What Exit is the first album as a leader on ECM by violinist Mark Feldman, released in September 2006 after three records with John Abercrombie and the trio album Abaton. All eight pieces are his own. They often leave jazz behind for climates closer to contemporary composition, yet everything rests on the interplay of a quartet. Feldman had spoken of wanting "the real organic integration of classical and modern jazz", and this record is his clearest step in that direction.
He reached it by an unusual route: the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in his teens, a decade as a Nashville session player, and from the mid-1980s New York's downtown scene. For What Exit he put together a quartet with English pianist John Taylor, Swedish bassist Anders Jormin and drummer Tom Rainey, who was making his ECM debut. They recorded in 2005 at Avatar Studios in New York, with James Farber as engineer and Manfred Eicher producing. Rainey and Jormin work as a restless, mutually provoking rhythm team.
The opening Arcade runs almost 23 minutes and keeps changing mood. It starts quietly in the rhythm section, and the violin only arrives with a real melody after several minutes, before passages for trio and duo and a full quartet again. Feldman's solos draw on raga, on Bach's Chaconne and on free playing. Ink Pin is a racing, boppish game of tag between violin and bass. The short title track ends the album with a jaunty theme and a swinging section with solos from Jormin and Taylor.
Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times that Feldman "establishes a midcareer high with a great band", letting his compositions breathe through long, open improvisation. On PopMatters in November 2006, Will Layman heard "a statement of intent from a man who can seemingly play anything", while warning that it asks real attention of the listener. The German magazine Stereoplay picked it as an audiophile recording for its studio sound.
This CD is the 2022 reissue of ECM 1928, first released in 2006, in a card digisleeve without booklet. It belongs to the Touchstones series, which ECM began in 2008 to bring catalogue albums back into print.
