Stockhausen's Trumpet Cuts Through the Fog
Markus Stockhausen's open, searching tone pulls Portal's reeds into terrain neither would reach alone.
Michel Portal's Open reaches its most distinctive moments when Markus Stockhausen's trumpet enters. Stockhausen doesn't play lead voice here—he explores, questions, sometimes disappears into the ensemble texture. His approach on Dockings (1999) is restrained and architectural, which makes his presence all the more vital. Where Portal's bass clarinet often bends and negotiates tone, Stockhausen offers something cleaner: a kind of crystalline inquiry that forces the ensemble to reorganize itself around each new phrase.
The rhythm section—Steve Swallow on electric bass, Joey Baron on drums, and Bruno Chevillon on acoustic bass alongside him—creates enough space for both leaders to breathe, but it's Stockhausen who most often catches Portal mid-thought and redirects him. Listen to how his lines sit just outside the harmonic center, pulling the music toward uncertainty rather than resolution. This is not fusion energy or post-bop swagger. It's deliberate, sometimes austere, always attentive.
For those familiar with Portal's previous work, Dockings sits in a quieter register. The album doesn't announce itself. It rewards the listener who sits with it, who notices how Stockhausen's trumpet—spare and architecturally precise—becomes the fulcrum around which everything else balances. By the standards of Portal's career, this is a chamber record, not a showcase. That restraint is its strength.
Who's playing
Bruno Chevillondouble bass
Michel Portalbass clarinet
Steve Swallowelectric bass guitar
Bojan Zpiano
Markus Stockhausentrumpet
Joey Barondrums
Where next?
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
