ECM Special VIII: John Abercrombie

The eighth volume of the Japan-only ECM Special series marked a shift by dedicating itself to a single artist, a model it would follow for the remaining releases. This installment gathers the art of guitarist John Abercrombie under a single lamp, though the music itself keeps slipping beyond the circle of illumination. From the beginning, he was a musician who seemed to enter a piece from the side door of consciousness, carrying with him some private geometry of hesitation and nerve. The program begins, appropriately, with “Picture 3,” a track from Jack DeJohnette’s Pictures that had already appeared on ECM Special V. The duet is full of quicksilver intelligence, with DeJohnette setting traps of momentum that Abercrombie evades by transforming them into passageways. His guitar bends around the shifting terrain beneath it at every turn. “Ralph’s Piano Waltz,” from Timeless, follows with the confidence of a tune that has polished its own bones until they gleam. It remains one of my…