For those unaware, solo music will never come first on Bruno Chevillon’s cv. His recording career began in 1983 and is still very much ongoing. Throughout that time, the double bassist has only made two solo recordings, Hors-Champs in 2007 and then États de lieux.

He is foremost an accompanist for musicians, including Michel Portal, Louis Sclavis, Paul Motian, Tim Berne, and Daniel Humair, who have pursued singular visions of what jazz can be and epically broad understandings of what it is and has been.

In such company, there is always room for an accompanist who brings not just technique, but imagination and awareness. Chevillon is that kind of accompanist, and he also manifests those qualities in his solo music.

Tellingly, neither of Chevillon’s solo albums is solely about the double bass. On Hors-Champs, he welcomed a singer on two tracks, and there are a couple on États de lieux that include field recordings.

États de lieux belongs to a lineage of recordings including Okkyung Lee’s Dahl-Tah-Ghi, John Butcher’s Resonant Spaces, and Mats Gustafsson’s The Education of Lars Jerry, on which the musician and the recording environment are partners, sometimes dancing together and other times sparring.

The church where the recording took place is an assertive participant in the recording, and so is the engineer who helped Chevillon to sound it out.

1. Et passer le seuil [00:35]
2. Cascade [05:28]
3. The flight over the crater [02:10]
4. Između tela, luk [00:41]
5. Itinerario di una tragedia [02:07]
6. Fingerboard flow [04:01]
7. Der stein spricht leise, das Holz flüstert zart, der Beton schweigt still [03:44]
8. The red curtain listens to the sounds [05:12]
9. Les mots au bout de la langue [02:34]
10. The illuminated windows of the outskirts [02:55]
11. Weight and balance [02:10]
12. Il cerchio e la linea [06:30]

Bruno Chevillon may not make solo albums very often, but when he does, he has something to say, and this one opens on the short journey to begin Et passer le seuil and then we are brought forth the searing scratchy Cascade, the impassioned creativity of The flight over the crater, the ambiently stretched, yet actually short Između tela, luk and both the strident fare of Itinerario di una tragedia and the funkily-grooved Fingerboard flow.

Along next is the wholly atmospheric Der stein spricht leise, das Holz flüstert zart, der Beton schweigt still which is itself backed seamlessly by the stoically ethereal The red curtain listens to the sounds, the Eastern-imbibed Les mots au bout de la langue, the emotively jaunty The illuminated windows of the outskirts, the set rounding out on the industrially-hued Weight and balance, coming to a close on the engagingly sculpted Il cerchio e la linea.

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