a remarkable collection of freely improvised duets (some jazz-tinged) with pianist
Gabriela Friedli, with whom she forges a special bond. The opening "Weibs" is the highlight of the album, with
Walss sputtering forth with splendid technical skill. Elsewhere, she experiments, applying her classical technique to the vagaries of the pieces, offering fascinating takes on sometimes simple melodies. On "Traulich," for example, the trombonist's muted excursions fascinate, while on "Bubalus Bubalis," the disjointed phrasing sets the listener on edge.
Walss rarely engages in extended techniques and neither does
Friedli, though, to be sure, each is well versed in the vocabulary of the avant-garde. The trombonist's bombastic interpretation of "The Lost Trombone's Adventure" incorporates the advances of
George Lewis by using vibrato, growls, flutters, and gruff low tones to make her points.
Walss and
Friedli perform as a single purposeful unit, with an extraordinary synergy. If the music sometimes tires, it has little to do with the imaginative improvisations; sometimes the compositions are simply uninteresting. The kernels are there, though, for something more, and it is not difficult to imagine
Walss and
Friedli doing something even more adventuresome, perhaps with a larger ensemble.