(Chamber Jazz / Modern Jazz) Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet - Way Out East { Songlines, Super Audio CD (SACD) } - 2006, FLAC (image+.cue) lossless

4.5 out of 5 stars - A kind of Pacific Northwest John Zorn in his more sedate moods, August 16, 2006
By: Jan P. Dennis "Longboard jazzer" (Monument, CO USA)
The intersection of chamber music, jazz, and New Music often produces wonderful listening experiences. One thinks, for example, of Peter Garland, Sylvie Courvoisier, Bang on a Can, and Stuart Dempster.
I really wanted to like this music, but I confess I'm having trouble accessing its vibe. Wayne Horvitz, its organizer and leader, describes this as chamber music that just happens to contain improvisation.
I'm OK with that description. I'm not altogether OK with what happens in the actual execution. Yes, it has its moments of crystalline beauty. Yes, there's a lot of killer precision playing. Yes, there's a kind of attractive angularity. But I have to say it seems slightly stilted.
Then again, maybe that's what Horvitz and co. are going for: highly arranged, classically oriented, jazz-tinged chamber music for the new century. One could do worse. And I have to say, it's growing on me, willy-nilly. One day I may actually thoroughly enjoy it, rather than just appreciating it; I certainly hope so.
Absolutely worth checking out, especially if you have proclivities toward this sort of thing. ****1/2.
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5.0 out of 5 stars - An outstanding chamber-jazz group, February 8, 2010
By: Yersin USA (Great Falls, Potomac)
Listening to this for the second time in two days, I think it is among Horvitz's finest recordings. (I'm also a big fan of "Sweeter than the Day" and "From a Window."
The "Gravitas Quartet" explores the unusual combination of piano-trumpet-cello-bassoon with grace and aplomb. The bassoon is a marvelous instrument for jazz composed improvisations--I'm glad to hear more and more of it.

Way Out East
Wayne Horvitz | Songlines Recordings (2006)
By TROY COLLINS
Published: June 30, 2006
Keyboardist and composer Wayne Horvitz's new improvising chamber group, the Gravitas Quartet, makes its Songlines debut with Way Out East. In a set that's reminiscent of his previous rhythm section-less unit, the Four plus One Ensemble, Horvitz and company premiere an accessible set of evocative chamber jazz that's both austere and experimental, unified by Horvitz's lyrical writing.
Horvitz once dabbled in an array of old school electronic effects and vintage keyboards, from Hammond organ to DX-7, but he limits himself here to piano with only the occasional foray on synthesizer. This stripped-down ensemble sound highlights his gradual drift towards a more melodic and populist sensibility in ways his more amplified projects like Pigpen or Zony Mash obscured it with their focus on groove and density.
In the confines of this spare acoustic setting, his delicate and nuanced piano playing is given center stage. Only on the assertive "Reveille" does he really plug in, summoning watery, gamelan-influenced arpeggios and crashing, metallic synth shards over the clarion calls and staccato interjections of the ensemble.
Bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck and cellist Peggy Lee contribute lithe lines and fragile phrases alongside occasionally terse passages. Schoenbeck's playing veers from tranquil rumination to agitated, multiphonic fanfare. Lee fluctuates between cinematic lushness and sinuous audacity. Alternating between refined support roles and featured solo interludes, these two players span the entire history of their respective instruments.
As a regular sideman of guitarist Bill Frisell, trumpeter Ron Miles' familiar brassy refrains are instantly identifiable. The singular stylist's inventive contributions to this record are among its many riches, including emotionally vulnerable and adventurously exploratory solos on the beautifully haunting title track and the epic album centerpiece, "Berlin 1914." Like Frisell's rhythm section-less album Quartet (Nonesuch, 1996), this record traffics in dusky pastoral Americana, albeit with a more wintry sheen.
The Gravitas Quartet occupies a conceptual no man's land somewhere between nostalgia and the future, where pensive, minor-key piano excursions are joined by stately cello, regal bassoon, ghostly trumpet and burbling electronics. Way Out East perfectly assimilates Horvitz's bittersweet melodies and sci-fi futurism into a synchronous sound world all his own.

Gravitas Quartet:
Wayne Horvitz - piano
Ron Miles - trumpet
Peggy Lee - cello
Sara Schoenbeck - bassoon
Bringing together four uniquely defined voices of new music, jazz, and improvised composition, Gravitas Quartet explores the depths of texture,
sonority, rhythm, and ensemble fluidity available to masters with a broad palette. Wayne Horvitz, Peggy Lee, Sarah Schoenbeck, and Ron Miles have been hailed as forerunners of modern music - each journeying from their vast musical backgrounds to redefine the sonic landscape.
The ensemble has two CDs: Way Out East (2006) and One Dance Alone (2008), both on the Songlines label. The CDs are available at record stores, online, and here at the merchandise page.
What the critics are saying about the Gravitas Quartet:
Way out East is a beautiful and quietly moving and poetic recording; one that will sound fresh and new decades from now. Horvitz and his players have shown that 'improvised' or 'new' music can be utterly lovely to listen to.
-- Thom Jurek, allmusic.com
Whether drawing upon the blues or a waltz, Horvitz is not simply manipulating a template, but creating a time-warped ambience, in which the listener feels a stillness that is languid and foreboding. The idiom-free improvisations provide ballast, preventing the album from sinking into sentimentality. Peggy Lee, Ron Miles and Sara Schoenbeck are exquisitely balanced, their every detail precisely etched. For the most part, they are slightly understated in the improvisations; when they move to the foreground, they are persuasive, as is Horvitz.
-- Bill Shoemaker, Downbeat
The Gravitas Quartet occupies a conceptual no man's land somewhere between nostalgia and the future, where pensive, minor-key piano excursions are joined by stately cello, regal bassoon, ghostly trumpet and burbling electronics. Way Out East perfectly assimilates Horvitz's bittersweet melodies and sci-fi futurism into a synchronous sound world all his own.
-- Troy Collins, All About Jazz
http://www.waynehorvitz.net/projects/gravitas.html