Bird Food
Pierre Favre Trio
Songs 004 CD (samuelblaser.bandcamp.com/album/bird-food)
A historical redefining document, Bird Food is an unearthed 1968 session and the earliest recording by Swiss drummer Pierre Favre’s trio with fellow Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer. It precedes by several months the recorded beginnings of the now 89 year old drummer’s creative music career and adds to the discography of Schweizer (1941-2024). The trio’s third member is Czech bassist George Mraz (1944-2021), better known for his mainstream work.
This underlines the album’s transitional nature. During the Ornette Coleman composed title tune and three Schweizer originals stentorian bass string stops and ambulatory patterning preserve a swing groove underneath the other’s sonic extensions. Schweizer’s variations sometimes shift towards blues inferences and jaunty interludes. The drummer’s strokes are thick and aggressive with press rolls, and chunky ruffs.
More imposing are Schweizer’s tunes. Mraz’s supple walks and woody plinks undulate alongside Favre’s dynamic shuffles and prodding smacks. Schweizer’s timbral expansions also expand. Creating antiphony with herself from both sides of the keyboard, on Sounds II; and on Hinten swiftly boosts the rhythm section’s funereal pace to presto with spirited key stopping and inner strings scrapping.
By the concluding The Attack, the three move closer to defining European Free Jazz. The pianist’s pressure often reiterates the theme so extended bass resonations and drum rat tat tats provide the backdrop for Schweizer’s theme embellishments and a corresponding tonal upsurge that ends the album. Nourishment derived from this bird food is archival excitement and profound music.
