When guitarist Bill Connors began recording for ECM, he was known as a fusion flash, primarily due to being the guitarist on Hymn To the Seventh Galaxy, the first album from the jazz rock version of Chick Corea’s Return To Forever. For his ECM tenure, however, he decided to turn the volume down – way down. Trading his amplifiers for a classical guitar, Connors made a trio of LPs focusing on acoustic music, of which 1978’s Of Mist and Melting, now reissued as part of ECM’s vinyl-only Luminessence series, is the second and best known.
But while the volume may be quieter, there’s no loss of energy or excitement. For support, Connors lines up a dream team of saxophonist Jan Garbarek (with whom Connors worked in the Norwegian’s own band), late bassist Gary Peacock, and late drum god Jack DeJohnette – with this combo it would be impossible to suck. On a half-dozen Connors originals, DeJohnette’s crisp cymbal work drives the tunes forward, Peacock grounds each piece to earth, and Garbarek carries most of the melodies with his distinctively liquid lines. That gives Connors plenty of room to contribute accents, counterpoint, and superb harmonies, adding spiraling solos as needed, showing the utmost taste in knowing when to insert himself and when to simply offer musical encouragement. It’s one of the most ego-less leader performances on wax.
Bouncing off each other like quarks inside an atom, the quartet generates real buzz on “Not Forgetting” and “Café Vue,” and luxuriates in comfort on “Face in the Water” and the flowing “Undending.” But the musicians really catch fire on the longer set pieces, vibrating with power on the eleven-minute “Melting” and stretching the balladry of the nine-minute “Aubade” into a barely controlled storm of improvisation. The amalgamation of ethereal acoustic textures with the players’ natural drive puts Of Mist and Melting in a rare category: chamber jazz that very nearly rocks.
