Visible World
Visible World
ASIN: B000024L6W
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
This 1995 release followed closely on the heels of the enormously successful Officium, Jan Garbarek's meditative collaboration with the Hilliard Ensemble. The same tranquil aesthetic prevails on this release, but the methods and materials differ. Garbarek opts here for the recording studio over the monastery, building up many of the tracks himself with percussion and keyboards as well as the keening, resonant sounds of his soprano and tenor saxes. His compositions emphasize folk-like melodies and ethereal soundscapes, and there's effective work from pianist Rainer Brüninghaus and bassist Eberhard Weber. The often-dramatic percussion from Marilyn Mazur, Manu Katché, and Trilok Gurtu adds ceremonial and world-music touches to some superior work in the New Age genre. --Stuart Broomer
Visible World,Jan Garbarek,Ecm Records,Jazz,Jazz Music,Pop,Post-Bop
Average customer rating:
- I think I'm going to give Jan Garbarek a lifetime free pass . . .
- This is One You Can Listen to in Peace
- New-Agey but pleasant enough
- Trying to do too much himself?
- Garbarek marking time
|
Visible World
Jan Garbarek
Manufacturer: Ecm Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
 Bebop General
| Bebop
| Jazz
| Styles
| Music
General
| Jazz
| Styles
| Music
Modern Postbebop
| Jazz
| Styles
| Music
ECM Classical
| ECM Records
| Amazon.com Label Stores
| Stores
| Music
ECM Jazz & World
| ECM Records
| Amazon.com Label Stores
| Stores
| Music
Similar Items:
- Twelve Moons
- Legend of the Seven Dreams
- I Took Up the Runes
- In Praise of Dreams
- Rites
ASIN: B000024L6W
Release Date: 2000-03-07 |
Tracks:
- Red Wind
- The Creek
- The Survivor
- The Healing Smoke
- Visible World (Chiaro)
- Desolate Mountains I
- Desolate Mountains II
- Visible World (Scuro)
- Giulietta
- Desolate Mountains III
- Pygmy Lullaby
- The Quest
- The Arrow
- The Scythe
- Evening Land
Amazon.com
This 1995 release followed closely on the heels of the enormously successful Officium, Jan Garbarek's meditative collaboration with the Hilliard Ensemble. The same tranquil aesthetic prevails on this release, but the methods and materials differ. Garbarek opts here for the recording studio over the monastery, building up many of the tracks himself with percussion and keyboards as well as the keening, resonant sounds of his soprano and tenor saxes. His compositions emphasize folk-like melodies and ethereal soundscapes, and there's effective work from pianist Rainer Brüninghaus and bassist Eberhard Weber. The often-dramatic percussion from Marilyn Mazur, Manu Katché, and Trilok Gurtu adds ceremonial and world-music touches to some superior work in the New Age genre. --Stuart Broomer
Customer Reviews:
I think I'm going to give Jan Garbarek a lifetime free pass . . ........2007-02-27
. . . as far as I'm concerned, he can do just about whatever he wants and earn a five-star review from me.
I have a somewhat curious relationship to this disc of his. I remember purchasing it and being rather disappointed. No, not rather, MAJORLY disappointed. I thought it lacked rigor, soul, you name it. So much so that I sold it.
Then, after coming to my senses a decade later, I re-checked it out.
And was completely, absolutely, bowled over, estimating that it may, just, be his finest recording ever.
What happened in the interim? I'm not completely sure. I bought Rites and In Praise of Dreams. I revisited Legend of the Seven Dreams, I Took Up the Runes, and It's Okay to Listen to the Gray Voice, and concluded that here was a master of jazz elegiacism--perhaps the greatest and most important move of this alien yet homely music.
And I decided that Garbarek, on account of the hugely evocative move (the purely elegiac) that he makes on almost all his discs--but most decisively here--deserves a Lifetime Free Pass.
What does that mean? For me, it means that unless he makes a major misstep, everything he records merits utter musical absolution: No Purgatory for this master of the heart and soul of jazz melancholy.
Isn't that a little silly? I suppose so, but I can't help it. First off, his soprano sax concept and execution alone merit such exceptionalism. Has there ever been a player who gets so much pathos out of an instrument? I don't think so, and I also don't think there ever will be.
Second, he's somehow, magically, single-handedly bridged the gap between New Age and authentic jazz in his soprano sax playing and overall musical conception and soundscape. Tell me if you detect even the slightest hint of Kenny G in these grooves, and I'll retract everything I've said. But you won't. Trust me.
Third, I venture to say without contradiction that you'll hear here sounds and voices seldom if ever heard elsewhere. Take "Visible World - chiaro" as an example. What mystery! What pathos! What friendly weirdness! But "Desolate Mountains I" sustains and extends the aesthetic by leaps and bounds, and its successor, "Desolate Mountains II" somehow, magically, ups the ante.
Look. We're in the hands of a master here. No room for gainsaying. Nor second-guessing. Nor grousing.
Just accept it. Acknowledge it. And be grateful.
This is One You Can Listen to in Peace.......2007-02-17
No, it's not a really great piece of work, but it is the best of the New Age jazz I've heard from Garbarek. It took quite a few listens for me to take to it though and I still can't stand the last track, with that weird vocalist.
The jazz fusion dream had to end anyway, and here Garbarek shows a rare capability of trasferring the creativity and attention to detail exhibited on "Places" and the Keith Jarrett compilations to the much more circumscribed energy of the New Age stuff. Even the modern classical music influences that made the Visible World tracks irritating to me now add to the overall effect.
A few more tenor sax pieces would have provided more balance, the soprano works on most of the songs.
The first track is quite nice, and the next three are also good, although the drum track in one of them is much too forceful. Also, the mood becomes very ponderous and you have to be in the right mood when you're listening to the fourth track or it'll sound too forlorn. "Desolate Mountains I", which is a bit too meandering a times, sets up one of the most interesting songs on the release, "Desolate Mountains II." The second "Visible World" track has a Debussy obtuseness about it, but it gets on your nerves for a reason: "Pygmy Lullaby" is soon to break the tension. "Desolate Mountains III" provides just the right link between these two songs, as it takes from the Keith Jarrett style vignette - short, unfinished and somehow sweet. "Pigmy Lullaby" is a truly beautiful melody and is perfectly suited to Garbarek's sweet, sorrowful, soprano sound. One flaw is that Garbarek's saxes almost always come in too soon, which doesn't allow the percussion and other instruments the room to make the songs truly stellar. The interesting percussion on "Pygmy Lullaby" is tentative and amateurish at the end and could have been much more cathartic. (But, that's New Age jazz for you: tentative, self-conscious, over-produced. On "Places," you're presented with much more emotionally unstable, stressed out material, but each instrument is completely absorbed with the song, so you don't get the kind of weak executions you sometimes get here.)
The next two tracks fill out and resolve the moods set forth, the former laying down a sexy, heart-broken, Gato Barbieri-like tenor line and the latter very syncopated and playful as it flutters about in a more flirtatious, unsettled mood. But, that's it, turn the thing off after this or you'll be sorry, unless you like Middle Easterners being treated for mental disorders.
The dead-end suggested by the CD's coastal graphic can also be seen as an extension forward into something more challenging and responsible than the thrill-sought highs of a pretentious past. The music here still retains some of the introspective need for intimate connections, one that unfortunately has since become anachronistic in a culture lost to the dehumanizing effects of hard bodies, cell phones and a pathetic self-centeredness, the human animal now a very dumb one.
New-Agey but pleasant enough.......2005-07-25
Easy to understand the hostility with which this album is sometimes viewed -- it is Garbarek's most New-Agey recording, a smooth compilation of folksy tunes (including the lovely "Pygmy Lullaby" written by Rainer Bruninghaus and made into a monster hit by ultra-New-Age group Deep Forest years ago).
It is certainly a commercial offering, though perhaps not such a sell-out as some critics think. The title, "Visible World" seems to warn one what to expect, since what many of us love about Garbarek is the way his best music describes the invisible world, the intangible, the unearthly.
This CD is very earthly, mostly consisting of the kind of music that would go unnoticed in an elevator (how many Garbarek albums can you say that about?).
A favourite with many Garbarek fans is the now-ancient "Afric Pepperbird" album, with which Jan burst onto an amazed world in the late 60's. "Visible World" inevitably reminds one of that early work; but a comparison is saddening. If you want to see just how creative Garbarek can be in this area, take a listen to the earlier album!
But "Visibe World" is arranged and performed with an aplomb that makes it always enjoyable. And every now and then there is a passage (try the haunting and more typical track 14) which reminds you that you are listening to one of the great saxophonists of our time, and a musician who can never be dismissed.
In conclusion, this album will appeal more to fans of Grover Washington Jr or Kenny G than to listeners wanting something more engaging -- but then, why shouldn't Garbarek have his slice of that lucrative market, too?
But if you want to hear a take on this kind of music that comes from the INvisible world, try "Afric Pepperbird."
Trying to do too much himself?.......2001-05-04
With Keith Jarrett slowed down terribly by a disease of the nervous system, Garbarek was ECM's biggest star of the late 1990s. Creator of some outstanding 50+ albums -- such as 'I Took up the Runes' and 'Arbour Zena' -- Garbarek could afford to bring in any session musicians he wanted. So for this 1996 recording, why does he himself play so many of the instruments -- such as piano, electronic keyboards and percussion -- which are not his speciality? I guess it's not the money, but the chore of organising a band. It seems to be a trend -- for the follow-up CD, 'Rites', Garbarek was on the same do-it-all-himself trip.
I saw the Garbarek band on the 'Visible World' tour, performing at London's Festival Hall, with Mazur, Bruninghaus and Weber. It was a magnificent concert, performed by middle-aged musicians to a mostly middle-aged audience. Was it jazz? There wasn't much evidence of improvisation. Garbarek stuck entirely to material from this album, I seem to remember. But it's a long album -- 75+ minutes -- so very good value for a single CD, in theory.
It's highly atmospheric, cinematic stuff, but for me the problem is that there aren't enough of the wonderful rhythmic tunes that Garbarek has written in the past. Only 'Pygmy Lullaby' and 'Evening Land' -- both excellent, by the way -- really get the juices going.
Judging by the reviews here, this album divides the critics: it's excellent for Garbarek beginners who believe that jazz is raucous and unlistenable, but it's regarded as second-rate by fans who know what Garbarek has produced in the past.
Don't get me wrong -- I will carry on buying Garbarek CDs ad infinitum, so long as he doesn't issue many more 80-minute oeuvres in expensive double CD packages. It just seems to me that Garbarek's work with the Hilliard Ensemble, which coincided with this disc, didn't improve his jazz playing.
Garbarek marking time.......2001-04-09
I was expecting more out of Garbarek after his Twelve Moons CD, which contains more than its share of magical moments. Visible World is a hodgepodge of songs done specifically for this record combined with songs from other recording projects (i.e. film). Some are distinctly Scandanavian, some sound like American Indians in the fjords. Not that there's anything wrong with that. :) But most of the playing seems calculated to soothe, not to challenge. Yes, there is a valid Kenny G-ish comparison here.
If one was rating this on the Kenny G scale, it would be a 5. But judged against Garbarek's best work, albums like Dis or Dansere or even My Song with Keith Jarrett, this is a dud -- maybe a 1 or 2. I guess Garbarek has made the mistake of being too good in the past -- making his own grading curve more difficult.
Average customer rating:
- I think I'm going to give Jan Garbarek a lifetime free pass . . .
- This is One You Can Listen to in Peace
- New-Agey but pleasant enough
- Trying to do too much himself?
- Garbarek marking time
|
Visible World
Jan Garbarek
Manufacturer: Ecm Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
Bebop General
| Bebop
| Jazz
| Styles
| Music
General
| Jazz
| Styles
| Music
Modern Postbebop
| Jazz
| Styles
| Music
Bebop & Post-Bop
| Compilations
| Jazz
| Styles
| Music
ECM Classical
| ECM Records
| Amazon.com Label Stores
| Stores
| Music
ECM Jazz & World
| ECM Records
| Amazon.com Label Stores
| Stores
| Music
Similar Items:
- Twelve Moons
- Legend of the Seven Dreams
- I Took Up the Runes
- In Praise of Dreams
- Rites
ASIN: B0000031ZR
Release Date: 1996-04-30 |
Tracks:
- Red Wind
- The Creek
- The Survivor
- The Healing Smoke
- Visible World (Chiaro)
- Desolate Mountains I
- Desolate Mountains II
- Visible World (Scuro)
- Giulietta
- Desolate Mountains III
- Pygmy Lullaby
- The Quest
- The Arrow
- The Scythe
- Evening Land
Amazon.com
This 1995 release followed closely on the heels of the enormously successful Officium, Jan Garbarek's meditative collaboration with the Hilliard Ensemble. The same tranquil aesthetic prevails on this release, but the methods and materials differ. Garbarek opts here for the recording studio over the monastery, building up many of the tracks himself with percussion and keyboards as well as the keening, resonant sounds of his soprano and tenor saxes. His compositions emphasize folk-like melodies and ethereal soundscapes, and there's effective work from pianist Rainer Brüninghaus and bassist Eberhard Weber. The often-dramatic percussion from Marilyn Mazur, Manu Katché, and Trilok Gurtu adds ceremonial and world-music touches to some superior work in the New Age genre. --Stuart Broomer
Customer Reviews:
I think I'm going to give Jan Garbarek a lifetime free pass . . ........2007-02-27
. . . as far as I'm concerned, he can do just about whatever he wants and earn a five-star review from me.
I have a somewhat curious relationship to this disc of his. I remember purchasing it and being rather disappointed. No, not rather, MAJORLY disappointed. I thought it lacked rigor, soul, you name it. So much so that I sold it.
Then, after coming to my senses a decade later, I re-checked it out.
And was completely, absolutely, bowled over, estimating that it may, just, be his finest recording ever.
What happened in the interim? I'm not completely sure. I bought Rites and In Praise of Dreams. I revisited Legend of the Seven Dreams, I Took Up the Runes, and It's Okay to Listen to the Gray Voice, and concluded that here was a master of jazz elegiacism--perhaps the greatest and most important move of this alien yet homely music.
And I decided that Garbarek, on account of the hugely evocative move (the purely elegiac) that he makes on almost all his discs--but most decisively here--deserves a Lifetime Free Pass.
What does that mean? For me, it means that unless he makes a major misstep, everything he records merits utter musical absolution: No Purgatory for this master of the heart and soul of jazz melancholy.
Isn't that a little silly? I suppose so, but I can't help it. First off, his soprano sax concept and execution alone merit such exceptionalism. Has there ever been a player who gets so much pathos out of an instrument? I don't think so, and I also don't think there ever will be.
Second, he's somehow, magically, single-handedly bridged the gap between New Age and authentic jazz in his soprano sax playing and overall musical conception and soundscape. Tell me if you detect even the slightest hint of Kenny G in these grooves, and I'll retract everything I've said. But you won't. Trust me.
Third, I venture to say without contradiction that you'll hear here sounds and voices seldom if ever heard elsewhere. Take "Visible World - chiaro" as an example. What mystery! What pathos! What friendly weirdness! But "Desolate Mountains I" sustains and extends the aesthetic by leaps and bounds, and its successor, "Desolate Mountains II" somehow, magically, ups the ante.
Look. We're in the hands of a master here. No room for gainsaying. Nor second-guessing. Nor grousing.
Just accept it. Acknowledge it. And be grateful.
This is One You Can Listen to in Peace.......2007-02-17
No, it's not a really great piece of work, but it is the best of the New Age jazz I've heard from Garbarek. It took quite a few listens for me to take to it though and I still can't stand the last track, with that weird vocalist.
The jazz fusion dream had to end anyway, and here Garbarek shows a rare capability of trasferring the creativity and attention to detail exhibited on "Places" and the Keith Jarrett compilations to the much more circumscribed energy of the New Age stuff. Even the modern classical music influences that made the Visible World tracks irritating to me now add to the overall effect.
A few more tenor sax pieces would have provided more balance, the soprano works on most of the songs.
The first track is quite nice, and the next three are also good, although the drum track in one of them is much too forceful. Also, the mood becomes very ponderous and you have to be in the right mood when you're listening to the fourth track or it'll sound too forlorn. "Desolate Mountains I", which is a bit too meandering a times, sets up one of the most interesting songs on the release, "Desolate Mountains II." The second "Visible World" track has a Debussy obtuseness about it, but it gets on your nerves for a reason: "Pygmy Lullaby" is soon to break the tension. "Desolate Mountains III" provides just the right link between these two songs, as it takes from the Keith Jarrett style vignette - short, unfinished and somehow sweet. "Pigmy Lullaby" is a truly beautiful melody and is perfectly suited to Garbarek's sweet, sorrowful, soprano sound. One flaw is that Garbarek's saxes almost always come in too soon, which doesn't allow the percussion and other instruments the room to make the songs truly stellar. The interesting percussion on "Pygmy Lullaby" is tentative and amateurish at the end and could have been much more cathartic. (But, that's New Age jazz for you: tentative, self-conscious, over-produced. On "Places," you're presented with much more emotionally unstable, stressed out material, but each instrument is completely absorbed with the song, so you don't get the kind of weak executions you sometimes get here.)
The next two tracks fill out and resolve the moods set forth, the former laying down a sexy, heart-broken, Gato Barbieri-like tenor line and the latter very syncopated and playful as it flutters about in a more flirtatious, unsettled mood. But, that's it, turn the thing off after this or you'll be sorry, unless you like Middle Easterners being treated for mental disorders.
The dead-end suggested by the CD's coastal graphic can also be seen as an extension forward into something more challenging and responsible than the thrill-sought highs of a pretentious past. The music here still retains some of the introspective need for intimate connections, one that unfortunately has since become anachronistic in a culture lost to the dehumanizing effects of hard bodies, cell phones and a pathetic self-centeredness, the human animal now a very dumb one.
New-Agey but pleasant enough.......2005-07-25
Easy to understand the hostility with which this album is sometimes viewed -- it is Garbarek's most New-Agey recording, a smooth compilation of folksy tunes (including the lovely "Pygmy Lullaby" written by Rainer Bruninghaus and made into a monster hit by ultra-New-Age group Deep Forest years ago).
It is certainly a commercial offering, though perhaps not such a sell-out as some critics think. The title, "Visible World" seems to warn one what to expect, since what many of us love about Garbarek is the way his best music describes the invisible world, the intangible, the unearthly.
This CD is very earthly, mostly consisting of the kind of music that would go unnoticed in an elevator (how many Garbarek albums can you say that about?).
A favourite with many Garbarek fans is the now-ancient "Afric Pepperbird" album, with which Jan burst onto an amazed world in the late 60's. "Visible World" inevitably reminds one of that early work; but a comparison is saddening. If you want to see just how creative Garbarek can be in this area, take a listen to the earlier album!
But "Visibe World" is arranged and performed with an aplomb that makes it always enjoyable. And every now and then there is a passage (try the haunting and more typical track 14) which reminds you that you are listening to one of the great saxophonists of our time, and a musician who can never be dismissed.
In conclusion, this album will appeal more to fans of Grover Washington Jr or Kenny G than to listeners wanting something more engaging -- but then, why shouldn't Garbarek have his slice of that lucrative market, too?
But if you want to hear a take on this kind of music that comes from the INvisible world, try "Afric Pepperbird."
Trying to do too much himself?.......2001-05-04
With Keith Jarrett slowed down terribly by a disease of the nervous system, Garbarek was ECM's biggest star of the late 1990s. Creator of some outstanding 50+ albums -- such as 'I Took up the Runes' and 'Arbour Zena' -- Garbarek could afford to bring in any session musicians he wanted. So for this 1996 recording, why does he himself play so many of the instruments -- such as piano, electronic keyboards and percussion -- which are not his speciality? I guess it's not the money, but the chore of organising a band. It seems to be a trend -- for the follow-up CD, 'Rites', Garbarek was on the same do-it-all-himself trip.
I saw the Garbarek band on the 'Visible World' tour, performing at London's Festival Hall, with Mazur, Bruninghaus and Weber. It was a magnificent concert, performed by middle-aged musicians to a mostly middle-aged audience. Was it jazz? There wasn't much evidence of improvisation. Garbarek stuck entirely to material from this album, I seem to remember. But it's a long album -- 75+ minutes -- so very good value for a single CD, in theory.
It's highly atmospheric, cinematic stuff, but for me the problem is that there aren't enough of the wonderful rhythmic tunes that Garbarek has written in the past. Only 'Pygmy Lullaby' and 'Evening Land' -- both excellent, by the way -- really get the juices going.
Judging by the reviews here, this album divides the critics: it's excellent for Garbarek beginners who believe that jazz is raucous and unlistenable, but it's regarded as second-rate by fans who know what Garbarek has produced in the past.
Don't get me wrong -- I will carry on buying Garbarek CDs ad infinitum, so long as he doesn't issue many more 80-minute oeuvres in expensive double CD packages. It just seems to me that Garbarek's work with the Hilliard Ensemble, which coincided with this disc, didn't improve his jazz playing.
Garbarek marking time.......2001-04-09
I was expecting more out of Garbarek after his Twelve Moons CD, which contains more than its share of magical moments. Visible World is a hodgepodge of songs done specifically for this record combined with songs from other recording projects (i.e. film). Some are distinctly Scandanavian, some sound like American Indians in the fjords. Not that there's anything wrong with that. :) But most of the playing seems calculated to soothe, not to challenge. Yes, there is a valid Kenny G-ish comparison here.
If one was rating this on the Kenny G scale, it would be a 5. But judged against Garbarek's best work, albums like Dis or Dansere or even My Song with Keith Jarrett, this is a dud -- maybe a 1 or 2. I guess Garbarek has made the mistake of being too good in the past -- making his own grading curve more difficult.
Average customer rating:
|
World Wild Web
Manufacturer: Independent
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
General
| Hard Rock & Metal
| Styles
| Music
ASIN: B000CA7QVO
Release Date: 2005-02-22 |
Average customer rating:
|
Visible World
Jan Garbarek
Manufacturer: ECM
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
Bebop General
| Bebop
| Jazz
| Styles
| Music
General
| Jazz
| Styles
| Music
Modern Postbebop
| Jazz
| Styles
| Music
ASIN: B000197I6Y
Release Date: 2004-03-01 |
Tracks:
- Red Wind - Jan Garbarek
- Creek - Jan Garbarek, Manu Katche
- Survivor - Rainer Bruninghaus, Jan Garbarek, Manu Katche, Eberhard Weber
- Healing Smoke - Jan Garbarek, Marilyn Mazur, Eberhard Weber
- Visible World (Chiaro) - Jan Garbarek, Marilyn Mazur
- Desolate Mountains - Rainer Bruninghaus, Jan Garbarek, Marilyn Mazur
- Desolate Mountains [II] - Rainer Bruninghaus, Jan Garbarek, Marilyn Mazur, Eberhard Weber
- Visible World (Scuro) - Jan Garbarek, Marilyn Mazur, Eberhard Weber
- Giulietta - Jan Garbarek, Marilyn Mazur
- Desolate Mountains [III] - Rainer Bruninghaus, Jan Garbarek
- Pygmy Lullaby - Rainer Bruninghaus, Jan Garbarek, Manu Katche, Marilyn Mazur, Eberhard Weber
- Quest - Rainer Bruninghaus, Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Weber
- Arrow - Jan Garbarek, Trilok Gurtu, Manu Katche, Marilyn Mazur
- Scythe - Jan Garbarek
- Evening Land - Mari Boine, Jan Garbarek, Marilyn Mazur
Jazz Music:
- Way Out West [Import]
- 1 [Import]
- 1951-1954
- 555 Feet High
- A Funky Thide of Sings [Limited Edition] [Original recording remastered] [Import]
- A Little Houston on the Side
- Ain't Life Grand
- Allegresse
- Animation - Imagination
- Another Voyage [Original recording remastered]
Jazz Music
Jazz Music