Mountain Call – Miroslav Vitous

Mountain Call is a peak achievement in Miroslav Vitous’s music, presenting the masterful bassist in varying ensemble configurations that prominently include the late French clarinetist Michel Portal and American drummer Jack DeJohnette, among others. Persuasively bringing together several tendencies and streams in Vitous’s work, the album bears testimony to his multiple skills as dynamic improviser, jazz composer, arranger and creative sampling pioneer. The prodigiously gifted Czech bassist and founding member of Weather Report first came to ECM in the late 1970s, in a collaborative trio with Terje Rypdal and Jack DeJohnette. Back then, Miroslav and Jack made for an eruptive, powerful rhythm section, successfully revisited on Vitous’s Universal Syncopations album (2003) with Jan Garbarek and Chick Corea, and on Mountain Call the combination also has a centering role to play. Bassist and drummer interact dynamically on “Tribal Dance” and “Epilog”, their playing framed on the latter by Miroslav’s big chords for orchestra, and Jack also solos inside Vitous’s tripartite “Evolution”, with a painterly attention to detail. On the suite “Rhapsody”, the voice of bassist Esperanza Spalding comes to the fore, singing Vitous’s lyrics. Mountain Call begins and ends, however, with a sequence of superb, dazzlingly inventive duets with Michel Portal that may comprise Miroslav’s strongest improvised moments since his celebrated collaboration with Jan Garbarek on Atmos. The concluding title track, with Miroslav’s dramatic arco playing and Portal’s evocative bass clarinet, confirms their remarkable collaborative spark. Mountain Call was recorded at multiple sessions over a period of seven years at Vitous’s Prague studio. The album was produced by Miroslav Vitous and Manfred Eicher.