Author: Madalena

All About Jazz Italy | Daniel Bernardes & Drumming GP – Liturgy Of The Birds, In Memoriam Olivier Messiaen

By Alberto Bazzurro In questo singolare album, inciso nel febbraio 2018, il trentaquattrenne pianista portoghese Daniel Bernardes riunisce il proprio trio col quartetto di percussionisti (in verità anche parecchio melodici, visto l’ampio uso di vibrafoni e marimba) Drumming GP, a generare un incontro appunto decisamente particolare, visto che a tratti il trio agisce in quanto tale, battendo itinerari anche piuttosto noti (il che non significa ovvi o banali), con le percussioni che vi si aggiungono (altrove vi si giustappongono) anche in maniera repentina, inattesa, con effetti di notevole impatto, in particolare nel terzo brano di quella che va letta a tutti gli effetti come una suite pentapartita, “Globular Clusters.” L’opera è esplicitamente dedicata alla memoria di Olivier Messiaen e alle sue tecniche compositive, e in effetti una componente schiettamente contemporanea si affianca alla pelle più squisitamente jazzistica che permea di..

By Alberto Bazzurro

In questo singolare album, inciso nel febbraio 2018, il trentaquattrenne pianista portoghese Daniel Bernardes riunisce il proprio trio col quartetto di percussionisti (in verità anche parecchio melodici, visto l’ampio uso di vibrafoni e marimba) Drumming GP, a generare un incontro appunto decisamente particolare, visto che a tratti il trio agisce in quanto tale, battendo itinerari anche piuttosto noti (il che non significa ovvi o banali), con le percussioni che vi si aggiungono (altrove vi si giustappongono) anche in maniera repentina, inattesa, con effetti di notevole impatto, in particolare nel terzo brano di quella che va letta a tutti gli effetti come una suite pentapartita, “Globular Clusters.”

L’opera è esplicitamente dedicata alla memoria di Olivier Messiaen e alle sue tecniche compositive, e in effetti una componente schiettamente contemporanea si affianca alla pelle più squisitamente jazzistica che permea di sé in particolare il lavoro del trio. Ci sono lievi rumorismi atmosferici e impennate subitanee, cadenze ritmicamente pregnanti e aperture di docile cantabilità, per un disco che sa unire fruibilità e sapienza compositiva, sano piacere di ascolto e sofisticate trame architettoniche. Non tutto è memorabile, ma l’idea è forte e la sua realizzazione felicemente compiuta.

www.allaboutjazz.com

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Jazz.pt | Roots Magic – Take Root Among the Stars *****

By Rui Eduardo Paes Italianos de origem, mas muito negros na música, os Roots Magic sabem tudo sobre blues. Sabem com um saber enciclopédico que supera o dos académicos, porque os ouvem – e tocam – com uma perspectiva apaixonada, única, de arqueólogo e antropólogo sem distância. Os blues, para este grupo, não são só a música de Charley Patton (apesar de este estar sempre presente; neste novo disco, a foto do interior é a do quarteto na sua campa). Para este quarteto de Roma, os blues são toda a herança da música negra que viajou para os Estados Unidos e que se desenvolveu a partir das canções das plantações e do repertório dos “deep blues” (final dos anos 20 do século passado, início dos 30) e dos “jazzmen” que orgulhosamente incorporaram as músicas africanas na luta contra a discriminação..

By Rui Eduardo Paes

Italianos de origem, mas muito negros na música, os Roots Magic sabem tudo sobre blues. Sabem com um saber enciclopédico que supera o dos académicos, porque os ouvem – e tocam – com uma perspectiva apaixonada, única, de arqueólogo e antropólogo sem distância. Os blues, para este grupo, não são só a música de Charley Patton (apesar de este estar sempre presente; neste novo disco, a foto do interior é a do quarteto na sua campa). Para este quarteto de Roma, os blues são toda a herança da música negra que viajou para os Estados Unidos e que se desenvolveu a partir das canções das plantações e do repertório dos “deep blues” (final dos anos 20 do século passado, início dos 30) e dos “jazzmen” que orgulhosamente incorporaram as músicas africanas na luta contra a discriminação dos anos 1960. É a grande música negra americana lida a partir da cidade europeia mais bonita do mundo.

Para se poder ter uma noção da música creio que ajudará ver os autores que tocam: os “bluesmen” (e “blueswomen”) Charley Patton, Geeshie Wiley, Blind Willie Johnson e Skip James. Entre os “jazzmen” temos Roscoe Mitchell, Marion Brown, Julius Hemphill, Hamiet Bluiett, Pee Wee Russell, Henry Threadgill, Phil Cohran, John Carter, Sun Ra, Olu Dara, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, CharlesTyler e Ornette Coleman. A ideia de libertação, de luta pela causa negra, de políticas igualitárias e de superação pela música sobressai ao vermos listados os compositores que o grupo escolheu interpretar nos seus três discos. Compreendemos por que é que o grupo italiano não deixa de ir à fonte em Holly Ridge, no Mississippi, antes de seguir o percurso da água.

A banda surgiu em Roma em 2013 e todos os seus três álbuns foram editados pela Clean Feed. É um trabalho que cresce e vai ficando mais consistente. Ouvi-los ao vivo (Seixal Jazz) impressionou, pois a sua qualidade técnica é gigantesca, bem como a capacidade que cada um tem de renovar numa música que parece sagrada (ou que, pelo menos, faz mais pela alma do que muito livro bento). Trata-se de um trabalho apaixonado de quem, como comecei por dizer, dá aulas sobre blues e conhece profundamente a música. Ao estudá-la e praticá-la descobre-lhe racional e emocionalmente as frinchas mais ocultas.

Em todas as interpretações contamos com as releituras dos italianos e estes, por vezes, introduzem composições suas dentro dos temas originais, numa forma de apropriação interessantíssima em que os temas são “infectados” e reaparecem diferentes e mais fortes. É o caso de “Frankiphone Blues”, que abre este terceiro volume, assinado por Phil Cohran (trompetista na Arkestra de Sun Ra de 1959 a 61 e fundador da AACM). Uma peça notável que foi desenterrada das profundezas de um baú de três singles editados pela Zulu Records da Philip Cohran & The Artistic Heritage Ensemble. A adição de vibrafone e flauta cria uma dimensão orquestral e a música tem uma forma e um sentido circulares que nos hipnotizam. Ficamos desde logo agarrados a este disco que já gira no meu leitor de CDs há um mês! Os blues e o jazz libertário magnificamente lidos e estudados, é o que aqui encontramos. Grande disco para confinamentos, desconfinamentos e mais além.

jazz.pt

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Jazz’halo | Lynn Cassiers – YUN

By Bernard Lefèvre Bij de viering van 25 jaar JazzLab kreeg Lynn Cassiers carte blanche. Ze introduceerde ‘YUN’ (Chinees voor ‘wolk), waarvoor ze inspiratie vond toen ze maandenlang optrad in een jazzclub in China. Naast de vertrouwde muzikanten van haar ‘Imaginary Band’: pianist Erik Vermeulen, drummer Marek Patrman en bassist Manolo Cabras nodigde ze Bo Van der Werf op baritonsax en Jozef Dumoulin op Fender Rhodes en elektronica uit. Ze bedacht voor ‘YUN’ een benadering van standards uit de Real Book tot een eigen concept waarin ze als elektronica-wizard en zangeres de leidraad neemt. Vooraleer de standard zich prijsgeeft doopt Lynn Cassiers je in een bad van elektronica, nog versterkt door de contrastrijke interactie van piano en Fender Rhodes, de tranchematige baritonsax en opzwepende ritmesectie. Daarbij mengt ze haar betoverende stem en herken je bij ‘I You W’ de standard..

By Bernard Lefèvre

Bij de viering van 25 jaar JazzLab kreeg Lynn Cassiers carte blanche. Ze introduceerde ‘YUN’ (Chinees voor ‘wolk), waarvoor ze inspiratie vond toen ze maandenlang optrad in een jazzclub in China.

Naast de vertrouwde muzikanten van haar ‘Imaginary Band’: pianist Erik Vermeulen, drummer Marek Patrman en bassist Manolo Cabras nodigde ze Bo Van der Werf op baritonsax en Jozef Dumoulin op Fender Rhodes en elektronica uit.

Ze bedacht voor ‘YUN’ een benadering van standards uit de Real Book tot een eigen concept waarin ze als elektronica-wizard en zangeres de leidraad neemt. Vooraleer de standard zich prijsgeeft doopt Lynn Cassiers je in een bad van elektronica, nog versterkt door de contrastrijke interactie van piano en Fender Rhodes, de tranchematige baritonsax en opzwepende ritmesectie. Daarbij mengt ze haar betoverende stem en herken je bij ‘I You W’ de standard ‘I Love You’ of bij ‘Seemin’ Easy’ de tune ‘Easy To Love’ en bij ‘Fair deep blue skies’ dan weer ‘Everything I Love’, telkens ontleend aan Porter. Ook Gershwin tovert ze om tot een surrealistisch klankenpalet (‘Call it Off’, ‘But’).

In ‘All’ (That’s All- Brandt/Haymes), ‘Move Them Mountains’ (Crazy He Calls Me – Russell/Sigman) en We’ll Be Again – We’ll Be Together Again (Laine/Fischer) zet de band op kruissnelheid de interactie voort met vrij spel van piano (Erik Vermeulen) en Fender Rhodes (Jozef Dumoulin) over de altijd intense baritonsax (Bo Van der Werf). En hoe dwars het soms mag los gaan, Lynn Cassiers voegt er structuur aan toe, maakt het vocaal melodisch en harmonieus spannend, fijn onderbouwd door de ritmetandem (Marek Patrman en Manolo Cabras).

Daartussen in leeft de band zich uit met originele impro-pareltjes die luisteren naar de namen: ‘Nucleus’, ‘Nimbus’, ‘Nebula’ en ‘Nube Mechanica’ en zo de kern van het album blootleggen: wolk en nevel.

‘YUN’ mag dan Chinees geïnspireerd zijn, de muziek voelt perfect aan bij het lezen van Haruki Murakami, bizar en fascinerend, even innemend als Lynn Cassiers’ jazz in wonderland!

www.jazzhalo.be

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Free Form, Free Jazz | Pedro Melo Alves – In Igma ****(*)

By Fabricio Vieira Fazia algum tempo que não tinha notícias do baterista e compositor Pedro Melo Alves, ao menos desde o lançamento de seu premiado “Omniae Ensemble”, de 2017. E eis que Melo Alves reaparece, e com um novo ambicioso projeto: In Igma. Este é um trabalho que foi desenvolvido no verão de 2019, em meio a apresentações em diferentes palcos, partindo de uma encomenda da Fundação Serralves para o festival Jazz no Parque. O compositor partiu de uma pesquisa que passa pelo erudito contemporâneo e tem nas vias da improvisação um importante canal. Para tanto, reuniu um fantástico grupo que conta com Eve Risser (piano), Mark Dresser (baixo), Abdul Moimême (guitarra) e as vozes de Aubrey Johnson, Beatriz Nunes e Mariana Dionísio, além de Alves na bateria e percussão. Ou seja, temos basicamente, entre contrastes e interações, duas sessões,..

By Fabricio Vieira

Fazia algum tempo que não tinha notícias do baterista e compositor Pedro Melo Alves, ao menos desde o lançamento de seu premiado “Omniae Ensemble”, de 2017. E eis que Melo Alves reaparece, e com um novo ambicioso projeto: In Igma. Este é um trabalho que foi desenvolvido no verão de 2019, em meio a apresentações em diferentes palcos, partindo de uma encomenda da Fundação Serralves para o festival Jazz no Parque. O compositor partiu de uma pesquisa que passa pelo erudito contemporâneo e tem nas vias da improvisação um importante canal. Para tanto, reuniu um fantástico grupo que conta com Eve Risser (piano), Mark Dresser (baixo), Abdul Moimême (guitarra) e as vozes de Aubrey Johnson, Beatriz Nunes e Mariana Dionísio, além de Alves na bateria e percussão. Ou seja, temos basicamente, entre contrastes e interações, duas sessões, a de vozes e a de cordas e percussão. Aqui o melhor é não falarmos em faixas, mas em partes (cinco) nas quais se dividem a obra. Não sei se Alves a concebeu assim, uma obra para ser ouvida de forma ininterrupta, mas é dessa forma que soa. Parece um erro ouvir apenas um ou outro tema: In Igma é uma composição para ser degustada sem interrupções em seus quase 40 minutos de duração, percorrendo cada parte com ouvidos focados, para não perder cada detalhe que faz o encanto do álbum. As vozes têm papel de grande importância, muitas vezes trabalhando no núcleo dos sons, em uma esfera fonética, além das palavras, em uma exploração poética que nos abre universos encantatórios e oníricos. O piano de Risser é outro ponto central. A artista francesa tem feito de seu instrumento um campo de exploração sem limites e isso se encaixa com perfeição à proposta de In Igma. É tocante vê-la protagonizando o final de “Organum”, com um breve belo solo que serve de transição a “In Igma II – On Meaning”, que abre com delicadas investidas ao teclado acompanhadas pela percussão. Pedro Melo Alves reafirma aqui a poderosa impressão deixada antes em “Omniae”, mostrando que realmente é um compositor de refinadas ideias.

www.freeformfreejazz.org

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Burning Ambulance | Roots Magic – Take Root Among the Stars

By Phil Freeman Roots Magic is an Italian quartet: Alberto Popolla on clarinet and bass clarinet, Errico DeFabritiis on alto and baritone saxes, Gianfranco Tedeschi on bass, and Fabrizio Spera on drums. For three albums now, all on the fantastic Portuguese label Clean Feed, they have been engaged in a unique project, interpreting black music from two sources — free/avant-garde jazz of the 1960s and 1970s, and Delta blues of the 1920s and 1930s — while occasionally adding an original composition to the mix. Their debut, 2015’s Hoodoo Blues & Roots Magic, set out the terms of their mission quite clearly. It opened with a version of saxophonist Julius Hemphill‘s “The Hard Blues,” and followed that with an interpretation of Phil Cohran‘s “Unity” and John Carter‘s “The Sunday Afternoon Jazz and Blues Society.” The album also offered versions of pieces..

By Phil Freeman

Roots Magic is an Italian quartet: Alberto Popolla on clarinet and bass clarinet, Errico DeFabritiis on alto and baritone saxes, Gianfranco Tedeschi on bass, and Fabrizio Spera on drums. For three albums now, all on the fantastic Portuguese label Clean Feed, they have been engaged in a unique project, interpreting black music from two sources — free/avant-garde jazz of the 1960s and 1970s, and Delta blues of the 1920s and 1930s — while occasionally adding an original composition to the mix.

Their debut, 2015’s Hoodoo Blues & Roots Magic, set out the terms of their mission quite clearly. It opened with a version of saxophonist Julius Hemphill‘s “The Hard Blues,” and followed that with an interpretation of Phil Cohran‘s “Unity” and John Carter‘s “The Sunday Afternoon Jazz and Blues Society.” The album also offered versions of pieces by Sun Ra (“A Call for Demons”) and Olu Dara (“I Can’t Wait Till I Get Home”), but two other tracks showed not only the other half of their vision, but the connecting lines between. They recorded versions of Blind Willie Johnson‘s “Dark Was the Night” and Charley Patton‘s “Poor Me” that were stunning in their stark power.

Their nearly seven-minute take on “Dark Was the Night” began with an extended bass solo, accompanied only by sparse percussion and a few shaken bells. It wasn’t until the piece’s halfway mark that the reeds came in, DeFabritiis’s alto hoarse and crying in a manner somewhere between Joseph Jarman and Peter Brötzmann, with Tedeschi bowing deep drones behind him and Spera’s drums a tumbling, tympani-like earthquake accented by massive cymbal crashes.

Their second album, 2017’s Last Kind Words, was a little more raucous at times, but dug deep into the groove, too. “Oh Hush,” an original based on a Charley Patton composition, was a strutting free-jazz-funk piece with an almost carnival-esque energy, somewhere between the Art Ensemble of Chicago‘s “Théme de Yoyo” and Sons of Kemet. The title track starts out as a graveyard rite featuring clarinet and droning bowed bass, not unlike their take on “Dark Was the Night,” but eventually becomes a howling storm of sound. It was originally recorded by Geeshie Wiley in 1930 or ’31. (If you’ve never read this amazing New York Times story, go do that and come back afterward.)

They tackled more Charley Patton songs, too, including “Down the Dirt Road Blues,” “Tom Rushen Blues,” and another version of “Poor Me.” Those were juxtaposed against Julius Hemphill‘s “Dogon A.D.”, Marion Brown‘s “November Cotton Flower,” Hamiet Bluiett‘s “Hattie Wall,” Roscoe Mitchell‘s “Old,” and Henry Threadgill‘s “Bermuda Blues.” A few guests contributed here and there: Luca Venitucci (who’d also appeared on the debut) played piano and/or organ on four tracks, Luca Tilli played cello on two, and Antonio Castiello added “dub effects” to the Threadgill piece.

Their mission and philosophy was crystal clear at this point, and it was becoming fascinating to listen to their work, which drew vivid connections through the continuum of black music in America, while adding something all their own to it. Roots Magic were never attempting to re-create the music that inspired them; they were re-interpreting it in their own style, radically reshaping it while honoring the creative impulse that had caused Brown, Hemphill, Bluiett, Threadgill et al. to draw from and warp traditional forms in the first place.

On their third album, the quartet have expanded the scope of their project yet again. There are no original compositions on Take Root Among the Stars, which takes its title from a phrase by the late science fiction writer Octavia Butler. (Butler is also a strong inspiration for flutist/composer Nicole Mitchell, and for poet/electronic musician Moor Mother; the latter has spoken and written consistently about using recordings and writings from the past as time travel devices.) There’s another Charley Patton tune, “Mean Black Cat Blues,” on the album, and a version of Skip James‘ “Devil Got My Woman,” as well as pieces by John Carter, Ornette Coleman, Phil Cohran, Sun Ra, Charles Tyler, and Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre (“Humility in the Light of Creator”). Eugenio Colombo plays flute on one track and bass flute on another; Francesco Lo Cascio plays vibraphone on one track and gong on another; and Spera has added zither to his drum and percussion work.

The version of “Devil Got My Woman,” which opens with a two-minute bass solo on which Tedeschi’s harsh exhalations are audible between notes, is monumental. When the horns (all low-end: bass clarinet, baritone sax, and Colombo on bass flute) come in, they have the roaring, squalling energy of a Peter Brötzmann/Mats Gustafsson collaboration, and Spera’s drumming is a massive thumping attack. At the five-minute mark, though, everything stops and the frantic, Mingus-meets-Hemphill riffing is replaced by droning, meditative long tones, as hand percussion takes over from kit drumming. It’s slow and patient, but never even slightly soothing. This is intense music.

Ornette Coleman never recorded “A Girl Named Rainbow” himself; he gave it to drummer Andrew Cyrille, who put it on his album Special People, with Ted Daniel on trumpet, David S. Ware on tenor saxophone, and bassist Nick De Geronimo. As always with his compositions, it’s immediately recognizable as his; the melody is a rising fanfare that then descends in a bluesy flurry. Roots Magic take it apart, picking through the melody slowly and cautiously, like archaeologists disassembling a pile of bones, but managing to keep the essential vitality of Coleman’s music.

This is a powerhouse album; it swings ferociously hard, and throbs like a whale’s heart. The core concept behind Roots Magic was intriguing at the beginning, and even as a one-off would have been worth checking out. Three albums in, it’s obvious they’re really onto something, drawing connections that should have been clear long ago (and were — see the Art Ensemble of Chicago‘s motto “Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future” or Charles Mingus calling a composition “Folk Forms, No. 1” or all the other avant-jazz artists and groups who’ve drunk deep of the past) and turning it all into a mighty roar with, yes, some real magic behind it.

burningambulance.com

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Tracce di Jazz | Roots Magic – Take root among the stars

By Tracce di Jazz Un avvolgente e magnetico groove imbastito dal basso e dal vibrafono, poi le frasi incalzanti ed evocative, quasi cerimoniali, scandite dai fiati . Quindi una cesura, un break, che introduce una diversa e più sciolta scansione ritmica, su cui si innesta un concitato solo del flauto, accompagnato da echi dell’atmosfera iniziale, che ritorna a dominare il finale, trasformandosi in un fraseggio più esteso ed articolato. Inizia così “Take root among the stars“, (bellissima frase tratta dal libro The Parable of the Sower, della scrittrice afroamericana di science fiction Octavia E. Butler, attribuita al manifesto fondativo di una religione immaginaria denominata Earthseed), dei Roots Magic, gruppo fondato a Roma nel 2013. Il brano è “Frankiphone Blues” di Phil Cohran, trombettista nell’orchestra di Sun Ra a fine anni ’50, ed è un inizio che non può lasciare indifferenti,..

By Tracce di Jazz

Un avvolgente e magnetico groove imbastito dal basso e dal vibrafono, poi le frasi incalzanti ed evocative, quasi cerimoniali, scandite dai fiati . Quindi una cesura, un break, che introduce una diversa e più sciolta scansione ritmica, su cui si innesta un concitato solo del flauto, accompagnato da echi dell’atmosfera iniziale, che ritorna a dominare il finale, trasformandosi in un fraseggio più esteso ed articolato.

Inizia così “Take root among the stars“, (bellissima frase tratta dal libro The Parable of the Sower, della scrittrice afroamericana di science fiction Octavia E. Butler, attribuita al manifesto fondativo di una religione immaginaria denominata Earthseed), dei Roots Magic, gruppo fondato a Roma nel 2013. Il brano è “Frankiphone Blues” di Phil Cohran, trombettista nell’orchestra di Sun Ra a fine anni ’50, ed è un inizio che non può lasciare indifferenti, come tutto il terzo album del quartetto italiano pubblicato dall’etichetta Clean Feed. Un ulteriore passo in avanti rispetto al primo “Hoodoo Blues & Roots Magic” (2015) ed al successivo “Last Kind Words” (2017) in quel progetto originale e senza compromessi che si propone di accoppiare materiale del blues arcaico degli anni ’20 e ’30 ed autori quali Charley Patton, Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James, a composizioni ed approccio tipici del free jazz, assumendo come riferimenti i nomi di Sun Ra, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, Pee Wee Russell, Ornette Coleman. Nelle otto tracce del disco, Alberto Popola (clarinetti), Errico De Fabritiis (saxes) , Gianfranco Tedeschi (basso) e Fabrizio Spera (batteria) con gli ospiti Eugenio Colombo ai flauti e Francesco Lo Cascio al vibrafono, riescono a rendere esplicita ed attuale, attraverso la rivitalizzazione del repertorio scelto, integrato da sezioni autografe inserite nel tessuto dei brani, tutta la forza espressiva ed il feeling brutale di una musica amata ed omaggiata come elemento di crescita personale.

Nel disco convivono lo spirito libero inconoclasta e le informali dialettiche del free con il battito secco e le reiterazioni del blues, in un gioco dei contrasti che rende l’ascolto un’esperienza imprevedibile: ci si può esaltare per un groove ritmico ed un momento dopo trovarsi in una terra di nessuno dove il dialogo fra i fiati è spigoloso ed urticante, oppure assecondare la distanza dalla struttura formale di un passaggio, e ritrovarsi nel brano successivo ad accarezzare con la mente una melodia baciata dal dono della grazia. Succede tutto così, in modo naturale, nello svolgimento di un racconto che attraversa le otto tracce fino alla conclusione affidata al clarinetto calato in una straniante atmosfera ambientale di “Karen on monday” di John Carter: dalle ondate free di “Humility In The Light Of Creator” di Kalaparusha e dagli incastri geometrici fra i fiati di “Still Screaming For Charles Tyler” del baritonista statunitense, che brucia poi in un intenso fuoco acceso dal sax e dal clarinetto oltre la metà del suo svolgimento, al blues tagliente e dinamico di “Devil Got My Woman” (Skip James), introdotta dal basso di Tedeschi e chiusa nel ripiegarsi dei fiati in un epilogo dominato dalle percussioni, fino alle esaltanti reiterazioni ritmiche di “Mean Black Cat Blues” di Charley Patton. Poi ci sono i brani di Ornette, “A Girl Named Rainbow“, del 1978, già interpretato da Andrew Cyrille, e di SunRa, “When There Is No Sun“. Il primo, una lenta e progressiva costruzione di un tema che, nella sua compiuta esposizione, arriva dritto al cuore. Il secondo, un viscerale riff blues che a metà subisce una metamorfosi free e prosegue in modo simbiotico fra le due componenti, a rappresentare quasi simbolicamente l’anima di Roots Magic.

Uno dei dischi più vitali e stimolanti ascoltati quest’anno. E bello, davvero, che questo scavo nelle radici ed ascesa fra le stelle afroamericane sia opera di un gruppo tutto italiano.

traccedijazz.com

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Gapplegate Music Review | Humanization 4tet, Believe, Believe

By Grego Applegate Edwards Portuguese electric guitarist Luis Lopes joins together once again with fellow Portuguese tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado and the Texas brother rhythm team of Aaron Gonzalez on double bass and Stefan Gonzalez on drums in the group they call the Humanization 4tet. Their new album has recently come out. Believe, Believe (Clean Feed CF549CD) is the title and it continues the fine series of recordings they have put out in the last decade (some I have reviewed here, type their name in the search box above for those.) The new one bubbles over with the sort of high spirited, energetic state-of-the-art free-wheeling contemporary Jazz that the 4tet has become known for. There are song structures or melodic kernels and a rhythmic looseness that still tends to pulsate forward, often free but directional, swinging indirectly or directly as..

By Grego Applegate Edwards

Portuguese electric guitarist Luis Lopes joins together once again with fellow Portuguese tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado and the Texas brother rhythm team of Aaron Gonzalez on double bass and Stefan Gonzalez on drums in the group they call the Humanization 4tet. Their new album has recently come out. Believe, Believe (Clean Feed CF549CD) is the title and it continues the fine series of recordings they have put out in the last decade (some I have reviewed here, type their name in the search box above for those.)

The new one bubbles over with the sort of high spirited, energetic state-of-the-art free-wheeling contemporary Jazz that the 4tet has become known for. There are song structures or melodic kernels and a rhythmic looseness that still tends to pulsate forward, often free but directional, swinging indirectly or directly as fits the mood, ever freely loose in the best ways. Six compositional-improvisational segments (one in two versions) make up the whole.

When such a talented and sensitively attuned group plays together intensively and extensively for a good while as the Humanization 4tet has, there is one hopes a continual growth and a resiliency to the sureness of the free expressions as they project into aural space. Believe, Believe happily shows the fruits of that sort of hands-on, mutual improvisational opening out.

Aaron and Stefan have played music together for as long as two brothers who grew up together might and with their father Dennis Gonzalez on trumpet have long been playing as the excellent and acclaimed Yells at Eels group. When you listen to the prodigious rhythm team work on this album you hear the results of talent and experience, for they are strong and sure, and form a crucial bedrock for how this band moves strikingly forward.

It is true also that the double-front line of Luis Lopes on guitar and Rodrigo Amado on tenor sax show the natural aging of togetherness, like a fine wine. So Luis springs forth with very energized abstractions on guitar that fit in well with Rodrigo’s tenor effusions and the rhythm team’s assertions. He does some of his best playing on disk here. And it serves notice to all who hear that Luis is happening. He is a guitarist of the highest caliber, always ready-to-hand with creative fire and poetic tone.

Rodrigo continues to shine forth as one of the very best and original avant tenors playing today. He is of course an indispensable component of the 4tet and sounds fabulous throughout.

So we have a band with all the talent and seasoning one could ask for, creating some of their most compelling and ravishing best on this CD album. Believe, Believe has all you could ask for, all you might hope for to make you a believer in this 4tet and all they do. One of their very best. Get this one and believe!

gapplegatemusicreview.blogspot.com

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The Free Jazz Collective | Luís Lopes Humanization 4tet – Believe, Believe ****

By Nick Ostrum Now a unit for 12 years, this is the fourth release of the Lisbon-Dallas quartet of Luís Lopes (electric guitar), Rodrigo Amado (tenor saxophone), Aaron González (bass), and Stefan González (drums). Two years ago for their tenth anniversary, they embarked on a tour of the United States, during which they found their way to the Marigny Studios in New Orleans. OK. So, I am not sure that the location itself had any unique effect on these recordings, but the liner notes make a big deal out of it and this session took place just one month before I moved down here. To my chagrin. The Humanization 4tet is known for its singular blending of free bop, funeral cool jazz, heavy funk, punk and postpunk, metal and, I imagine, pretty much any other musical influence you could associate..

By Nick Ostrum

Now a unit for 12 years, this is the fourth release of the Lisbon-Dallas quartet of Luís Lopes (electric guitar), Rodrigo Amado (tenor saxophone), Aaron González (bass), and Stefan González (drums). Two years ago for their tenth anniversary, they embarked on a tour of the United States, during which they found their way to the Marigny Studios in New Orleans. OK. So, I am not sure that the location itself had any unique effect on these recordings, but the liner notes make a big deal out of it and this session took place just one month before I moved down here. To my chagrin.

The Humanization 4tet is known for its singular blending of free bop, funeral cool jazz, heavy funk, punk and postpunk, metal and, I imagine, pretty much any other musical influence you could associate with the fringes of early 2000s youth culture in the US and, apparently, in Portugal as well. In a way, they are the Iberian/American counterpart to projects like Fire!, The Thing, and even Angles, who have one foot firmly planted in a Holy Ghost fire-breathing folkish melodicism and the other in rock’s fringes. Indeed, these musicians experiment with boundaries, odd juxtapositions and juncture. Apart from Humanization, Lopes and Amado have appeared on countless releases often with the deeply variegated Lisbon scene. Lopes in particular has released some absolutely wild noise balladeering most recently through his Love Songs project and his duo with Julien Desprez. Aaron and Stefan have meanwhile been plumbing the pipelines linking grind, heavy angular fusion, and even stranger experimental music separately (especially Stefan in his percussion/vocals project Orgulla Primitivo, the experimental hip-hop group The Young Mothers, and the more classically crust Imperial Slaughter) and together (the blackened free-psychedelia combo Unconscious Collective and the S.O.D./Naked City love-child Akkolyte). That is, while still maintaining their two-decades-and-running free jazz trio Yells at Eels with their father Dennis González.

Surprise, surprise, Believe, Believe is a wonderous melting pot. It leans towards free jazz but has unmistakably contemporary shadings. Lopes plays his now characteristic jagged and deconstructed guitar lines, but he converges them with jazzier runs and rhythms. Synchronic themes piece together out of rough fragments of hard-bop melodies, which are then shredded into scraps that the band slowly pieces back together. Amado can play sultry. Just listen to the first minute of Ed Harris/Tranquilidad Alborotadora, the first section a Bill-Lee-penned tribute to the great eponymous saxophonist, the second a take on an Unconscious Collective composition. But, as anyone who has heard This is Our Language or A History of Nothing already knows, he can really open up and spiral into some mesmerizingly outre territory. The González brothers meanwhile hold clattery and off-time but steady rhythms, like Haden and Blackwell but even less predisposed to tradition and more interested in the heavy vamping and flailing percussion that have found an equally fitting home in their spazzier and more metallic undertakings.

Themes are catchy and may be ultimately rooted in bop, but the most noteworthy elements come when the musicians avail themselves of the melodic constraints and play on a feeling or simply on stored energy. These are the places where the punk-rock inspiration, the just-short-of-reckless abandon take over. And when they do, it is something to behold, even if it only lasts for a quick half hour.

freejazzblog.org

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All About Jazz | Simon Nabatov With Chris Speed, Herb Robertson, John Hébert, Tom Rainey – Plain

By Mark Corroto How fitting is the comparison between the music of Simon Nabatov and a Matryoshka doll? The Russian-born American’s music is a nesting of not dolls but musical genres, placed one inside the other. Classically trained as a child, he can often be found in the free jazz wilds, moving easily between European and American brands of instant composing. He also has a passion for Brazilian music, chamber music, computer-interfaced sounds, and solo performance. Maybe the easiest introductions to his multi-faceted music are his quintet recordings with American jazz musicians. Before Plain, there was Last Minute Theory (Clean Feed, 2019) with Tony Malaby, Brandon Seabrook, Michael Formanek and Gerald Cleaver. Before that Nabatov released The Master And Margarita (Leo Records, 2001) with Herb Robertson, Mark Feldman, Mark Helias, and Tom Rainey. For Plain the pianist has reunited with..

By Mark Corroto

How fitting is the comparison between the music of Simon Nabatov and a Matryoshka doll? The Russian-born American’s music is a nesting of not dolls but musical genres, placed one inside the other. Classically trained as a child, he can often be found in the free jazz wilds, moving easily between European and American brands of instant composing. He also has a passion for Brazilian music, chamber music, computer-interfaced sounds, and solo performance. Maybe the easiest introductions to his multi-faceted music are his quintet recordings with American jazz musicians. Before Plain, there was Last Minute Theory (Clean Feed, 2019) with Tony Malaby, Brandon Seabrook, Michael Formanek and Gerald Cleaver. Before that Nabatov released The Master And Margarita (Leo Records, 2001) with Herb Robertson, Mark Feldman, Mark Helias, and Tom Rainey.

For Plain the pianist has reunited with Robertson and Rainey, plus added reedist Chris Speed, and bassist John Hébert. Of the seven tracks, five were composed by Nabatov, one is freely improvised, and the disc concludes with the pianist hero, Herbie Nichols’ “House Party Starting.” The title track “Plain,” not meaning unembellished but indisputable, weaves thoroughly composed music with feral passages. What begins with an elegant duo between Speed’s clarinet and Nabatov’s piano opens into Robertson’s muted trumpet romp and Rainey’s near stochastic pounding. With Nabatov’s music, what is seemingly detonated always finds its center, maintaining is coherence. Maybe it is the small gestures this music provides. “Cry From Hell” rewards the listeners’ patience with the quintet’s meandering. The composition flows from randomness to a Brazilian sway. “Break” works a kind of Aaron Copland Americana into the sweep of the composition, flirting with the blues and streams of orchestrated energy. The two outliers here are the collective improvisation “Ramblin’ On” and Herbie Nichols’ cover “House Party Starting.” The former features Robertson reciting (poetry?) through a bullhorn over an oxymoronic dissonant harmony. The Nichols’ track is played practically straightforward, glowing in its plain-spoken beauty. Just another doll within a doll within a doll within a doll…

www.allaboutjazz.com/

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Citizen Jazz | Kaja Draksler’s Octet – Out for Stars

By Matthieu Jouan La pianiste slovène Kaja Draksler conduit cet ensemble étonnant depuis maintenant cinq ans. Un octet composé de musicien.ne.s amstellodamois.es qui combine, sous sa direction et avec ses compositions, une orchestration peu banale et une esthétique à la lisière entre écriture et improvisation, entre classique et jazz, entre profane et sacré. Ensemble à voix, on entend la pétillante lettone Laura Polence et l’aventureuse islandaise Björk Níelsdóttir former un couple de récitantes qui donnent un relief magistral aux mots de Robert Frost. Ici, la poésie de l’Américain est le fil conducteur du disque. Kaja Draksler, dans les notes de pochette, explique à quel point les mots choisis pour décrire l’environnement de la Nouvelle-Angleterre résonnent en elle et lui rappellent sa terre natale slovène. Et ce sont quelques poèmes qui décrivent les émotions, les fantasmes et les troubles de la..

By Matthieu Jouan

La pianiste slovène Kaja Draksler conduit cet ensemble étonnant depuis maintenant cinq ans. Un octet composé de musicien.ne.s amstellodamois.es qui combine, sous sa direction et avec ses compositions, une orchestration peu banale et une esthétique à la lisière entre écriture et improvisation, entre classique et jazz, entre profane et sacré.

Ensemble à voix, on entend la pétillante lettone Laura Polence et l’aventureuse islandaise Björk Níelsdóttir former un couple de récitantes qui donnent un relief magistral aux mots de Robert Frost. Ici, la poésie de l’Américain est le fil conducteur du disque.
Kaja Draksler, dans les notes de pochette, explique à quel point les mots choisis pour décrire l’environnement de la Nouvelle-Angleterre résonnent en elle et lui rappellent sa terre natale slovène. Et ce sont quelques poèmes qui décrivent les émotions, les fantasmes et les troubles de la condition humaine, qui sont mis en musique.
Il y a, dans ce disque, une musique universelle, tout à fait similaire aux oratorios baroques. L’élévation du verbe par la musique est un exercice de composition qui demande une grande maturité et beaucoup d’audace. Kaja Draksler, transportée par les deux, livre une œuvre d’une grande beauté. Carlo Gesualdo n’est jamais loin. On pense aux concerts sacrés de Duke Ellington, au The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady de Charles Mingus et dans une certaine mesure à Œdipus Rex de Stravinski.

Kaja Draksler présente une œuvre globale faite de sept titres qui s’enchaînent avec cohérence, comme une longue suite aux ambiances diverses mais pas si différentes. Si le grain est important, l’ordonnancement des sons est fait avec une conscience de l’espace qui semble s’étendre au fil du disque, produisant de nombreuses émotions, bien trop pour être absorbables en une journée seule. « The Silken Tent » et son acmé en fugue ou « Away ! » et sa pulsation gospel sont deux antiennes persistantes.

La couleur des formes est assurée par la saxophoniste ténor argentine Ada Rave, le saxophoniste/clarinettiste néerlandais Ab Baars et le violoniste/altiste roumain George Dumitriu tandis que le cadre est tracé par la rythmique du contrebassiste belge Lennart Heyndels, du batteur néerlandais Onno Govaert et, bien entendu, de la pianiste.
Cet ensemble « tour de Babel » répond avec une élégance balistique aux questionnements identitaires et autres tentations de repli sur soi.
Out For Stars est le second disque de l’octet, après Gledalec et il est plus abouti, centré sur les textes de Frost seul, avec une pâte musicale plus fluide et surtout une couleur identifiable. Chaque individualité musicale est mise en avant par la composition et l’orchestration et, comme dans les kaléidoscopes, à chaque rotation un instrument prend le dessus, sans écraser les autres, en modifiant la structure sonore, flottant ou tirant, au gré du mouvement, du vent.
« And only by one’s going slightly taut, in the capriciousness of summer air, is of the slightest bondage made aware. » Robert Frost.

www.citizenjazz.com/

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