Vignettes is a solo album by American jazz pianist Marilyn Crispell recorded in April 2007 and released on ECM later that same year.ECM discography accessed November 14, 2011
Reception Writing for All About Jazz, Martin Gladu stated: "Drawing more on the tone-conscious, rubato balladeering of the Bleyian school rather than the cantankerous approach of Cecil Taylor... Crispell blends to her modernist factory a classical music informed eloquence and patina that is all her own. Mixing melodic free-ballads and spatial improvisations with all-over, gestural pieces, she maintains a high level of creativity in her playing throughout the sixty-minute plus session."
In a separate All About Jazz article, Budd Kopman remarked: "With Vignettes, Crispell continues to make beautiful music with an intensity that is breathtaking. The seventeen tracks sound of a piece, connected by a searching concentration, regardless of whether the individual piece is a free improvisation or one based on a composition... Vignettes is a new high point for Crispell as she continues her musical journey."
Another AAJ writer, John Kelman, stated: "Unerringly beautiful, Vignettes may be Crispell's most accessible recording to date. Still, with its innate lack of compromise, it's another compelling addition to a growing discography from the fearlessly open-minded Crispell that reveals new facets with each successive release."
The AllMusic review by Thom Jurek states, "Vignettes is a remarkable and moving recording—one that is timeless and honest, and communicates directly, literally, and poetically to the listener in a manner that is gentle yet pronounces its emotional weight without hesitation or self-consciousness."
In a review for Elsewhere, Graham Reid remarked: "Crispell stakes a strong claim to being one of the most daring yet considered pianists in improvised music today. Listening music, if you know what I mean."
John Fordham, in an article for The Guardian, wrote: "There are hints of Paul Bley's lyrical precision and Jarrett's song motifs in this private, slow-moving, but exquisitely articulated, dreamscape. The melodies often bloom, Bley-like, in short motifs on to which asides fall and accumulate, and though there are a few jagged, more intense pieces... most of the episodes are meditative."
In a review for Point of Departure, Stuart Broomer called the music "work of stunning economy and an emotional translucence in which keyboard touch reaches rare levels of communication," and wrote: "Crispell's intensity of focus lends this CD a special aura... It's music in which architectural rigor and a slow dance of liberation seem to define a common ground, music in which emotion is free to be both complex and direct."
Track listing
Personnel Marilyn Crispell – piano
References