ALEXANDER SCHLIPPENBACH & CARLOS BECHEGAS – Open Speech – CD – FORWARD.REC03

Like his compatriots Telectu – Jorge Lima Barreto and Vitor Rua – whose playing partners over recent years have included major figures such as Sunny Murray, Chris Cutler, Eddie Prévost and Jac Berrocal, Portuguese flautist Carlos Bechegas likes to measure himself against established heavyweights (…). On Open Speech he’s partnered by the founder of the mythic Globe Unity Orchestra, pianist Alex Schlippenbach – looks like we’ve lost a “von” somewhere along the way – in a set of five pieces, each entitled “Speech”, recorded by Jean-Marc Foussat at the Jazz à Luz festival in the French Basque country on July 12th 2003. It’s a splendid match, pitting Bechegas’ awesome classical technique (I’m still reeling from “Octave Ligatto”, from his old Leo Lab outing, also reissued as the opening cut on 1998’s Flute Landscapes on AudEo) against Schlippenbach’s ever exquisite ear for pitch. Schlippenbach’s’ “traditional” playing techniques (“Speech II”) are the most impressive in terms of engaging the flautist – when he takes to the inside of the piano (I’d have identified the opening of “Speech III” as Fred Van Hove in a blind test if I didn’t know better) Bechegas tends to head towards the breathy, shakuhachi stuff, all pitch bends, brassy overblows and gusts of wind. (…)

Dan Warburton / Paris Transatlantic Magazine