ALBUM REVIEW for UNIVERSAL CODE by Jan Hocek in SKJAZZ.SK, 02/03/2023
Since 2007, the Austrian (though born in Paris) saxophonist and composer Muriel Grossmann has been releasing albums of extraordinary quality and artistic depth. She has been living in Ibiza since 2004 and has developed a distinctly spiritual approach to modern jazz. She thus develops the legacy of John Coltrane, combines African music, modal jazz, gospel, blues, free jazz, acid-jazz and Eastern traditions in a completely natural, complex, expressive, rhythmic and narrative manner with full-blooded vigor and sensitivity at the same time. After all, we already reviewed four of her previous albums here: CD Muriel Grossmann – Momentum (Dreamland Records, 2017), CD Muriel Grossmann — Reverence (Dreamland Records, 2019), CD Muriel Grossmann – Quiet Earth (Dreamland Records, 2020) and CD Muriel Grossmann — Union (Dreamland Records, 2021) and with enthusiasm. On the new recording, she found a true universal code of modern jazz; together with her teammates, she literally created the essence of the most vital, the most enduring jazz, regardless of current fashions and trends. After all, there are really excellent instrumentalists playing in her quartet. Guitarist Radomir Milojkovic, a native of Belgrade, studied music in Barcelona from 2002, then performed and recorded with, for example, Christian Lillinger, Johannes Fink and Joachim Kühn. He has been living and working in Ibiza since 2007, where he became a regular teammate of Muriel Grossmann. Organist Llorenç Barceló was born in Mallorca, ten years ago he worked in the European Jazz Orchestra, with David Murray and his band accompanied James “Blood” Ulmer on his European tour. He currently plays extensively with African musicians, is a member of the Ghost Seed trio, and since 2018 has also been playing with Muriel Grossmann. Drummer Uros Stamenkovic from Belgrade studied and worked in Barcelona, from where he moved to Toronto, Canada in 2008, later to New York, and returned to Serbia in 2013. A year later he started working with Grossmann. Austrian bassist Gina Schwarz, who certainly does not need to be introduced here, is a guest on three tracks (out of nine). I’ll admit that her double bass in Transience is intoxicatingly captivating; however, her virtuosity is not an end in itself, on the contrary, it expands the expressiveness of jazz by a directly physical dimension. After all, right from the opening, nine-minute long track Resonance, the listener is exposed to the attack of something almost otherworldly, simply indescribable. The rhythmic flow is saturated with acid, the organ is psychedelically blurred, as if cracked, everything has a hypnotic effect. And over that rolls a melodious and passionate saxophone, beating from the heart, from the inside of a woman, which has turned into a pulsating, expanding Universe. The soprano in particular, with her ferocious melodiousness, enhances the spiritual effect of the music; in addition to Resonance, there are also the tracks Clarity, the more than ten-minute long Interconnection and Essence). However, it must be added that the entire album does not have a single weakness and if you let yourself be absorbed, you will be rewarded with an extraordinary listening experience that has the power to truly enrich your life. It’s not just music, it’s something that transcends a person… Of course, I’m belatedly including this album in my Top 10, or rather now Top 11!
Jan Hocek, skjazz, Slovakia
They play:
Muriel Grossmann – soprano, alto and tenor saxophone
Radomir Milojkovic — guitar
Llorens Barcelo Vives — Hammond organ
Uros Stamenkovic — drums
… and guest:
Gina Schwarz – double bass
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