The Clarinet Trio - Ballads And Related Objects (2004)

The title of the Clarinet Trio's third album is entirely descriptive. While Gebhard Ullman (bass clarinet), Jurgen Kupke (b flat clarinet, or your basic everyday model), and Michael Thieke (alto clarinet) have proven themselves more than capable of whipping up a dissonant free jazz whirlwind of notes, like three clarinet-playing John Coltranes in the middle of his sheets of sound period, such passages are few on Ballads and Related Objects, which favors a more sedate, cerebral sound. It's the second part of the title that's the key to the record, however: all of these 13 tracks are interconnected, whether overtly -- as in the three-part "Déjà Vu," a theme and two variations, or the four entries in the trio's continuing "Collective" series of improvisations -- or more subtly, through the use of repeated phrases or similar time signatures. The overall effect is similar to Anthony Braxton in his less abstruse settings, and satisfying both as passive listening (the opening "Déjà Vu [Variation 1]" has some simply spine-tingling moments that are both beautiful and unsettling) and as the basis for more intensive musicological exploration.