Basile Rahola – From One Path to Another

Belgian bassist Basile Rahola’s music is highly enjoyable.

It’s music in which the four musicians are so deeply involved that they immediately engage the listener in active listening. This is largely due to the quality of the compositions, mostly by the leader.

The rest of the repertoire is penned by the drummer and completed by two standards: Alex North’s “Love Song from Spartacus” and “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” popularized by Elvis Presley.

The other strong point of this opus is the quality of the timbre of the instrumentalists, including saxophonist Matthias Van den Brande, whom I had not heard before and who displays here an eminently tasty timbre and a phrasing that is both fluid and robust, which immediately makes you want to go and listen to other discs on which he appears both as a leader and as a sideman.

Belgium-based Tunisian pianist Wajdi Riahi is obviously not to be outdone, and his subtle and vigorous playing – heard in the Aleph Qintet (reviewed here a few months ago), among other groups – is a marvel both for his harmonic science and for the beauty of his solo interventions. These two musicians are supported by a rhythmic pair of incomparable solidity and finesse, and both Basile Rahola and Pierre Hurty rival each other in tone and melodic subtlety.

All in all, this is an enthusiastic album, alternating sumptuous ballads with more spirited, irresistibly charming pieces such as the highly danceable “Song for Shahd”.

A repertoire you’ll want to hear again as soon as you’ve listened to it for the first time, and which will make you want to start a fan club for this quartet, if one doesn’t already exist.