![]() It finally came in 1944, when the OSS in Italy conceived Operation Halyard. Serbian peasants hid the downed flyboys, at considerable risk, while the men, living on goat’s milk and bread baked with hay (to make it more filling), waited for a way out. They’d been shot down during years of relentless bombing runs against a crucial target: the Romanian oil fields that supplied the Germans with nearly a third of their fuel supplies. ![]() Sixty years ago, more than five hundred Allied airmen-starving, frightened, hiding from the Germans-lurked in the hills of Yugoslavia. The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War IIīy Gregory Freeman. It seems to me this is what Picasso was talking about.WWII Book Review: The Forgotten 500 Close I suspect it has taken a lifetime of stripping away extraneous notes, and formal training, to arrive at such a point of simplicity, restraint, and depth. In the end, regardless of the term we choose, these pieces can be likened to jewel-like miniatures, polished to perfection. That Isaacs seems capable of creating spontaneous compositions demonstrating all the hallmarks of a classical étude is a cause for wonder. Sure, it’s improvised music, but it’s possible to discern as much Debussy here, as Bill Evans. ![]() Is it jazz? To ask that is to ask the wrong question. Like Isaacs, both were classically trained, and display a preference for improvising on the melody, exhibiting a harmonically rich style. At a shade over 32 minutes, I found myself wanting more.Īside from the more obvious comparison with Keith Jarrett’s solo improvisations, Isaacs’s exquisite touch also recalls left-of-field pianists like Richie Beirach and Steve Kuhn. My only quibble is the album’s modest running time. The instrument’s warm, resonant sound is a feature of the album. Instead, what we have is a work of deep lyricism, calm and reflective, displaying a near elegiac quality throughout.įor the recording, made at the ABC orchestral hall in Adelaide, Isaacs performed on a Steinway Model D concert grand piano. It is certainly a long way from Bud Powell, and even further from Cecil Taylor’s ‘88 tuned drums’. It is as if each note has been carefully chosen and made to stand in for all of the notes not played. With few wasted or extraneous notes, ideas are executed in minimal fashion, with as much emphasis placed on silence as sound. While the album comprises seven relatively brief improvisations, there is an elegant arc to the whole. The final track ‘Remembrance’, with its almost filmic quality, intentionally brings the album to a gentle close, full of melancholy and restrained beauty. ![]() Once found, he mines it with astonishing results. ‘Terra Firma’ is a genuine highlight, from its opening notes we can sense Isaacs’s hesitant probes as he searches for a melody. ‘Lacrima I’ and ‘Lacrima II’ can be considered apiece, ushered in as they are with gentle phrasing, before building ever-so-gently toward an austere resolution. A series of subsequent variations forge a striking melody, both magisterial and mournful. It is followed by ‘Canto’, which arises out of a few repeated notes, played in the upper register. The album leads off with the title track, a gentle pastoral theme, so finely wrought it feels composed. On the strength of this new album, I’d argue too long. A quarter-century is a long time between drinks. For a comparable solo project, we would need to dip back to 1995s Elements series. Isaacs’s extensive discography has mostly been recorded with other musicians, whether on albums like Encounters (1990), with Dave Holland and Roy Haynes or Elders Suite (1997), with the late English trumpeter Kenny Wheeler or with his long-running Resurgence band, featuring James Muller, Brett Hirst, Matt Keegan and others. It felt not too distant from Keith Jarrett’s improvised solo recordings, the Jarrett of Dark Intervals, say. His capacity for constructing melody, seemingly out of nowhere, was breathtaking. ![]() Seated at the keyboard, he appeared seer-like and prophetic, and his playing was instilled with an intense focus. Had we somehow neglected, or taken for granted, his artistry? On this night, his performance, made up entirely of spontaneously composed pieces – or what Isaacs calls ‘extemporisations’ – was a triumph. It was his first club performance in over five years, which, in retrospect, seems unconscionable. A couple of years ago, I saw Isaacs perform a solo set at Bird’s Basement in Melbourne. ![]()
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