Music from the North

A brief promotional CD surveying ECM’s March 1992 releases, Music from the North gathers six pieces from three albums and arranges them into a meditation on vanishing. Its title names a region, but the sequence turns northward through consciousness rather than geography. Jon Balke w/Oslo 13 begins by demonstrating how abundance can cultivate restraint. The big band assembled for the pianist and composer’s first ECM album as leader might promise monumental force, yet Nonsentration (ECM 1445) draws its power from precision and withheld weight. “Disappear Here” moves on a groove anchored by his synthesized bass line, above which trombonist Torbjørn Sunde plays with superb poise. Balke’s piano enters through delicate chordal punctuations, leaving the brass-heavy foreground room to keep changing its internal proportions. Nothing crowds the frame. Each gesture understands that space is an active participant, capable of bending a phrase merely by remaining empty beside it. The title contains…