Intakt Records: Intakt CD 165 
http://www.intaktrec.ch/165-a.htm

* Aki Takase: piano
* Louis Sclavis: clarinet, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone
 
http://www.akitakase.de/

Review
~~~~~~
By Nic Jones 
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=34558

Aki Takase is making a real burden for herself with this the latest in her
hopefully ongoing series of Intakt releases. With every successive one it's not
just a simple matter of the quality going up but rather a matter of different
facets of her ability being revealed. As these releases have all been documents
of duos, the effect is almost rhetorical, as if she's intent on making a case
for that sparse setting and what can be achieved in it.

There's diversity within that body of work too, just as there is within this
program. Louis Sclavis' modest raft of reeds is as fulfilling a foil for Takase
as any of her previous partners, and the duo covers a broad musical range with
aplomb. "Yokohama" is both lyrical and unworldly, the latter quality exemplified
by Takase's work under the piano lid. On bass clarinet, Sclavis exhibits a
purity of tone which sets him at odds with the obvious precedent of Eric
Dolphy.

On soprano sax, as he is on the brief "Shower," Sclavis is also something
else. This straight horn is so rife with precedents in the realms of the free
and the near free that Sclavis' ability to avoid them all is a feat in
itself. There's a truth about the dialog here that belies the perhaps casual
nature of improvised music and, in just over two minutes, the duo makes as
potent a case for it as anyone could hope for.

The impressionism of "Raw Silk" conjures up an odd parallel with the chamber
works of Claude Debussy through the way in which the duo seems to flirt with a
melodic line even while it subjects it to all sorts of subversion from beneath
in a manner that the French composer would never have entertained.

In a way Sclavis proves why he's so amenable to the ECM label's production
methodology on "Le Temps D'Apres," but as it turns out there's whole lot more
than surface sheen to this music, even while the duo gets as close as they ever
do here to the conventional roles of soloist and accompanist.

On "Ligne De Fuite," they work a seam that's equal parts serial music and the
work of the Jimmy Giuffre trio with Paul Bley and Gary Peacock. The end result
is happily dissimilar, however, with both players asserting their individuality
in a fashion only music as rarefied as this perhaps permits. As elsewhere, the
ear is rewarded and the intellect stimulated in a fashion that's far from
common.

--

Por Pachi Tapiz 
http://www.tomajazz.com/discos/breves.php?d=2010-04-01#akls_y