Miroslav Vitous' Mountain Call: A Jazz Master's Intimate Duets with Late Legends
Czech double bass virtuoso and composer Miroslav Vitous has long transcended his early fame as a founding member of the legendary jazz-rock fusion band Weather Report in 1970. Now, at 78 years old, Vitous presents Mountain Call, an album seven years in the making that reflects a lifetime's deep immersion in both classical music and jazz. This work showcases a masterful balance of spontaneity, nuanced expression, and cinematic atmospherics, offering listeners a profound glimpse into his artistic evolution.
Legacy and Artistic Journey
Vitous famously left Weather Report as the band's star was rising due to his dislike of their shift away from improvisation toward electric music and global funk. However, his career flourished with collaborations alongside jazz icons such as Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Jan Garbarek, John Surman, and Jack DeJohnette. Mountain Call stands as a testament to his enduring influence and unique voice in the jazz world, moving beyond any residual associations with his early work.
Duets with Departed Giants
The album prominently features two phenomenal musicians who passed away recently: drummer Jack DeJohnette, who died in October, and French clarinettist Michel Portal, who died in February. Across multiple improvisational dialogues and two suites, all kept concise as Vitous prefers brevity, these collaborations are central to the album's emotional depth and musical richness.
Eight duo tracks with Portal, mostly all-improvised, are worth the album alone for their ever-shifting mix of mellow lyricism and challenging curiosity. On standard clarinet, Portal weaves graceful swoops, plaintive queries, and staccato punctuation against Vitous's turbulent undercurrent of muscular plucked runs and percussive accents. When switching to bass clarinet, Portal sweeps from resonant deep sounds to breathtaking glissando ascents that hurtle into the upper register, creating a dynamic interplay that highlights both musicians' virtuosity.
Highlights and Collaborations
Vitous's duets with DeJohnette's hustling drumming are also standout moments, particularly on Fulfillment, where they pursue each other through the misty harmonies of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, Esperanza Spalding's vocals on the Rhapsody suite glide between a standards-singer's care for lyrics, sax-mimicking wordless sounds, and soulful soliloquies on the percussion-rich track Africa. Her fluid contrapuntal lines with the terrific, though little-known, hard boppish saxophonist Gary Campbell add further depth to the album.
Mountain Call serves as a highly personal contemporary music chronicle from an unflinching one-off artist, blending classical influences with jazz improvisation in a way that honors both traditions while pushing boundaries.
Other Notable Releases This Month
In other jazz news, the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet's Live at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note) is the first of a three-volume set from that iconic New York club, confirming how powerfully and perceptively gospel/post-bop saxophonist Wilkins balances jazz past, present, and future. Notably, it includes an impassioned account of Alice Coltrane's haunting Charanam.
Franco-Syrian flute improviser and composer Naïssam Jalal releases Landscapes of Eternity (Les Couleurs du Son), the rich result of her deep study of Hindustani traditions and solo travels in north India. Tears in Delhi's Fog epitomizes Jalal's discoveries through her effortlessly flexible voice, the warmth and audacity of her improvisations, and the punch of a traditional Indian and jazzily westernized lineup.
Lastly, the legacy of cult 1960s psychedelic/rock group Soft Machine evolves on Thirteen (Dyad), a mix of psych-rock, blues-to-free guitar from the great John Etheridge, ferocious sax-playing by Theo Travis, and the frontier-busting drumming of newcomer Asaf Sirkis.
