Gianluigi Trovesi/Gianni Coscia

Frère Jacques: Round about Offenbach
ECM 2217

Writing about opera in 1856, composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) ascribed verve, imagination and gaiety to Italian composers and cleverness, good taste and wit to French ones. Who better than to provide a new take on the music of the father of the French operetta than two veteran Italian improvising musicians?

Accordionist Gianni Coscia and Gianluigi Trovesi on piccolo and alto clarinet create stripped-down reconfigurations of 12 of Offenbach’s familiar themes. They often meld those lines with their own droll commentaries producing tracks that are post-modern yet jaunty and swinging, with the gaiety implicit in the French composer’s best work. Trovesi especially, known for his membership in the Italian Instabile Orchestra, can interject blues tonality in such a way that his echoing glissandi reflect the 21st as well as the 19th centuries. Intensely pumping, Coscia’s squeeze box not only provides tremolo rhythms throughout, but adds dance-like slides and jerks which link Offenbach’s favored Belle Epoque can-can to the rustic Italian taraentella.

These affectionate homage-spoofs are frequently expressed in title juxtaposition as well. For instance Offenbach’s lilting merry-go-round styled Et moi is coupled with the duo’s No, tu, no, which includes flutter-tongued reed slithers; while their Sei italiano encompassing wide-bore reed cadenzas and comic bellows timing that plays up the thematic lyricism in Offenbach’s No! ... Je suis Brésilien. The piece also links his operettas to what will become musical theatre songs.

By including staccato tongues flutters and polyphonic glissandi in their renditions, Trovesi and Coscia confirm that their languid and lyrical extensions of Offenbach’s themes are treated as seriously as they would the work of any composer or improviser. This impression is fortified on the original, Galop … trottrellando when the clarinetist’s virtuosic trills only attain decisive bel canto expression alongside the squeeze box interpolating distinctive can-can rhythms.

--Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol. 17 #8

May 11, 2012

Italian Instabile Orchestra

Totally Gone
Rai Trade RTP J0021

Pierre Labbé +12

Tremblement de fer

Ambiance Magnétique AM 202 CD

Pierre Favre

Le Voyage

Intakt CD 186

Fred Ho and the Green Monster Big Band

Year of the Tiger

Innova 789

Something in the Air: Big Band Redux

By Ken Waxman

More than 60 years after the big band era, improvising musicians still organize large ensembles to take advantage of its wider scope and range of colors. Such is the versatility of the arrangements possible with large bands as these sessions demonstrate, that each sounds completely unique while maintaining the same excellence.

Over nearly 71 minutes on Totally Gone Rai Trade RTP J0021 the all-star aggregation of 17 of the country’s most accomplished players who make up the Italian Instabile Orchestra (IIO) demonstrate the combination of technical skills and rambunctious good spirits that has kept the band going since 1990. Unsurprisingly the climatic track, Ciao Baby, I’m Totally Gone/It Had to be You, is a case-in-point instance of the band’s expansive talents. Switching between timbral dissonance from squeaky spiccato strings and snoring brass slurs on one hand with sibilant, staccato section work that could have migrated from Fletcher Henderson’s band, the IIO’s texture is simultaneously mainstream and avant-garde. This is made clearest when a sequence of pure air forced from Sebi Tramontana’s trombone turns to plunger polyrhythm as he’s backed by harmonized reeds and strings, and ends with him vocalizing the second half of title backed by Fabrizio Puglisi’s key-clipping piano and Gianluigi Trovesi’s undulating clarinet obbligato. This sense of fun is also expressed on “No Visa”, a jazzy hoedown which leaves room for sul ponticello fiddling from violinist Emanuele Parrini, funky tenor saxophone vamping from Daniele Cavallanti, a brassy mid-range fanfare and the entire band vocally riffing in unison. This doesn’t mean that compositional seriousness isn’t displayed alongside the theatricism. The multi-tempo Gargantella, for instance is as much a nocturne as a capriccio. Here closely-voiced and massed horns and strings move adagio beneath strained brass notes and a snorting, altissimo showcase for baritone saxophonist Carlo Actis Dato until the tone poem is completed by polished, string movements given shape by the clattering cymbals and wood block pops of percussionists Vincenzo Mazzone and Tiziano Tononi.

With rock-influenced electric piano and guitar prominent, Pierre Labbé’s 12-piece big band takes a different approach on Tremblement de fer Ambiances Magnétiques AM 202 CD performing a seven-part suite the saxophonist composed for a Montreal festival. A POMO sound essay, the composition is animated by contrapuntal clashes between sections which include four bowed strings, two brass, two reeds, plus guitar, piano, bass and percussion. Although linked, each track can be appreciated on its own. Despite its Arabic title, Le 2e Souk is actually a showcase for Jean Derome’s improvisations on successively, alto saxophone, flute and bass clarinet. Throughout his staccato peeps, sibilant slurs and flutter tonguing are matched by tremolo slides, sawing and scratches from the violinists, violist and cellist. Lavra, on the other hand masses Balkan-sounding string discord with irregular pulses from guitarist Bernard Falaise and drummer Pierre Tanguay as soprano saxophonist André Leroux carries the melody. Resolution comes when trombonist Jean-Nicolas Trottier abandons plunger tones to slurp his way up the scale, accompanied by the strings and pianist Guillaume Dostaler’s steady comping. Tanguay, whose hand taps are suitably exotic when playing darbuka, contributes muscular ruffs throughout. His steadying backbeat is particularly necessary on the final La Fille et la grenouille. Sounding like what would happen if a street-corner Sally Ann band wandered into a country music session, the tune mixes up the bugling from the brass players, rooster crows and spits from the reeds, a bow-legged rhythm with cow-bell pings from Tanguay, and Falaise contrasting his best pseudo-steel-guitar C&W twangs with the somewhat schmaltzy tutti horn lines.

Taking a different tack is percussionist Pierre Favre’s Le Voyage Intakt CD 186 which mutates standard big-band harmonies with unique sound blocks in the drummer’s compositions. Utilizing a saxophone choir of soprano, alto, tenor and baritone to create concentrated organ-like chord pulsations, Favre’s intermezzos parcel the solos out among guitarist Phillipp Schaufelberger, trombonist Samuel Blaser and clarinetist Claudio Putin. With the rhythmic thrust doubled by string bass and bass guitar, the results evoke baroque ballads as certainly as big band swing. An example of the latter is “Wrong Name” where Putin’s florid twitters trill chromatically, while around him harmonized reeds throb in unison, prodded from adagio to andante tempo by cross-patterning cracks and pops from the drummer. “Les Vilains” on the other hand could be modernized Renaissance court music, with the reeds playing formalized close harmonies as if they were a string quartet, with cascading and irregular timbres doled out from Schaufelberger’s harsh, slurred fingering. Favre’s sound architecture is most obvious on “Akimbo” where reed shading becomes sonically three-dimensional as the drummer’s clips emphasize the symmetry between the guitarist’s string snaps plus Blaser’s plunger grace notes.

Practically standing the big band tradition and its head, American gigantism is emphasized on Fred Ho and the Green Monster Big Band’s Year of the Tiger

Innova 789 since the Chinese-American composer bursts with so many sociological and musical tropes that a 21 musicians are needed to express them. A Marxist populist Ho packs within 70 minutes, a five-part suite honoring African-American big bands; a trio of Michael Jackson songs; the Johnny Quest TV show theme song; a couple of Jimi Hendrix hits; plus excerpts from his chamber opera featuring the band plus an adult and a children’s choirs. These extracts are notable for how he blends formalist bel canto singing with instrumental looseness from an improvising ensemble, whereas Ho’s arrangement of the Hendrix melodies play up their jazz-rock linkage as tremolo trombone slurs and roistering sax vamps parallel the double-tracked vocals. More seriously, adding an anti-capitalist recitation from poet Magdalena Gomez to Jackson’s Bad and Thriller, already evocatively sung by Leena Conquest, defines the werewolf and zombie sound effects within the context of mindless consumerism, mocked by guffawing brass and a slurping tenor sax solo. The CD’s heart is contained in the six selections of Take the Zen Train, which manages to reference both Pete Seeger and Duke Ellington. Using instrumental pulsations and layering, with bellowing brass reverb and tension-and-release variants plus the vibrancy of frequent tempo changes, Ho composes tonal portraits for his soloists. Outstanding are cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum’s whispering and peeping ballad feature; the stop-time slurs and gutbucket expansions from bass trombonist David Harris; plus an interlude which matches alto saxophonist Jim Hobbs’ reed masticating alongside the composer’s snorting baritone sax runs. Seeger’s left-wing orientation is apparent in some of the tune titles including Quarantine for the Aggressor. Whether used for program music or for timbral amplification, big bands remain a preferred form of expression for players and composers.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 16 #9

June 5, 2011

ECM 40th Anniversary Catalogue

Edited by Kenny Inaoka
Tokyo Kirarasha

Tell No Lies Claim No Easy Victories

Edited by Phillipp Schmickl

Impro 2000

As globalization intensifies, American-birthed popular music forms – most especially Jazz and Improvised Music – have evolved far beyond their initial audiences, confirming one of the hoariest of clichés, that music is a universal language. Creative music of many stripes has for many years been often treated more seriously in Europe and Asia than in North America. Consequently to be truly informed about the breadth of musical sounds it helps to understand other languages besides English. That’s the challenge related to the valuable books here. Neither is published primarily in English, but both can serve as resources for followers of Jazz and Improvised Music, no matter their native tongues.

Tell No Lies Claim No Easy Victories is a celebration of the annual Konfrontationen festival which has taken place in Nickelsdorf, Austria near Vienna since 1979. Contributions to the volume in German, English and French are more a compendium of thoughts about improvisation and musical influences than a potted history of the festival. On the other hand, published in Japanese and English, the ECM 40th Anniversary Catalogue presents complete discographical information about every release put out by the influential German-based label from its first issue in 1969 to December 2009. Putting aside the language issue for the moment, each volume is profusely illustrated with beautifully realized black-and-white and color photographs.

As attractively presented as any catalogue can be, the ECM volume is published by a firm that has put out similar volumes on Blue Note records. Included is an entire section of six-to-the-page full-color photos of every ECM album cover. The remaining pages are devoted to detailed descriptions of every ECM and JAPO CD, LP and DVD then extant with cover pictures, personnel, recording dates and song titles included. Reviews of every disc by 11 commentators – in Japanese –are provided as well

While those who can’t read Japanese may miss out on the commentary, perusing the catalogue reveals many unexpected facets of Manfred Eicher’s label. His supervision and the engineering of Jan Erik Kongshaug may have created the sonically pristine, often imitated, though sometimes near-lifeless ECM sound; but ECM’s characteristic album cover art often masked unexpected efforts.

The catalogue does picture such ECM classics as Keith Jarrett’s Facing You (ECM 1017), The Sun Bear Concerts (ECM 1100) and Standards Vol. 1 (ECM 1255); Pat Metheny’s American Garage (ECM 1155), As Falls Wichita ... (ECM 1190), and Offramp (ECM 1216); plus Gary Burton & Chick Corea’s Crystal Silence (ECM 1024) and Jan Garbarek and The Hillard Ensemble’s Mmemosyne (ECM 1700/01 NS); but also noted are other efforts which many would think don’t fit the ECM mould.

Did you know, for instance that German saxophonist Alfred Harth was featured on the second ECM release, Just Music (ECM 1002) and saxophonist Evan Parker and guitarist Derek Bailey are on the fifth The Music Improvisation Company (ECM 1005)? While it may have seemed at times that the label was churning out endless series of guitar and/or piano dominated Chamber Jazz sessions, the ECM net has always stretched further. The label was recording a variant of World Music as early as guitarist Egberto Giasmonti Dança Das Cabeças (ECM 1089) in 1976; and first dabbled in so-called New music in 1978 with Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians (ECM 1129).

Furthermore ECM did more than provide a home for such accepted Jazz standard bearers as the Art Ensemble of Chicago, trumpeters Kenny Wheeler and Enrico Rava, saxophonists Charles Lloyd and John Surman, drummer Jack DeJohnette and pianist Paul Bley, to cite a few examples. Over the years it gave and continues to give exposure to quirkier, underappreciated or far-seeking avant-Jazz standard bearers from Europe or North America such as reedists Louis Sclavis, Gianluigi Trovesi, Hal Russell and Joe Maneri, trumpeter Tomas Stanko, pianist Marilyn Crispell, drummers Pierre Favre and Edward Versala, and Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble.

In contrast, Austria’s Nickelsdorf Konfrontationen has always been about presenting newer forms of Improvised Music. And the sometimes makeshift sonic conditions under which festival curator Hans Falb presents concerts may cause Eicher and Kongshaug a variant of apoplexy. Tell No Lies Claim No Easy Victories is a reflection of the festival itself. Collated like a scrap book, the text is broken up with posed, portrait and performance, contemporary and historical photographs of musicians who have appeared at Nickelsdorf over the years. Thus you can see what trombonist George Lewis looked like when he played the festival in 1985 or clarinetist John Carter’s jeans and white tie ensemble from 1983. At the same time there are portrait photos of saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell on the cover and bassist Joëlle Léandre inside.

This haphazard arrangement continues throughout the volume. Reminiscences of Nickelsdorf festivals past by the likes of electronics manipulator Christof Kurzmann, drummer Hamid Drake and Mitchell share space with such articles as an extensive discussion about improvisation with Léandre and Schmickl – printed in both French and German –and short biographical studies of brass man Clifford Thornton by his friend saxophonist Joe McPhee and DY Ngoy. Also published in both French and German is Alexandre Pierrepont’s extensive, if somewhat disjointed, musings on the history and influences of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (ACCM); while the verbatim dialogue between Falb and Evan Parker while unearthing some interesting gems about improvised music in Europe, reads more like the late-night ramblings of a couple of old friends than anything approaching rigorous scholarship.

Sometimes the choice of language puzzles as well. It’s understandable that the articles by drummer Paul Lovens and pianist Georg Graewe should be in German, their native tongue. But why is an article on the Romanian festival Jazz and More – strongly inspired by the Konfrontationen – in English, whereas the piece that precedes it, dealing with improvised music in Romania is only in German?

Despite these shortcomings, both of these volumes would make valuable if unusual additions to the book shelves of anyone interested in Improvised Music. And if a follower of this music can reads any one or more of the languages used in the books besides English, there are additional bonuses.

--Ken Waxman

March 14, 2011

Peitzer Grand

Mit Vieren
Jazzwerkstatt JW 077

David Murray

Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club

Jazzwerkstatt JW 073

Thirty-odd years make a big difference in the improvised music scene, both in Europe and North America. In fact, one wonders if any of the participants on these two fine live CDs – not to mention the associated audience members – could have imagined the altered musical and political landscape of the future.

In that timeframe, as is proven by many of the tracks on Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club, it was the so-called avant-gardists in New York who were celebrating jazz’s past while contemporary players stuck to Bop and Fusion sounds. Meanwhile, as Mit Vieren demonstrates, the gap between East and West Germany was still a formidable chasm. That era’s version of political correctness made it necessary for even advanced German jazz combos to include foreign musicians among the players to ensure no band consisted of only participants from both sides of the Wall.

Luckily the two foreigners participating in this session that took place in the small East German town of Peitz were anything but tokens. Italian multi-reedist Gianluigi Trovesi, future stalwart of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, had already immersed himself in many forms of music from Folkloric to Swing. American bassist Barre Phillips, beginning his long residence in Europe, had already played with Jimmy Giuffre and George Russell. As for the locals, trumpeter Manfred Schoof had been the leader on European Echoes, the first trans-Continental improv disc, more than a decade previously and would continue experimenting as part of the Globe Unity Orchestra. Also, despite his Dresden-base, drummer Günter “Baby” Sommer had already been associated with American trumpeter Leo Smith and Wuppertal bassist Peter Kowald.

This mixed Italian-American-East and West German quartet has been extant for two years at this point and its members comfort with one another is obvious during this 39-minute set. No matter how staccato or multiphonic the exposition gets, there is enough connectivity among the four to keep the narrative chugging along. As each man solos and then steps back into the ensemble it’s obvious that jazz’s traditional strictures are still being adhered to 1981.

Schoof, the most mainstream member of the combo, for example, more-often-than-not carries the melody. Throughout, however, he also introduces interludes of discursive flutter tonguing and spidery brass blats beside his open-horn lyricism. Frequently in contrapuntal sympathy with the trumpeter, usually played forte and presto, Trovesi uses each one of his horn s for different theme variation. On alto his slurps, bites and shrilling meet clattering rim shots and rolls from Sommer. With his bass clarinet, snorting chalumeau riffs, it contrasts with Schoof’s straight-ahead harmonies. Additionally, as his clarinet’s silvery trills alternate between quietude and screams, these sliding glissandi regularly meet Phillips’ scrubbing and stops.

Swaying and stroking his strings with sul ponticello friction, the bassist harmonizes his quivers to processional stretches in order to harmonize with the others. Although Sommer uses un-lathed cymbal rebounds as quirky interruption to the theme, he too honors the track’s creative shape and in the final stretch breaks the time down into smaller units as Trovesi – back on alto – stridently prods Schoof into double counterpoint from the highest reaches of both horns. Backed by timed plucks and thumps from Phillips and flams, drags and pops from Sommer, the conclusion involves swift vibrations from the saxophonist and super fast tremolos from Schoof.

Fewer extended techniques were in use at the 1977’s loft session in Manhattan. Recorded four years earlier than Mit Vieren, Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club also features new compositions, four of which were written by Murray; the other two by his California cohort Butch Morris. Although Murray was also the most recent New Yorker at the time, none of the band members were locals. A once and future member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, trumpeter Lester Bowie had previously lived in St. Louis and Chicago. Chicagoans, bassist Fred Hopkins had been part of the co-operative band Air, and drummer Phillip Wilson had played with everyone from Anthony Braxton to the Butterfield Blues Band.

Probably the most characteristic track is the saxophonist’s composition “Bechet’s Bounce”. The performance could fool any Dixielander into thinking it was the product of Classic Jazz. It also confirms that long before the Marsalis’ neo-cons appropriated Jazz history for themselves, so-called avant-garde players were preserving the tradition. Here Hopkins slaps his bass à la Pops Foster, Wilson’s snapping backbeat channel’s Zutty Singleton and Bowie’s open-horned lead is as rough and jungle-like as anything recorded by Rex Stewart or Cootie Williams. All around Bowie’s exciting double-and-triple tonguing, tremolo flourishes and whinnying, Murray weaves high-pitched soprano saxophone vibrations. Performed in broken octaves, the theme is recapped before the turnaround, while the finale involves an old-time rim shot from the drummer.

Also notable is the Morris-composed ode to Walter Norris, the pianist who first recorded with Ornette Coleman, and another musician missing from the official jazz canon. Related to “Lonely Woman”, “For Walter Norris” evolves in double counterpoint as the closely pitched horns modulate atop Hopkins’ adagio bowed bass line. Bowie’s hand-muted solo at mid-point drips with tenderness, until the mood is breached by Murray’s rough-hewn split tones. This jagged-smooth dichotomy is maintained throughout with even Bowie’s smears and growls staying moderato and connective without too much effort. Murray’s agitato and altissimo squeals may be discursive, but they’re usually seconded by Hopkins’ strums and Wilson’s drags and ruffs.

Throughout the CD – initially released as an LP on the India Navigation label – each player bends, extends and distends notes, note clusters and measures. The end result is simultaneously modern and traditional; hard-core jazz and first-class improvised music. Benefiting from more distance and an additional four years of experimentation, the European quartet does the same on its CD.

Both are worth investigating.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Live: 1. Nevada’s Theme 2. Bechet’s Bounce 3. Obe 4. Let The Music Take You 5. For Walter Norris 6. Santa Barbara & Crenshaw Follies

Personnel: Live: Lester Bowie (trumpet); David Murray (soprano and tenor saxophones); Fred Hopkins (bass) and Phillip Wilson (drums)

Track Listing: Mit: 1. Ein Set

Personnel: Mit: Manfred Schoof (trumpet); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet); Barre Phillips (bass) and Günter “Baby” Sommer (drums)

February 11, 2010

David Murray

Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club
Jazzwerkstatt JW 073

Peitzer Grand

Mit Vieren

Jazzwerkstatt JW 077

Thirty-odd years make a big difference in the improvised music scene, both in Europe and North America. In fact, one wonders if any of the participants on these two fine live CDs – not to mention the associated audience members – could have imagined the altered musical and political landscape of the future.

In that timeframe, as is proven by many of the tracks on Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club, it was the so-called avant-gardists in New York who were celebrating jazz’s past while contemporary players stuck to Bop and Fusion sounds. Meanwhile, as Mit Vieren demonstrates, the gap between East and West Germany was still a formidable chasm. That era’s version of political correctness made it necessary for even advanced German jazz combos to include foreign musicians among the players to ensure no band consisted of only participants from both sides of the Wall.

Luckily the two foreigners participating in this session that took place in the small East German town of Peitz were anything but tokens. Italian multi-reedist Gianluigi Trovesi, future stalwart of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, had already immersed himself in many forms of music from Folkloric to Swing. American bassist Barre Phillips, beginning his long residence in Europe, had already played with Jimmy Giuffre and George Russell. As for the locals, trumpeter Manfred Schoof had been the leader on European Echoes, the first trans-Continental improv disc, more than a decade previously and would continue experimenting as part of the Globe Unity Orchestra. Also, despite his Dresden-base, drummer Günter “Baby” Sommer had already been associated with American trumpeter Leo Smith and Wuppertal bassist Peter Kowald.

This mixed Italian-American-East and West German quartet has been extant for two years at this point and its members comfort with one another is obvious during this 39-minute set. No matter how staccato or multiphonic the exposition gets, there is enough connectivity among the four to keep the narrative chugging along. As each man solos and then steps back into the ensemble it’s obvious that jazz’s traditional strictures are still being adhered to 1981.

Schoof, the most mainstream member of the combo, for example, more-often-than-not carries the melody. Throughout, however, he also introduces interludes of discursive flutter tonguing and spidery brass blats beside his open-horn lyricism. Frequently in contrapuntal sympathy with the trumpeter, usually played forte and presto, Trovesi uses each one of his horn s for different theme variation. On alto his slurps, bites and shrilling meet clattering rim shots and rolls from Sommer. With his bass clarinet, snorting chalumeau riffs, it contrasts with Schoof’s straight-ahead harmonies. Additionally, as his clarinet’s silvery trills alternate between quietude and screams, these sliding glissandi regularly meet Phillips’ scrubbing and stops.

Swaying and stroking his strings with sul ponticello friction, the bassist harmonizes his quivers to processional stretches in order to harmonize with the others. Although Sommer uses un-lathed cymbal rebounds as quirky interruption to the theme, he too honors the track’s creative shape and in the final stretch breaks the time down into smaller units as Trovesi – back on alto – stridently prods Schoof into double counterpoint from the highest reaches of both horns. Backed by timed plucks and thumps from Phillips and flams, drags and pops from Sommer, the conclusion involves swift vibrations from the saxophonist and super fast tremolos from Schoof.

Fewer extended techniques were in use at the 1977’s loft session in Manhattan. Recorded four years earlier than Mit Vieren, Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club also features new compositions, four of which were written by Murray; the other two by his California cohort Butch Morris. Although Murray was also the most recent New Yorker at the time, none of the band members were locals. A once and future member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, trumpeter Lester Bowie had previously lived in St. Louis and Chicago. Chicagoans, bassist Fred Hopkins had been part of the co-operative band Air, and drummer Phillip Wilson had played with everyone from Anthony Braxton to the Butterfield Blues Band.

Probably the most characteristic track is the saxophonist’s composition “Bechet’s Bounce”. The performance could fool any Dixielander into thinking it was the product of Classic Jazz. It also confirms that long before the Marsalis’ neo-cons appropriated Jazz history for themselves, so-called avant-garde players were preserving the tradition. Here Hopkins slaps his bass à la Pops Foster, Wilson’s snapping backbeat channel’s Zutty Singleton and Bowie’s open-horned lead is as rough and jungle-like as anything recorded by Rex Stewart or Cootie Williams. All around Bowie’s exciting double-and-triple tonguing, tremolo flourishes and whinnying, Murray weaves high-pitched soprano saxophone vibrations. Performed in broken octaves, the theme is recapped before the turnaround, while the finale involves an old-time rim shot from the drummer.

Also notable is the Morris-composed ode to Walter Norris, the pianist who first recorded with Ornette Coleman, and another musician missing from the official jazz canon. Related to “Lonely Woman”, “For Walter Norris” evolves in double counterpoint as the closely pitched horns modulate atop Hopkins’ adagio bowed bass line. Bowie’s hand-muted solo at mid-point drips with tenderness, until the mood is breached by Murray’s rough-hewn split tones. This jagged-smooth dichotomy is maintained throughout with even Bowie’s smears and growls staying moderato and connective without too much effort. Murray’s agitato and altissimo squeals may be discursive, but they’re usually seconded by Hopkins’ strums and Wilson’s drags and ruffs.

Throughout the CD – initially released as an LP on the India Navigation label – each player bends, extends and distends notes, note clusters and measures. The end result is simultaneously modern and traditional; hard-core jazz and first-class improvised music. Benefiting from more distance and an additional four years of experimentation, the European quartet does the same on its CD.

Both are worth investigating.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Live: 1. Nevada’s Theme 2. Bechet’s Bounce 3. Obe 4. Let The Music Take You 5. For Walter Norris 6. Santa Barbara & Crenshaw Follies

Personnel: Live: Lester Bowie (trumpet); David Murray (soprano and tenor saxophones); Fred Hopkins (bass) and Phillip Wilson (drums)

Track Listing: Mit: 1. Ein Set

Personnel: Mit: Manfred Schoof (trumpet); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet); Barre Phillips (bass) and Günter “Baby” Sommer (drums)

February 11, 2010

Anthony Braxton + Italian Instabile Orchestra

Creative Orchestra (Bolzano) 2007
RAI Trade RTP J0013

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra

GIOPoetics

Creative Sources CS 114 CD

Creating large form improvisations involving groups of musicians in polyphonic agreement without losing the spontaneity implicit in smaller groups has long been a challenge for composers. Many methods have been tried in order to introduce and maintain sonic freedom when the ensemble is larger than the standard 16-piece Jazz band. These mostly European sessions outline two successful ways of doing so.

Consisting of many of that country’s most advanced players, the 17-piece Italian Instabile Orchestra (IIO) has been coping with this conundrum during its existence, playing compositions germinated by band members as well as creations for guest soloists such as pianist Cecil Taylor. For his part, American reedist/composer Anthony Braxton has also been dealing with the large-group challenge at least since the late 1970s. Creative Orchestra (Bolzano) shows how members of the IIO express themselves individually through the medium of four Braxton compositions – with the composer’s participation.

Much younger in conception, the 20-piece Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO), which successfully utilized a variant of the IIO-Braxton partnership when bassist Barry Guy worked with the band in 2005, resolves the large ensemble challenge in a different fashion. Rather than numbered compositions, here the GIO plays three short improvisations plus a so-called discretely structured piece by saxophonist and GIO member Raymond MacDonald

Each approach is equally valid as is the music on both CDs.

Although Braxton’s distance from Jazz – whatever the term means – is well known, his composing and playing is informed by Jazz> Considering that the IIO is made up of some of the peninsula’s most accomplished Jazz players, Bolzano may be the American’s most overtly Jazzy date in years. Unfortunately no soloists are identified. Although it’s pretty obvious that the distinctively rough and funky tenor saxophone of Daniele Cavallanti and jocular and pumping baritone saxophone of Carlo Actis Dato are featured, along with the sharp and serrated spiccato of Emanuele Parrini’s violin.

Layered and polyphonic, the Braxton scores list either towards notated formalism or looser Jazz-styled rhythms. It’s a credit to Braxton and the IIO that neither sonic strand is supreme – nor does either submerge solo or group free-form improvisation. More praxis than pastiche, the initial composition is hung on a series of stretched and swelling sound blocks, often with rococo-like clarinet warbling and string-section pulses sustaining the lyricism. The piece eventually opens up to reveal and then swiftly swallow distinctive solos. These include sharp, stop-and-start cello arpeggios; tenor saxophone tongue slaps and snorts; wood block thwacks and snare ruffs from the percussionists; plunger trombone and trumpet interpolation; Parrini’s overriding fiddle line; and expanded warbling grace notes from an alto saxophonist who may be Braxton, Eugenio Colombo or Gianluigi Trovesi.

Easing into “Composition No. 92 Part 1”, the beat is strong enough to suggest the Peter Gun theme. Horn glissandi and muscular rhythm section comping move the piece chromatically forward, as Giovanni Maier’s bass walks and Vincenzo Mazzone’s and Tiziano Tononi’s dual kits rumble, clatter and smack. Meanwhile one of the trombonists – perhaps Giancarlo Schiaffini – smears and brays raucously to match the triple-tonguing and vamping from Cavallanti. Eventually percussive rim shots and slaps plus metal-resonating reed bites from the tenor man lead to the becalmed patterning of “Composition No. 164 Part 1”.

Don’t imagine that the orchestral shifts are so obvious that the band dons alternate Count Basie-like or Arturo Toscanini-like coloration. But the textured mixtures are maintained throughout the performance as staccato and alternately smooth, thick and thin, as tough and tender passages complement and mirror one another. Feathery light trumpet spits meet thick reed vibratos; tick-tock, high frequency piano chords mix it up with lightly paced contralto clarinet and airy flute runs; and rattling percussion extensions face subterranean baritone saxophone and tuba growls. Often forte, mercurial string stops find their variations intercut with hocketing blasts and puffs from the horns.

If the IIO and Braxton deal with large-scale improv by alternately legato and staccato measures, plus solo and group passages, then the GIO – recorded less than two weeks earlier –follows a different game plan. Essentially the poetics here are group poetics, with no differentiation between soloist and accompanist. Simultaneously independent and interrelated, every sound appears at the same time. What that means is that ragged, jagged and abrasive cross currents mix sul ponticello below-the-bridge scrapes from the strings, split-tone chirps and ratchets from the reeds and bell-muted brass grace notes.

Solid, yet minimalist, the narrative is advanced in broken octaves with distant choked voicing, shuffle bowing and understated valve squeezes from the brass. Most characteristic is “I’m Sorry But I’ve Fallen.” As a legato, sequenced flourish is introduced by trumpeter Matthew Cairns, the six strings scrub and rub bow patterns while the two drummers slap, stroke and drag pulses from their kits. Diminutive interludes encompassing George Burt’s acoustic guitar strums and MacDonald’s crying alto saxophone vibrations easily fade back into the sonic miasma of wood-splitting strokes from the bassists, discordant electric guitar lines and high-pitched flute peeps. No summation, the tune reflects the preceding piece and adumbrates the dissonant and dense movement that follows it.

Formally tracking the linear progress of large group improvisation is probably as fruitless as trying to construct a historical time lines for any music. However listening to either or both of these notable sessions will show how performances by these particular formations are evolving on their own.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Bolzano: 1. Composition No.. 63 2. Composition No. 92 Part 1 3. Composition No. 164 Part 1 4. Composition No. 92 Part 2 5. Composition No. 164 Part 2 6. Composition No. 59

Personnel: Bolzano: Pino Minafra, Alberto Mandarini, Guido Mazzon (trumpets); Lauro Rossi, Sebi Tramontana and Gincarlo Schiaffini (trombones); Martin Mayes (French horn); Anthony Braxton (sopranino and alto saxophones); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone and Eb clarinet); Eugenio Colombo (alto saxophone, flute and bass flute); Daniele Cavallanti (tenor saxophone); Carlo Actis Dato (baritone saxophone); Emanuele Parrini (violin); Paolo Damiani (cello); Umberto Petrin (piano); Giovanni Maier (bass)and Vincenzo and Tiziano Tononi (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Poetics: 1. Apricot Path 2. Dog’s Got My Money 3. I’m Sorry But I’ve Fallen 4. Distributed Talk

Personnel: Poetics: Matthew Cairns (trumpet); George Murray (trombone); Raymond MacDonald (soprano and alto saxophones); Graeme Wilson (tenor and baritone saxophones); John Burgess (bass clarinet); Matthew Studdert-Kennedy (flute); Emma Roche (flute and baroque flute); Nick Fells (shakuhachi); George Burt (acoustic guitar); Neil Davidson (electric guitar); Krzysztof Hladowski (bouzouki); Ernesto Rodrigues (viola); Guilherme Rodrigues, Jessica Sullivan and Peter Nicholson (cello); George Lyle and Armin Sturm (bass); Richard Bamford and Stuart Brown (drums and percussion) and Aileen Campbell (voice)

January 6, 2010

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra

Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra GIOPoetics
Creative Sources CS 114 CD

Anthony Braxton + Italian Instabile Orchestra

Creative Orchestra (Bolzano) 2007

RAI Trade RTP J0013

Creating large form improvisations involving groups of musicians in polyphonic agreement without losing the spontaneity implicit in smaller groups has long been a challenge for composers. Many methods have been tried in order to introduce and maintain sonic freedom when the ensemble is larger than the standard 16-piece Jazz band. These mostly European sessions outline two successful ways of doing so.

Consisting of many of that country’s most advanced players, the 17-piece Italian Instabile Orchestra (IIO) has been coping with this conundrum during its existence, playing compositions germinated by band members as well as creations for guest soloists such as pianist Cecil Taylor. For his part, American reedist/composer Anthony Braxton has also been dealing with the large-group challenge at least since the late 1970s. Creative Orchestra (Bolzano) shows how members of the IIO express themselves individually through the medium of four Braxton compositions – with the composer’s participation.

Much younger in conception, the 20-piece Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO), which successfully utilized a variant of the IIO-Braxton partnership when bassist Barry Guy worked with the band in 2005, resolves the large ensemble challenge in a different fashion. Rather than numbered compositions, here the GIO plays three short improvisations plus a so-called discretely structured piece by saxophonist and GIO member Raymond MacDonald

Each approach is equally valid as is the music on both CDs.

Although Braxton’s distance from Jazz – whatever the term means – is well known, his composing and playing is informed by Jazz> Considering that the IIO is made up of some of the peninsula’s most accomplished Jazz players, Bolzano may be the American’s most overtly Jazzy date in years. Unfortunately no soloists are identified. Although it’s pretty obvious that the distinctively rough and funky tenor saxophone of Daniele Cavallanti and jocular and pumping baritone saxophone of Carlo Actis Dato are featured, along with the sharp and serrated spiccato of Emanuele Parrini’s violin.

Layered and polyphonic, the Braxton scores list either towards notated formalism or looser Jazz-styled rhythms. It’s a credit to Braxton and the IIO that neither sonic strand is supreme – nor does either submerge solo or group free-form improvisation. More praxis than pastiche, the initial composition is hung on a series of stretched and swelling sound blocks, often with rococo-like clarinet warbling and string-section pulses sustaining the lyricism. The piece eventually opens up to reveal and then swiftly swallow distinctive solos. These include sharp, stop-and-start cello arpeggios; tenor saxophone tongue slaps and snorts; wood block thwacks and snare ruffs from the percussionists; plunger trombone and trumpet interpolation; Parrini’s overriding fiddle line; and expanded warbling grace notes from an alto saxophonist who may be Braxton, Eugenio Colombo or Gianluigi Trovesi.

Easing into “Composition No. 92 Part 1”, the beat is strong enough to suggest the Peter Gun theme. Horn glissandi and muscular rhythm section comping move the piece chromatically forward, as Giovanni Maier’s bass walks and Vincenzo Mazzone’s and Tiziano Tononi’s dual kits rumble, clatter and smack. Meanwhile one of the trombonists – perhaps Giancarlo Schiaffini – smears and brays raucously to match the triple-tonguing and vamping from Cavallanti. Eventually percussive rim shots and slaps plus metal-resonating reed bites from the tenor man lead to the becalmed patterning of “Composition No. 164 Part 1”.

Don’t imagine that the orchestral shifts are so obvious that the band dons alternate Count Basie-like or Arturo Toscanini-like coloration. But the textured mixtures are maintained throughout the performance as staccato and alternately smooth, thick and thin, as tough and tender passages complement and mirror one another. Feathery light trumpet spits meet thick reed vibratos; tick-tock, high frequency piano chords mix it up with lightly paced contralto clarinet and airy flute runs; and rattling percussion extensions face subterranean baritone saxophone and tuba growls. Often forte, mercurial string stops find their variations intercut with hocketing blasts and puffs from the horns.

If the IIO and Braxton deal with large-scale improv by alternately legato and staccato measures, plus solo and group passages, then the GIO – recorded less than two weeks earlier –follows a different game plan. Essentially the poetics here are group poetics, with no differentiation between soloist and accompanist. Simultaneously independent and interrelated, every sound appears at the same time. What that means is that ragged, jagged and abrasive cross currents mix sul ponticello below-the-bridge scrapes from the strings, split-tone chirps and ratchets from the reeds and bell-muted brass grace notes.

Solid, yet minimalist, the narrative is advanced in broken octaves with distant choked voicing, shuffle bowing and understated valve squeezes from the brass. Most characteristic is “I’m Sorry But I’ve Fallen.” As a legato, sequenced flourish is introduced by trumpeter Matthew Cairns, the six strings scrub and rub bow patterns while the two drummers slap, stroke and drag pulses from their kits. Diminutive interludes encompassing George Burt’s acoustic guitar strums and MacDonald’s crying alto saxophone vibrations easily fade back into the sonic miasma of wood-splitting strokes from the bassists, discordant electric guitar lines and high-pitched flute peeps. No summation, the tune reflects the preceding piece and adumbrates the dissonant and dense movement that follows it.

Formally tracking the linear progress of large group improvisation is probably as fruitless as trying to construct a historical time lines for any music. However listening to either or both of these notable sessions will show how performances by these particular formations are evolving on their own.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Bolzano: 1. Composition No.. 63 2. Composition No. 92 Part 1 3. Composition No. 164 Part 1 4. Composition No. 92 Part 2 5. Composition No. 164 Part 2 6. Composition No. 59

Personnel: Bolzano: Pino Minafra, Alberto Mandarini, Guido Mazzon (trumpets); Lauro Rossi, Sebi Tramontana and Gincarlo Schiaffini (trombones); Martin Mayes (French horn); Anthony Braxton (sopranino and alto saxophones); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone and Eb clarinet); Eugenio Colombo (alto saxophone, flute and bass flute); Daniele Cavallanti (tenor saxophone); Carlo Actis Dato (baritone saxophone); Emanuele Parrini (violin); Paolo Damiani (cello); Umberto Petrin (piano); Giovanni Maier (bass)and Vincenzo and Tiziano Tononi (drums and percussion)

Track Listing: Poetics: 1. Apricot Path 2. Dog’s Got My Money 3. I’m Sorry But I’ve Fallen 4. Distributed Talk

Personnel: Poetics: Matthew Cairns (trumpet); George Murray (trombone); Raymond MacDonald (soprano and alto saxophones); Graeme Wilson (tenor and baritone saxophones); John Burgess (bass clarinet); Matthew Studdert-Kennedy (flute); Emma Roche (flute and baroque flute); Nick Fells (shakuhachi); George Burt (acoustic guitar); Neil Davidson (electric guitar); Krzysztof Hladowski (bouzouki); Ernesto Rodrigues (viola); Guilherme Rodrigues, Jessica Sullivan and Peter Nicholson (cello); George Lyle and Armin Sturm (bass); Richard Bamford and Stuart Brown (drums and percussion) and Aileen Campbell (voice)

January 6, 2010

Gianluigi Trovesi

All'opera Profumo di Violetta
ECM 2068

Emphasizing the streak of romanticism which characterizes nearly every Italian instrumentalist – no matter how avant-garde – multi-woodwind player Gianluigi Trovesi interprets a series of familiar operatic airs. Backed by the wind and percussion Filarmonica Mousiké, the veteran improviser fashions an original take on 17th, 18th and 19th Century themes by Monteverdi Cazzati, Pergolesi, Verdi, Puccini, Rossini and Mascagni without jazzing up or burlesquing them.

Making full use of the luscious crescendos and cushioning timbres available from the 54-piece orchestra, the only additions are cellist Marco Remondini and percussionist Stefano Bertoli to enhance the rhythmic impetus. Taking the role of operatic vocalist, Trovesi produces a fantastic series of glissandi, portamento runs and just plain beautiful playing, using at different junctures all his horns – piccolo and alto clarinets plus alto saxophone. Nearly always playing legato, he emphasizes the emotional and melodic undercurrents of these pieces without ignoring their poignant roots.

Mixing world famous and obscure parts of the opera repertoire, these arrangements interweave the popular airs – which the clarinetist has loved since his childhood near Bergamo – with improvisational freedom. Listeners familiar with standards such as Verdi’s “E Piquillo un bel gaglardo” and Rossini’s “Largo al factotum” will marvel at how Trovesi’s re-interpretations refresh them. More remarkable is how well Trovesi’s own compositions – such as “Salterello amoroso” with him spluttering smooth Johnny Hodges-like timbres atop contrapuntal orchestra lines, or “Vesponse”, a big-band swing piece enlivened with reed split tones and shrills – fit among these traditional tunes without disruption.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For Whole Note Vol.14 #7

April 2, 2009

TIZIANA GHIGIONI/EMANUELE PARRINI

Rotella Variations
Splasc (h) WS CDH 2504.2

Directly related to that mixture of seriousness and playfulness that characterizes such art movements as Pop and Happenings, this singular CD is an almost wholly-successful attempt to recreate in improvised music the visual art of Mimmo Rotella, born in Catanzaro, Italy in 1918, and based in Rome since the mid-1950s.

Like such jazz musicians as Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman, Rotella developed his unique “torn poster” decollages, rubbed frottages, ravished effaçages and phonetic poems without knowledge of or reference to similar abstract expressionism or color harmony experiments taking place elsewhere. Now accepted as a major Nouveaux Réalistes painter, he’s still interested enough in experimentation to participate vocally with some of the country’s major improvisers in using his Dadesque sound poems and collage style to create the 19 tracks on this disc.

Chief movers and shakers here -- and responsible for most of the music -- are Italy’s preeminent jazz vocalist Tiziana Ghiglioni and violinist Emanuele Parrini. Pisa-born Parrini, who has been part of the singer’s Meta-Music Band has also been in Bruno Tommaso’s Jazz Chamber Organic and played with visiting musicians such as soprano saxist Steve Lacy.

Savona-born, Milan-based Ghiglioni has recorded standards and Duke Ellington material, put words to the music of pianist Giorgio Gaslini, an early mentor, and recorded with Lacy. That’s not to mention her other playing partners like locals trumpeter Enrico Rava, woodwind player Gianluigi Trovesi and brassman Giancarlo Schiaffini, all of whom make appearances on this CD.

Rotella’s collage technique is put to its most distinctive use on “Marilyn (The Song Is You)”, the longest track, which mixes Hammerstein and Kern’s familiar lyrics with music from Ghiglioni and Parrini. Beginning at a slow and stately pace, advanced by Rava’s chromatic trumpet lines and Trovesi’s chalumeau clarinet, Ghiglioni starts enunciating the words as Parrini appears to be playing unrelated society dance music and guitarist Jacopo Martini distorted finger picking accompaniment at a speedier tempo than the rest of the song. As pre-recorded examples of a big band cuts through the other sounds, the vocalist continues with her dramatic saloon singer recitation, with guitar accompaniment. That is until her voice is submerged underneath rock guitar chording and discordant asides from bassist Franco Nesti and drummer Tizano Tononi. Soon it’s the clarinetist who is playing at an even more leisurely pace, joined for a time by the guitarist and drummer until spiky rock guitar lines, tangential cymbal snaps and the big band record blare, until the song fades away.

Elsewhere Tononi, who has organized projects honoring Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Albert Ayler, showcases his emulation of an Afro-Cuban hand drumming to accompany Rotella’s half-English, half-nonsense syllable recitation on “Per Shango” and approximates a tabla player on “Omgaggio a Ravi Shankar”. On the later, however, Rotella’s “digga digga do” sound as if they’re reflecting jivey scat rather than a sitar sound.

Both versions of “Cosa Nostra” find the composer (poet? artist?) deconstructing sentences into irregular nonsense syllables, words and onomatopoeia, as Ghiglioni alternately scats and sings and the band creations some traditional banda music.

Other onomatopoeic exercises find Rotella going Dada founder Kurt Schwitters one better by spending entire tracks taking apart phrases like “D’accord” and “Son of a Bitch” with Trovesi’s shaking clarinet tone in one spot and a face off between the poet and Parrini supply the context for the other. Then there’s “Hallò” which weaves Rottela’s vocalized recreation of the sounds one hears in a telephone conversation in France abetted by emphasized bent note trumpeting, violin glisses, guitar flat picking and drum flams.

On her own, Ghiglioni goes from places where her voice is processed electronically to those where her basso tones sound like they’re emanating from the Wicked Witch of the West and her soprano range from Tweety Bird. She dramatically recites Rotella’s “Notepamosi” in turn girlishly and womanly sultry, backed only by the steady rhythm of Tononi’s miniature cymbals and snare drum pulse plus dedicated guitar chords -- but the meaning is lost on non-Italian speakers.

Meanwhile songs like “Theme for Jessica Tatum”, with music written by Rava, demonstrate why she’s so respected as a traditional jazz singer. As exalted chromatic runs from the trumpeter caress the melody, Parrini and Martini provide accompaniment as conventional as you would expect from Stéphan Grappelli and Charlie Byrd. Yet Ghiglioni not only produces a gentle bossa nova-like lilt, but also scats in unison with the trumpet and creates obbligatos to other instrumental work.

Just as a close examination of Rotella’s visual work will yield more richness in the composition, so more surprises can be gleaned from listening to this example of music based on his vocal work. Seek it out in a CD store or art gallery near you.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. A. Asya Agnese#+%$^ 2.Antrroiama#+^~=@ 3. Son of a Bitch+@ 4. Theme for Jessica Tatum*^~= 5. D’Accoro*^~=@ 6. Cosa Nostra No 1 #+$^~=@ 7. Tizicano Picanò*%^~= 8. Cosa Nostra No 2#+^=@ 9. Isdudu%^~= 10. Ornette*$= 11. Per Shango=@ 12. Suddenly Last Summer 1960 $=@ 13. Duel $= 14. Marilyn (The Song Is You)*+^~= 15. Omgaggio a Ravi Shankar%=@ 16. Notepamosi^~= 17. Strappi 18. Hallò*^~=@ 19. Thank You^~=@

Personnel: Tiziana Ghiglioni (vocals [except tracks 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 18], piano [track 17]); Enrico Rava (trumpet)*; Giancarlo Schiaffini (baritone horn)#; Gianluigi Trovesi (clarinet)+; Claudio Fasoli (soprano saxophone)%; Dimitri Grechi Espinoza (alto saxophone)$; Emanuele Parrini (violin [all tracks but 11, 12, 13, 16]; Jacopo Martini (guitar)^; Franco Nesti (bass)~; Tizano Tononi (drums, percussion)=; Mimmo Rotella (voice)@

January 5, 2004

GIANLUIGI TROVESI OTTETTO

Fugace
ECM 1827

GLOBE UNITY ORCHESTRA
Globe Unity 2002
Intakt CD 086

One potential horror comedians are always joking about is a world where the transportation schedules would be set by the Italians and the restaurants run by the British and Germans.

As humorous as this may sound as a situation, these CDs by mid-sized (eight- and nine-piece) bands shows that remarkable sounds can still result if countrymen act antithetically to their clichéd national characteristics.

FUGACE finds eight legendarily anarchistic Italians settling down for 16 short, arranged improvisations that touch on a variety of genres. Conversely, GLOBE UNITY 2002 features nine supposedly restrained Britons and Germans creating almost 74 minutes of some of the most cacophonous hullabaloo since John Coltrane and 10 other improvisers recorded ASCENSION in 1965.

As a matter of fact, Globe Unity, (the band) has always been in the tradition of all-out passionate expression that characterized 1960s aggregations like the Jazz Composers Orchestra, with the added fillip of being international. Over the years since the band’s first LP in 1966, membership has swollen to a high of 19, with American, Italian, Dutch and Polish musicians included, until it officially disbanded in 1986.

This one-time, live concert reunion 15 years later finds most of the longtime Globers on hand and confirms that the spirit and excitement the band engendered in its lifetime still exists. As well, 30 years on, a serene quantity has crept into some of the playing.

Leader Alexander von Schlippenbach, for instance, may begin the proceedings with intense, emotional, Romantic arpeggios, but during the course of the one long piece here he’ll relax into almost conventional jazz club comping and fills. Then when it comes time for his extended solo, his playing seems more bop-like and connected than the style of his first influence, Thelonious Monk. He uses careful voicing and portamento to glide across the keyboard. Building up tension in the Free Jazz sense with serpentine chords and echoing vibrations, his swiftness can resemble that of a player piano. Yet his unaccompanied coda is near pastoral, well modulated and definitely two-handed.

Trumpeter and, flugelhornist Manfred Schoof, who started off as a German version of a so-called Progressive jazzman, reverts to form in his solo spots. At one point he reveals long-lined patterned and focused grace notes that evolve to note-perfect brassy triplets, at another builds up mellow flugelhorn filigree, which when combined with the backing orchestral figures recall MILES AHEAD.

Others have intensified the way they first played 30 years ago. Evan Parker offers a five-minute plus exhibition of louder and softer circular breathing from his soprano sax, that appears to have an unmistakable bagpipe echo. Meantime fellow Briton, trombonist Paul Rutherford, growls and mumbles and rants within his trombone bell, with his snorts and Bronx cheers finally calling forth dampening metallic rim shot action and cymbal crashes from the dual percussionists. His direct musical descendent, German trombonist Johannes Bauer, also exhibits some double-tongued slurs backed with only piano accompaniment.

Dissonance, in all its ear-wrenching glory still inhabits the playing of the two remaining horn men though: Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky on alto saxophone, clarinet and flute and Peter Brötzmann on tenor saxophone, tarogato and clarinet. One reedist -- though likely not Parker -- ejaculates some split-tone altissimo squeaks near the beginning of the extended piece, the likes of which haven’t been heard since the heyday of Giuseppi Logan. Much later, peeping tarogato timbres meet up with woody bass clarinet tones, arching from dog-whistle to bird trilling territory.

Then there’s a point just past midway where the “Ascension”-style total band hubbub slackens to expose a protracted series of screeches and multiphonic blasts from the tenormen. The yells and applause from the audience makes it appear that for it, this was the highpoint equivalent of Paul Gonsalves’ protracted solo on Duke Ellington’s “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blues” at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival.

As all this is going on, the proper tempo for clangorous explosions and feather light interludes is provided by the Pauline duo on percussion -- England’s Paul Lytton and Germany’s Paul Lovens.

Trovesi’s Ottetto features two drummers as well, but that’s about the only symmetry between the two sessions. Old enough -- he was born in 1944 near Bergamo -- to be part of the Globe Unity generation, multi-reedist Trovesi mixed his jazz with studio work earlier in his career. Part of the first generation of Southern European musicians to assert themselves internationally, Trovesi is known for his folklore-tinged work with trumpeter Pino Minafra, and membership in the all-star Italian Instabile Orchestra, which also includes ex-Globe Unity trumpeter Enrico Rava.

Like his other octet sessions though, FUGACE resides in a space of its own, where traditional Italian operatic drama coexists with improvisation, and where the references include veteran local comic Totò as well as Louis Armstrong. Thus on the three-part “Totò nei Caraibi”, as the pizzicato plucking of the three string players suggests a cartoon cat sneaking across the horizon, other sounds form the band reference a funeral march and echo calypsos.

In the same way, “Ramble” begins with a note-perfect Dixieland emulation with the drummers exercising their kits with ratamacues and a clip-clop rhythm like duple Baby Dodds, as Trovesi on clarinet makes like Baby’s older brother -- and Armstrong associate -- Johnny. But trumpeter Massimo Greco reaches for augmented notes too modern for Satchmo, the clarinet is soon trilling in a modernistic folk style reminiscent of Jimmy Giuffre, and you’d never hear Marco Remondini’s arco cello slices anywhere in Trad Jazz. Blasts from trombonist Beppe Caruso, who leads his own fine brass band, form a countermelody that doubles and triples the tempo until the end.

In contrast to the Globe Unity veterans, the reedist’s is a younger band, made up in the main of musicians who have played with him for about a decade. With Remondini and percussionist Fluvio Maras adding electronics to the mix the Trovesi Eight proffers some unique textures, including a series of linking interludes that sound as if they were created on an electrified harpsichord that snuck in from a Yardbirds session. Thus while Trovesi may sometimes echo Benny Goodman and the unison string section get a bit overwrought in the 1,001 strings tradition, plenty of other slants arise as well.

“Blues and West” for instance, starts off with enough reverb from the electronica and electric bass slaps plus monochromic drumming to make it sound like a rock band has invaded the studio. In between riffing horns, Trovesi on alto creates some cosmic bop-inflected squeals and Greco plays a soaring, slurred trumpet line. “Canto di lavoro” goes in the opposite direction. It starts off with an Armstrong-like trumpet cadenza, introduces chalumeau clarinet trills and finishes with a sound that ping-pongs from outer-space whistles from the electronics, and someone, somehow -- perhaps the top strings of the electric bass -- producing a quivering Jimi Hendrix-like electric guitar distortion.

Massed horn riffs often appear to be half banda and half James Brown’s horn section, Trovesi’s split tone can often take on a distinctive Arabic inflection and the dual backbeat, if from hand drums, can be as much Savannah as Sardinia.

Improvised music has become such an all-encompassing category that a group can perform in a variety of ways to produce outstanding music, despite national clichés. Globe Unity and the Ottetto demonstrate two excellent versions of these methods.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Fugace: 1. As strange as a ballad 2. Sogno d’Orfeo African Triptych: 3. Wide Lake 4. Scarlet Dunes 5. Western Dream 6. Canto di lavoro 7. Clumsy dancing of the fat bird 8. Siparietto I 9. Blues and West 10. Siparietto II 11. Il Domatore 12. Ramble 13. Siparietto III 14. Fugace 15. Siparietto IV 16. Totò nei Caraibi

Personnel: Fugace: Massimo Greco (trumpet, electronics); Beppe Caruso (trombone); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone, piccolo, alto clarinets); Marco Remondini (cello, electronic); Roberto Bonati (bass); Marco Micheli (bass, electric bass); Fluvio Maras (percussion, electronics); Vittorio Marinoni (drums)

Track Listing: Globe: 1. Globe Unity 2002

Personnel: Globe: Manfred Schoof (trumpet, flugelhorn); Paul Rutherford and Johannes Bauer (trombones); Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky (alto saxophone, clarinet, flute); Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, tarogato, clarinet); Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophones); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano); Paul Lovens and Paul Lytton (drums)

December 1, 2003

ANDREA CENTAZZO/MITTELEUROPA ORCHESTRA

Live
Felmay/NewTone Records RDC 5047 2

PIERLUIGI BILLONE/KLANGFORUM WIEN/JOHANNES KALITZKE
Mani.long
DURIAN 019-2

Known in his native Italy and most of Europe as a composer who has written symphonies and lyric operas as well as scores for feature films, theatre productions, and multi-media efforts, Andrea Centazzo also has a history playing with international improvisers.

For about 15 years from the mid-1970s, as a percussionist, Centazzo recorded in different settings with such experimenters as saxophonists Steve Lacy and Evan Parker, guitarists Eugene Chadbourne and Derek Bailey and cellist Tom Cora. A series of discs was released on his own Ictus imprint, including most of the tracks found here with this large band. Organized as sort of a last hurrah by the composer to bring together acknowledged master improvisers and emerging talents, The Mitteleuropa Orchestra lasted from 1980 to 1990, after which writing became Centazzo’s primary focus.

The first four tracks on this exultant CD are a reissue in toto of a live concert given in Bologna in 1980 by a 13-piece version of the band. The final two, previously unreleased, tracks from 1983 in Vienna feature a 26-piece orchestra, including a beefed up string section, interpreting two other Centazzo compositions under the composer’s baton. The fifth track was later rearranged for symphony orchestra and recorded in 1993.

That action should give you a clue as to why, although everything on the CD is choice, the 1980 compositions seem more exciting. Turning from being an improviser/player/composer like Duke Ellington or Charles Mingus to a score paper composer, the percussionist seems to have accepted the conventions of so-called serious music. Except for the soloists, who are improvisers in their own right, the 1983 ensemble lacks the excitement of the 1980 band.

Flash forward 20 years or so and you find Klangforum Wien performing written percussion music by Milan-born Pierluigi Billone, composer in residence at the Hamburg State opera. Although his studies in classical guitar, chamber music and, composition didn’t seem to include exposure to Centazzo’s oeuvre, one would think he heard the Mitteleuropa Orchestra at one point. MANI.LONG, a percussion-driven piece played exemplarily by Klangforum Wien, definitely seems to relate to Centazzo’s later, more overly “classical” works.

Because of the experiments of Centazzo and other improvisers, this percussion and reed-driven way of approaching composition has entered into the lingua franca of most European composers. Musicians today also move back and forth more between composed, improvised and electronic genres. A few are represented in the Klangforum, most notably bassist Uli Fussenegger, who also produced this session. He has recorded with fellow bassist and Polwechsel leader Werner Dafeldecker and turntablist Dieter Kovacic.

Bologna’s Mitteleuropa Orchestra brought energy to Centazzo’s favorite stylist sensibilities with fluid timbres and chromatic nuances. At the same time, it’s interesting to note how the group sound and solo sections presage some of the ideas that would be expressed in such contemporary large scale ensembles as the Italian Instabile Orchestra (IIO). Unlike the more anarchistic Globe Unity or ICP Orchestras though, Centazzo’s composerly hand makes sure each piece has a definite beginning, end and middle.

One fascination is to hear how different -- or similar -- contemporary improvisers sounded 20 years ago. For instance, on “Musica Schema #1”, which seems to encompass what sound like ascending kettledrum tones mixed with a theme that could have been arranged by Gil Evans for MILES AHEAD, Portuguese violinist Carlos Zingaro lets loose with a frenzied double and triple-stopped solo that sounds a lot more like what Jean-Luc Ponty or Jerry Goodman were doing at that time than the sort of abrasive, diffident, electronic-influenced sounds he plays now. Double stopping so that more than one string sounds at a time, his classical training shows when he heads into the highest register without muddying his tone. Some Andalusian gypsy fire makes itself felt there as well.

Zingaro is surprisingly swinging on “Chirimia”, in contrast to the massed, atonal xylophone, vibraharp, bells and other miscellaneous percussion that make appearances here as a pliant pulse track. So do screaming multiphonics from one of the saxophone players. Someone -- likely Centazzo himself -- produces some jazz licks on what appears to be a small, tuned drum after tenor saxophonist Roberto Ottaviano expresses a Continental homage to John Coltrane. Another tremendous shock is to hear trumpeters Enrico Rava and Franz Koglmann trade fours. Rava who was midway between the avant- garde style he used with Lacy and his present Romantic persona probably never sounded more conventional. While Koglmann, the Austrian brass man who has made a virtue of a restrained, withdrawn, semi-classical tone, has never sounded more so-called jazzy.

“First Environment (For Orchestra)”, which seems to feature all 13 musicians playing simultaneously, sounds almost completely notated. Here too, though the variegated percussion tones foreshadow both the rhythmic tone of Anthony Braxton’s later Ghost Trance music and the IIO tune built around a struck anvil. In between those tutti motifs, Sauro D’Angelo play a tender, but squeaking, clarinet part, and it’s likely Rava who soars Maynard Ferguson-like over the band at the end.

Rava’s then-newfound brassiness is put to good use on “Third Environment (For Orchestra)” where his shaking tones and tongue raspberries turn to staccato shots on top of a World-Saxophone-Quartet-meets-The-Four-Brothers sax line. Elsewhere the sax sections smears out unison multiphonics that are so solid they could be playing Dixieland. Gianluigi Trovesi, sounding very much as he does today has a face off on bass clarinet with either a clarinetist or one of the soprano saxists. Finally, as the rest of the band fades the theme diminuendo, kettledrums reprise marital march music.

Percussion is on full display on the final two compositions, with what sounds like marimba and xylophone most prominent. But the string section of 13 drags the proceedings down, making the group not so much swing as lumber. A lot of what’s played appears to be awfully close to Centazzo’s future musing as a contemporary classical or soundtrack composer. There is some hint of a tarantella at the top, though with everyone but the reeds on slow boil. Later some of the woodwinds -- likely Carlos Actis Dato on resonating baritone saxophone, Trovesi and Ottaviano in altissimo range -- toss scads of note shards around. And mid way through, it’s probably Koglmann who creates some muted trumpet grace notes.

Located like those final two Mitteleuropa Orchestra tracks in Koglmann’s home town of Vienna, Klangforum Wien, conducted by Cologne-native Johannes Kalitzke acquits itself splendidly on MANI.LONG. Plus, unlike the sometime muddy recording from the other CD’s live dates, this one is clear and sharp.

Someone whose work is regular broadcast on European radio and performed by ensembles such as Ensemble Contrechamps, Ensemble Intercontemorain, Ensemble Recherche and the WDR Orchester, Billone uses as many interlocking percussion tones here as Centazzo does on his composition. Luckily there are four stick and mallet men on hand to do duty here. They have their hands full with among others instruments, bells, vibes, glockenspiel, marimba, hand drums and other various and sundry percussion. At times it also appears as if the implements are being scratched and banged as well as hit, adding up to some strident textures. Alternately, at points, it sounds as if pool cues and pool balls are being rolled on the ground.

One surprise is that, although given 12 individual titles in the liner notes, the composition instead unrolls as an interrupted, more-than-45-minute chamber piece. The other surprise is that, at least at the beginning, the two violins, one viola and two cellists get very little to do besides provide background sounds. Instead, along with the reverberations from the percussionists, the shape of the piece, as in many jazz/improv numbers, comes from the reed section. Massed, they produce air horn-like atonal reverberations throughout.

Often however alto saxophonist Gerald Preinfalk produces a phrase-shifting elongated tone not unlike what John Butcher would create on his own or with Polwechsel. Plus one of the bass clarinetists -- Bernhard Zachhuber or Ernesto Molinari -- appears to be able to vibrate a mechanized drone that you would more expect in the improv world than in the so-called classical one. There are even some tones produced from trilling vibrating and abused strings -- there’s a piano or celeste on site as well -- so that the Klangforum appears to be heading into electro-acoustic territory.

Besides some sections which are intentionally inaudible there are several where the ensemble combines for tumultuous, shaking multiphonics that could be at home in a Sun Ra composition. There’s even a long, blaring portion near the end, which is all smashed percussion, extended reed trills, and high-pitched, shouted vocal asides. Guess if “Mani.long” ever made it to a North American concert hall there would be plenty of walkouts. This isn’t your father’s chamber music. Unless he’s named Centazzo, that is.

As contemporary written music, the Klangforum performance tops Centazzo’s 1983 performance. But as far as improvised music goes, the Mitteleuropa Orchestra comes out with the crown. However both discs could be investigated by anyone who is serious about following music of today -- written or improvised.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Live: 1. Chirimia 2. First Environment (For Orchestra) 3. Musica Schema #1 4. Third Environment (For Orchestra) 5. Cjant: VI Movement 6. Chant: Movement

Personnel: Live: [1- 4]: Enrico Rava (trumpet); Franz Koglmann (flugelhorn, trumpet); Andrea Anzola (French horn); Roberto Manuzzi (soprano and alto saxophones); Sauro D’Angelo (clarinet and alto saxophone); Gianluigi Trovesi (bass clarinet and alto saxophone); Roberto Ottaviano (soprano and tenor and saxophones); Carlos Zingaro (violin); Roberto Bartoli, Stefano Ferri (basses); Bruno Cabassi (xylophone, percussion); Gianpaolo Salbego (vibes, percussion); Andrea Centazzo (drums, percussion, conductor) [5 - 6 ]: Franz Koglmann, Gino Comiso (trumpets); Andrea Anzola, Silvio Stagni (French horns); Carlo Actis Dato, Theo Jorgesmann, Roberto Mannuzzi, Gianluigi Trovesi, Roberto Ottaviano (clarinets and saxophones); Stefanio Bencivenga, Lucianmo Bolzon, Giorgio Fava, Roberto Frisone, Marco Macorigh, Marco Paladin, Mario Paladin (violins); Franca Macuz, Lorenzo Nassimbeni (violas); Luca Fiorentini, Carlo Teodoro (cellos); Franco Feruglio, Federeico Passera (basses); Piero Bertelli, Aurelio Corradini, Guido Vianello, Paolo Zanella (percussion); Andrea Centazzo (conductor)

Track Listing: Mani.long: 1. Mani.Long (hands/ancestors. Richard Long) 2. Ktàxe 3. Kna Ne Ète, Ékeio Still, Eki Sti 4. IxiXill. 5. Stié, Stiéle, Sténe Sti Sti É 6. Mékterene 7. Ini 8. Tméneme Néi Ktàxe 9. Ini 10. Tméneme Eki É, Tixi 11. Kna Ne Ète, Ékeio Still, Eki Sti 12. Istiéle, Énele Xill, Ina Énele Xìli, Ésti Éle

Personnel: Mani.long: Sasa Dragovic (trumpet); Andreas Eberle (trombone); Christoph Walder (French horn); Gerald Preinfalk (alto saxophone); Bernhard Zachhuber (bass clarinet); Ernesto Molinari (bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet); Markus Deuter (oboe and English horn); Lorelei Dowling (bassoon); Anette Bik, Gunde Jäch-micko (violins); Dimitrios Polisoidis (viola); Florian Mueller (piano and celeste); Benedikt Leitner, Andreas Lindenbaum (cellos); Uli Fussenegger (bass); Martin Homann, Pascal Pons, Adam Weisman (percussion); Johannes Kalitzke (conductor)

April 21, 2003

PREVISIONI DEL TEMPO/FORECAST: Italian Instabile Orchestra

Co-ordinated by Francesco Martinelli and Massimo Iudicone

CD editing and mastering plus English translation: Martin Mayes
ImPrint Books/CD IM 003
(Available from www.ijm.it/instabile)

Imagine, if you can, an 18-piece American big band made up of the top jazz and improvised music standard bearers of the past 40 years which tours the world playing original compositions. Sound fanciful? Well, Italy’s Italian Instabile Orchestra (IIO) has been able top pull off such a feat for the past 12 years.

Brainchild of trumpeter Pino Minafra and guided for its first decade by promoter Riccardo Bergerone, the IIO did all that and more. A true all-star aggregation, the band members come from all over the country. They include Italian free jazz pioneers like trombonist Gincarlo Schiaffini and alto saxophonist Mario Schiano lined up with contemporary stylists such as multi-reedists Gianluigi Trovesi and Carlo Actis Dato. Even younger musicians like trombonist Beppe Caruso and Achille Succi are sometimes also on board. An American equivalent would be to have veterans like Chicago saxophonist Fred Anderson and New York pianist Cecil Taylor regularly touring in big band formation with contemporary masters like Brooklyn saxophonist Tim Berne and San Diego trombonist George Lewis, with that aggregation also featuring younger players like Bay area bassist Damon Smith, New York keyboardist Craig Taborn and Boston trumpeter Greg Kelley.

Still, one of the purposes for the IIO and the creation of this book-and-CD set is to reaffirm Italian jazzers independence from their American antecedents. Surely, as anyone who has ever heard the IIO or individual Italian soloists knows, this is apparent in the improvisations. But, not unlike the situation that exists to some extent with the theorists in experimental American free jazz, few scores of the breakthrough compositions by these musicians exist to be studied by music students and utilized by musicologists.

Negating the titanic work of transcribing from recordings, this book offers up 24 pages of handwritten scores of six of the IIO’s most distinctive conceptions. They are saxophonist Eugenio Colombo’s “Scongiuro”; saxophonist Daniele Cavallanti’s “Minutes”; Schiaffini’s “Concert Grasso”; Schiano’s distinctive version of the standard “Lover Man” and his own “Sud” -- arranged by Colombo; and Actis Dato’s “AEIO”.

Not only does the format of the volume then allow each composer space to discuss his piece in musicological (Cavallanti), historical (Schiano), or poetic (Actis Dato) detail, but recent live performances of the tunes are performed on the CD included with the volume. On it, CD editor Martin Mayes, who also the IIO’s French hornist, has programmed the pieces so that the result resembles what could be termed a typical IIO concert. For scholars and students as well, index points have been inserted throughout the disc for easy access and study of the music. Still, the disc shouldn’t be confused with one of those Music Minus One extravaganzas. A regular listener can enjoy the compositions without ever knowing which note is being sounded or which chord substitution has been made. There’s also an eight page photographic portfolio of the band in performance over the years in different locales.

That’s not all this package offers either. Within the text, musicologist/journalist Francesco Martinelli discusses each composition and performance in detail, providing the background for the performers and their work(s) and showing how this particular piece is similar to or different than other versions of it by the IIO. This run-through of “Sud” is particularly noteworthy, for example, since the late Art Ensemble of Chicago trumpeter Lester Bowie sat in with the band for this 1998 performance in Vignola, Italy.

During the past few years convergence has usually meant large conglomerates yoking their print, broadcasting and software divisions together for economies of scale actually resulting in less information available for consumers. On the other hand, by coupling this bilingual (Italian-English) book and more than 72½-minute CD, FORECAST, shows that when used for a good cause, a minor version of convergence can be a good thing.

-- Ken Waxman

January 2, 2003

TIZIANO TONONI

We Did it, We Did it! The Music of Rahsaan Roland Kirk and More
Splasc(h) Records CDH 811/812/813

WE DID IT, WE DID IT, a salute to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, one of jazz's most distinctive personalities, is as large, sprawling and multi-faceted as the man it chooses to honor. Taking up three CDs and nearly four hours of music, the project tries to reflect nearly every phase of the Kirk's art.

A multi-instrumentalist -- flute, tenor saxophonist, manzello, stritch and whistles --, Kirk (1936 - 1977) never let his blindness stand in the way of his creativity and packed a couple of lifetimes into his 41 years. As conversant with the music of Sidney Bechet as Charles Mingus, and with the sort of amazing breath control that allowed him to play three instruments at once, he could jump in-and-out of modern jazz, Dixieland, world music and R&B at the drop of the top hat he sometimes wore. A prototypical rapper and showman as well as an extraordinary instrumentalist, he influenced rock bands as well as many jazzers.

As an adolescent, Italian percussionist Tononi first discovered Kirk's work and through it the rest of jazz history. This set, described as the "ultimate, updated, contemporary jazz version", is his payback.

That he succeeds so well can be attributed to the fact that he has no time for whet he calls "politically correct, straight-to-bed jazz" and, to use a tired Sixties expression, lets it all hang out to its furthest limit. He has a book of memorable Kirk compositions to use as a base and -- being less than superhuman -- is shored up by the talents of 15 other top improvisers plus some sampled swaths of Kirk's distinctive voice.

With many of his helpmates, like himself, members of the all-star Italian Instabile Orchestra, he certainly has a wealth of talent on which to draw. Mixing non-Rahsaan, po-mo touches like turntables, electric guitars and a tuba into the concoction creates a more impressive endproduct. And by adding his own compositions and those of Kirk's progenitors to the Rahsaan material he creates a salute that's as unlike any of those bloodless jazz neo-con recreations as Kirk was from any Marsalis.

Take "Serenade To A Cuckoo," for instance This flute tour-de-force made Ian Anderson's career with Jethro Tull after he "borrowed" it from Rahsaan. There's little piping to be heard on Tononi's interpretation, though, merely Caruso's deepdish trombone tones, smooth electric guitar and Cavallanti's baritone saxophone.

Similarly "A Laugh For Rory "centres around powerful trumpeting from American expatriate Robertson and a lumbering melody from tubaist Godard. "The Black & Crazy Blues" isn't treated as a Southwestern blow out either, but as a gentler piece that alternates piccolo and restrained percussion with gospel-like organ swells. Furthermore, it's very likely that Duke Ellington never imagined "The Mooche" would be given the full electric Miles Davis treatment with shimmering electric guitar interludes courtesy of Cecchetto.

Outstanding as well are the percussionist's own tunes, injecting a further level of levity with new sounds and styles that probably would have fascinated Kirk. They also extend Kirk's conception to the 21st century. And, as one of the most accomplished percussion masters in Europe, Tononi's able to find the groove in anything that can be hit, banged or stroked from the regular trap set to exotic tom-toms.

Exhaustive as well as exhausting, if WE DID IT has a drawback it's that Tononi may have tried to cram too much into the three discs. Reading over the dedications and tunes, you note that besides Kirk he also attempts to pay homage to Ellington, Sun Ra, John Gilmore, The Watts Prophets. Jethro Tull, Fats Waller, Bechet, Davis, Ed Blackwell, Archie Shepp, Mingus, Dannie Richmond, imprisoned Black panthers and Native Americans, Old and New Dreams, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Gil Evans, Steve Lacy, Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley.

Some tunes fit onto the Kirkatron seamlessly, but others -- especially those from the last three pop stars -- don't. Unfortunately their inclusion seems to posit the shortsighted idea that all Black-created music is related. It is, in a way, but the genius of Kirk and his heroes such as Ellington and Trane went beyond popular music, no matter how honestly created. All together, though, the three songs take up less than 13 minutes at the very end of the session.

Besides that minor misstep Tononi has come up with discs that confirm his talents as much as they honor Kirk's.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Disc 1: 1. Detuning #1 2. Amazing Grace 3. Open Strings 4. We Free Kings 5. A Handful Of Fives 6. Duality 7. A Laugh For Rory 8. The Creole Love Call 9. The Mooche 10. Happy, Sad, Like Everybody Else 11. The Black & Crazy Blues 12. Juxtaposition: Against/With 13. Geo(Metrics) 14. The Inflated Tear 15. Theme For the Eulipions

Disc 2: 1. Isn't That Crazy 2. Variable Density 3. Pedal Up 4. Chamber Music 5. ... Getting Groovy 6. Clickety Clack 7. Serenade To A Cuckoo 8.The Jitterbug Waltz 9. Petite Fleur 10. The Sacred Metal Forest 11. Blacknuss 12. Miles/Electric 13. The 3 Tenors 14. Spirits Up Above 15. Olu-Bata 16. Volunteered Slavery 17. Ecclesiastics 18. Goodbye Pork Porkpie Hat 19. Remember Rockefeller At Attica 20. Attica Blues

Disc 3: 1. Orchestra De-tuning #2 in Gb 2. Gongs, 5s and 7s 3. Rip, Rig & Panic 4. Mystical Movement 5. Slippery, Hippery, Flippery 6. White Noise, No Noise 7. Narrow Bolero (The Jungle Version) 8. No Tonic Press 9. Misterioso 10. After The Rain 11. Ebrauqs 12. The Multiphonics Tuba Trio 13. Slippery, Hippery, Flippery 14. Juarez 15. Mater Blaster 16. Hear My Train A Comin' 17. Redemption Song

Personnel: Herb Robertson (trumpet); Beppe Caruso (trombone, euphonium, shell, tuba); Michel Godard (tuba); Renato Geremia (soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, clarinet, violin); Achille Succi (alto saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone); Daniele Calvallanti (tenor and baritone saxophones); Riccardo Luppi (soprano and tenor saxophones, flute and piccolo); Alberto Tacchini (piano, organ, melodica, Fender Rhodes, claping); Roberto Cecchetto (guitar, claping); Tito Mangialajo (bass, claping); Piero Leveratto (bass); Tiziano Tononi (drums, congas, percussion, tumbadoras, gongs, siren); Andrea Rainoldi (samplers, electronic devices, scratch solo); Victor Beard (recitation); Roberta Parsi (recitation and vocals); Rahsaan Roland Kirk (voice samples)

October 4, 2000

GIANLUIGI TROVESI/GIANNI COSCIA

In cerca di cibo
ECM 1703

True musical blending involves the melding of two disparate streams and Gianluigi Trovesi is one of the Europeans seeking this fusion. His idea is to link jazz with folk music, which in the Italian context has nothing to do with grinning guys in striped sport shirts, harmonizing to a background of banjos and guitars.

Instead "folk" is heard as pleasant, simple melodies preferred by the masses, which may also have an appreciation for symphonies or jazz. Sometimes "folk" music was even used as the scores for more popular Italian films.

A prodigiously-trained clarinetist who is best-known for his tenure in the Italian Instabile Orchestra, as well as his own melodically avant garde combos, Trovesi has long maintained that a jazzman must come to terms with his local geography. Partnering with mainstream accordionist Coscia on this sprightly and melodious disc he's done just that.

Using themes that range from originals to folk songs to motifs from composer Fiorenzo Carpi's score for a film about Pinocchio, the two create a music that can be appreciated for its courtly bounce as well as it's underlying fine musicianship.

More swinging as it goes along, IN CERCA DI CIBO features such highpoints as a melding of John Lewis' "Django" and the folk song "Donadona"; Coscia's "Tre bimbi di campagna", where miniature courtly dances are driven by piercing clarinet tones; and "El Choclo," a weird tango with Eastern European influences. Even "Celebre Mazurka alterata" ends up sounding more like "Tiger Rag" complete with rhythmic breaks, counterpoint and moody lines than a Polish country dance.

More pointedly, there's no confusing this CD for anything but out-and-out European music. Taken on its own terms, it's valuable as a road map illuminating one of the ways jazz and improvised music will evolve in the 21st century.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. In cerca di cibo 2. Geppetto 3. Villanella 4. Il Postino 5. Minor Dance 6. Pinocchio: in groppa al tonno (piano) 7. Django (Donadona) 8. Pinocchio: in groppa al tonno (forte) 9. Le giostre di Piazza Savona 10. Tre bimbi di campagna 12. Celebre Mazurka alterata 13. Fata Turchina 14. El Choclo 15. In cerca di cibo

Personnel: Gianluigi Trovesi (piccolo, alto and bass clarinets); Gianni Coscia (accordion)

August 24, 2000