MORE WINDOWS & SMALL MIRRORS | MILANO DIALOGUES - part two
by Stuart Broomer
Bel Canto
More Windows & Small Mirrors is the eighth in a brilliant series of Leo recordings launched in 2019 by percussionist Sergio Armaroli. It connects directly to the first of them, Duets and Trios, the duets with saxophonist Harri Sjöström and the trios adding trombonist Giancalro Schiaffini, and it continues the documentation of Windows & Mirrors (Milano Dialogues), the quartet and sub-groups that added the quarter-tone accordion of Veli Kujala to the trio. If, in our thoughts about music, we imagine a distinction between the orchestral and the intimate, here that illusion disappears. Armaroli imagines the music as in-built in the character of the instruments “as a form of the music that was born as a subtle dialogue between dense harmonic schematics (vibraphone and accordion) and even more free melodic profiles (trombone and sax).”
Where does such music come from? We might imagine certain national inheritances, the great Italian tradition in which ethereal sacred music gradually became the extended mythic and historic narratives of opera seria, or the rich musicality of Finland, which likely possesses more symphony orchestras per capita than any other country. Then there is the embrace of the jazz tradition. Among Schiaffini and Armaroli’s collaborations is Deconstructing Monk in Africa (Dodicilune), combining the works of the greatest composer of modern jazz with the sound store of the music’s ancestral legacy. The lighting arc extends to individual collaborations with Cecil Taylor, from Schiaffini’s membership in the Italian Instabile Orchestra that recorded Taylor’s The Owner of the River Bank to Harri Sjöström’s long membership as the sole horn in Taylor’s quartet, a role previously occupied at some length by Steve Lacy and Jimmy Lyons. Veli Kujala first appeared in an international setting in the permutating band of The Balderin Sali Variations, an international conclave of improvisers assembled in Helsinki in 2018 by Sjöstrom that had the startling Kujala matching reeds in duets with Sjöstrom himself and Evan Parker.
The reality is that this music comes from everywhere, from every scrap of technical nuance, errant sound and lyric colocation heard in the couple of hundred years of ears gathered here, listening intensely, assembling instinctively and combining creatively. Those windows and mirrors are openings and reflections, sources and repeaters of light. A musical illumination is palpably present in the brightness of timbres here, the metallic brass and the special sheen of the vibraphone, and that wandering lightness of the quarter-tone concert accordion which moves here with a fluency of timbre and pitch unlike any other keyboard. There is a sense in which every musician was chosen for a potential collective identity that had almost nothing to do with specific instruments but rather to do with a special fluency, a joyous musical discipline. Considering the results, Sjöstrom remarks, “trusting is essential and also the trust that the music has its ways, just like water is flowing and taking its own ways of flowing and so on.” He also quotes Cecil Taylor: “if the music is true, the form will take care of itself.”
Dissonance is rarely heard here and when it is, it’s heard not as dissonant but as proximity, lines closing together, lines spreading apart. If collectively improvised music aims for its own set of values, somehow in embrace with the unknown, these four musicians, as duo, trio or quartet, achieve collective composition of an almost unknown order, individual initiations of material so richly thoughtful, however spontaneous, that we hear music that might suggest Stravinsky, Messiaen, Ligeti or Berio, moments in which two supportive voices will rise in a light crescendo to support a lead voice, or a single voice will rise to contrast and develop another’s theme, or a brief solo interlude might serve to connect one collective passage to another. At times this might feel like a concert for four voices, but then, where is the orchestra? It’s here, it’s them, just the two or three or four of them: making, pressing, initiating, supporting.
Kujala, new to the group, points out the spontaneous formal richness of the group, no contradiction but the living fabric of instant composition: “What I found wonderful was that everybody was listening very carefully and used imaginatively a plethora of different compositional techniques: the classic techniques like imitations with inversions, retrogrades, etc., occasionally very effective contrasts, experimental sounds. The main focus of the ensemble varied a lot: sometimes it was a dialogue, sometimes small solos here and there, sometimes passages went from one instrument to another, sometimes the ensemble built certain textures collectively, you name it.”
The veteran Schiaffini reduces the process to its essence: “The most important (maybe the unique) action is just listen/ play/ listen/ propose/ play/ silence, and with such friends and in that studio, it happened very easily.” That felicity is the music’s earmark.
Stuart Broomer
by Stuart Broomer
Bel Canto
More Windows & Small Mirrors is the eighth in a brilliant series of Leo recordings launched in 2019 by percussionist Sergio Armaroli. It connects directly to the first of them, Duets and Trios, the duets with saxophonist Harri Sjöström and the trios adding trombonist Giancalro Schiaffini, and it continues the documentation of Windows & Mirrors (Milano Dialogues), the quartet and sub-groups that added the quarter-tone accordion of Veli Kujala to the trio. If, in our thoughts about music, we imagine a distinction between the orchestral and the intimate, here that illusion disappears. Armaroli imagines the music as in-built in the character of the instruments “as a form of the music that was born as a subtle dialogue between dense harmonic schematics (vibraphone and accordion) and even more free melodic profiles (trombone and sax).”
Where does such music come from? We might imagine certain national inheritances, the great Italian tradition in which ethereal sacred music gradually became the extended mythic and historic narratives of opera seria, or the rich musicality of Finland, which likely possesses more symphony orchestras per capita than any other country. Then there is the embrace of the jazz tradition. Among Schiaffini and Armaroli’s collaborations is Deconstructing Monk in Africa (Dodicilune), combining the works of the greatest composer of modern jazz with the sound store of the music’s ancestral legacy. The lighting arc extends to individual collaborations with Cecil Taylor, from Schiaffini’s membership in the Italian Instabile Orchestra that recorded Taylor’s The Owner of the River Bank to Harri Sjöström’s long membership as the sole horn in Taylor’s quartet, a role previously occupied at some length by Steve Lacy and Jimmy Lyons. Veli Kujala first appeared in an international setting in the permutating band of The Balderin Sali Variations, an international conclave of improvisers assembled in Helsinki in 2018 by Sjöstrom that had the startling Kujala matching reeds in duets with Sjöstrom himself and Evan Parker.
The reality is that this music comes from everywhere, from every scrap of technical nuance, errant sound and lyric colocation heard in the couple of hundred years of ears gathered here, listening intensely, assembling instinctively and combining creatively. Those windows and mirrors are openings and reflections, sources and repeaters of light. A musical illumination is palpably present in the brightness of timbres here, the metallic brass and the special sheen of the vibraphone, and that wandering lightness of the quarter-tone concert accordion which moves here with a fluency of timbre and pitch unlike any other keyboard. There is a sense in which every musician was chosen for a potential collective identity that had almost nothing to do with specific instruments but rather to do with a special fluency, a joyous musical discipline. Considering the results, Sjöstrom remarks, “trusting is essential and also the trust that the music has its ways, just like water is flowing and taking its own ways of flowing and so on.” He also quotes Cecil Taylor: “if the music is true, the form will take care of itself.”
Dissonance is rarely heard here and when it is, it’s heard not as dissonant but as proximity, lines closing together, lines spreading apart. If collectively improvised music aims for its own set of values, somehow in embrace with the unknown, these four musicians, as duo, trio or quartet, achieve collective composition of an almost unknown order, individual initiations of material so richly thoughtful, however spontaneous, that we hear music that might suggest Stravinsky, Messiaen, Ligeti or Berio, moments in which two supportive voices will rise in a light crescendo to support a lead voice, or a single voice will rise to contrast and develop another’s theme, or a brief solo interlude might serve to connect one collective passage to another. At times this might feel like a concert for four voices, but then, where is the orchestra? It’s here, it’s them, just the two or three or four of them: making, pressing, initiating, supporting.
Kujala, new to the group, points out the spontaneous formal richness of the group, no contradiction but the living fabric of instant composition: “What I found wonderful was that everybody was listening very carefully and used imaginatively a plethora of different compositional techniques: the classic techniques like imitations with inversions, retrogrades, etc., occasionally very effective contrasts, experimental sounds. The main focus of the ensemble varied a lot: sometimes it was a dialogue, sometimes small solos here and there, sometimes passages went from one instrument to another, sometimes the ensemble built certain textures collectively, you name it.”
The veteran Schiaffini reduces the process to its essence: “The most important (maybe the unique) action is just listen/ play/ listen/ propose/ play/ silence, and with such friends and in that studio, it happened very easily.” That felicity is the music’s earmark.
Stuart Broomer
WINDOWS & MIRRORS | MILANO DIALOGUES
-----Windows and Mirrors: Armaroli/Kujala/Sjöström/Schiaffini
by Nicola Barin - 30 Novembre 2022
Il connubio tra Sergio Armaroli e Giancarlo Schiaffini è di lunga data: vanno ricordati ad esempio Micro And More Exercises, The Biella Session, The Out Off Session, Trigonos, Duos & Trio, con il contributo del sassofonista Harri Sjöstrom.
Questa nuova uscita in casa Leo Records dal titolo Windows and Mirrors testimonia l’incontro con due artisti finlandesi: il sassofonista Harri Sjöström e il fisarmonicista Veli Kujala. L’entrata in campo della fisarmonica e del soprano permette una fluidità sonora vivace e inedita come lo è l’abbinamento del sax soprano con il vibrafono.
E’ riduttivo parlare solo di musica per un progetto di questo genere in cui si esprime non solo la poetica musicale dei componenti ma anche il tentativo di andare oltre tale ambito. Sulla scorta dei concetti dello studioso americano Arnold I. Davidson, in particolare nel volume Gli esercizi spirituali della musica, si può tentare di andare oltre l’ambito musicale: ”L’ascolto di un certo tipo di jazz può essere il modo di comprendere, al tempo stesso, un aspetto etico, politico, epistemologico, e ovviamente estetico.”
In breve l’estetica musicale (soprattutto di Schiaffini e Armaroli) non è solo musicale, veicola concetti e idee filosofiche, espone concetti e flussi di pensiero che illustrano la contemporaneità. Lo testimonia anche la pagina web di Armaroli che riporta le seguenti parole: “La poetica di Sergio Armaroli abbraccia molteplici ambiti espressivi alla costante ricerca di una unità dell’esperienza. Si dichiara pittore, percussionista concreto, poeta frammentario e artista sonoro oltre a fondare il proprio operare all’interno del “linguaggio del jazz” e dell’improvvisazione totale come “estensione del concetto di arte”.
I concetti di identità, molteplicità, nomadismo, rizoma, vengono teorizzati nel pensiero filosofico dal pensatore francese Gilles Deleuze e si ritrovano presenti in questo progetto in maniera vitale, ci attraversano come lame. L’approccio di Armaroli denota la volontà di destrutturare la melodia ma anche l’armonia, cosi come opera Schiaffini, al suo interno ritroviamo l’uso di questi concetti filosofici. Si potrebbe anche dire, sulla stregua di Deleuze, che i due elaborano nuovi concetti attraverso la vibrazione di sè stessi attraverso lo strumento. I pensieri complessi, problematici si dispiegano, si generano nelle dieci tracce del progetto, come succede per esempio in Mirrors#2, forse la traccia in cui improvvisazione e jazz si manifestano all’unisono grazie all’apporto e alle evoluzioni del sassofono soprano, del trombone e dell’inusuale approccio di Kujala alla fisarmonica.
L’improvvisazione si esautora dall’idioma jazzistico per approdare a territori inesplorati in cui la propensione al libero scambio di concetti si fa palpabile. Mirror#3 concentra le forze sulle dinamiche della fisarmonica, a suo agio nel creare una corrente sonora inquietante che stimola il libero fraseggio di Schiaffini e i tagli potenti del sax soprano.
Un progetto che accenna e mette a nudo la preparazione non solo tecnica dei componenti ma che ci instilla la difficoltà a definire come musicisti questi pensatori che ci introducono ai concetti basilari della contemporaneità, ad una nuova terminologia filosofica e musicale della loro estetica.
English Translation
The union between Sergio Armaroli and Giancarlo Schiaffini is a long-standing one: examples include Micro And More Exercises, The Biella Session, The Out Off Session, Trigonos, Duos & Trio, with the contribution of saxophonist Harri Sjöstrom.
This new Leo Records release entitled Windows and Mirrors bears witness to the encounter with two Finnish artists: saxophonist Harri Sjöström and accordionist Veli Kujala. The entry of the accordion and soprano allows for a lively and unprecedented fluidity of sound, as is the combination of the soprano sax with the vibraphone.
It is reductive to speak only of music for a project of this kind in which not only the musical poetics of the components is expressed, but also the attempt to go beyond that. Based on the concepts of the American scholar Arnold I. Davidson, particularly in his book The Spiritual Exercises of Music, one can attempt to go beyond the musical sphere: "Listening to a certain kind of jazz can be a way of understanding, at the same time, an ethical, political, epistemological, and obviously aesthetic aspect."
In short, musical aesthetics (especially by Schiaffini and Armaroli) is not only musical, it conveys philosophical concepts and ideas, it expounds concepts and streams of thought that illustrate contemporaneity. This is also testified by Armaroli's webpage, which states: 'Sergio Armaroli's poetics embrace multiple spheres of expression in the constant search for a unity of experience. He declares himself to be a painter, a concrete percussionist, a fragmentary poet and a sound artist as well as founding his work within the "language of jazz" and total improvisation as an "extension of the concept of art".
The concepts of identity, multiplicity, nomadism, rhizome, are theorised in philosophical thought by the French thinker Gilles Deleuze and are present in this project in a vital way, they run through us like blades. Armaroli's approach denotes a willingness to deconstruct melody but also harmony, as does Schiaffini's work, within which we find the use of these philosophical concepts. One could also say, along the lines of Deleuze, that the two elaborate new concepts by vibrating themselves through the instrument. Complex, problematic thoughts unfold, are generated in the project's ten tracks, as happens for example in Mirrors#2, perhaps the track where improvisation and jazz manifest themselves in unison thanks to the contribution and evolutions of the soprano saxophone, trombone and Kujala's unusual approach to the accordion.
The improvisation departs from the jazz idiom to land in unexplored territories where the propensity for the free exchange of concepts becomes palpable. Mirror#3 concentrates its forces on the dynamics of the accordion, at ease in creating an unsettling sound current that stimulates Schiaffini's free phrasing and the powerful cuts of the soprano sax.
A project that hints at and lays bare not only the technical preparation of the members but also instils in us the difficulty of defining as musicians these thinkers who introduce us to the basic concepts of contemporaneity, to a new philosophical and musical terminology of their aesthetics.
Nicola Barin
----------------
WINDOWS & MIRRORS | MILANO DIALOGUES
Armaroli / Kujala / Schaiffini / Sjöström
review by Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
Sergio Armaroli est un excellent vibraphoniste italien découvert auprès de musiciens essentiels tels que les percussionnistes Andrea Centazzo, Roger Turner et Fritz Hauser, le saxophoniste finlandais Harri Sjöström et le tromboniste Giancarlo Schiaffini. Voici que s’ajoute à cette liste un compatriote de Sjöström, l’accordéoniste Veli Kujala qui avait participé à l’enregistrement des superbes Soundscapes Festival #3 réunies dans un double CD Fundacja Sluchaj avec un aéropage impressionnant (Sjöström, leur instigateur, Phil Wachsmann, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Sebi Tramontana, Floros Floridis Lawrence Casserley, Emilio Gordoa, Matthias Bauer, Wilbert de Joode, Matthias Bauer, Dag Magnus Narvesen, Kalle Kalima…) que je me suis fait le plaisir de chroniquer ici, il y a quelques mois. Partie remise dans un quartette de chambre aérien et éthéré avec trois des précités. Harri Sjöström a fait l’extraordinaire expérience de jouer régulièrement avec Cecil Taylor et travaille depuis des décennies avec Paul Lovens et Phil Wachsmann. Veli Kujala est un prodige de l’accordéon et Giancarlo Schiaffini est un pionnier de l’improvisation libre au trombone depuis les sixties au même titre que Paul Rutherford. Le travail de ce quartet atypique (sax soprano ou sopranino, trombone, vibraphone et accordéon) se focalise sur une musicalité distinguée, raffinée, chaque musicien se situant dans une position égalitaire dans le champ auditif. Rien de tel pour stimuler l’écoute mutuelle en partageant les rôles, les interventions et les initiatives dans une démarche d’équilibres instables et mouvants lors de dix improvisations intitulées Windows #1 jusque #5 et Mirrors #1 à #5. Ici le verre, matière translucide, accède à la lumière extérieure ou reflète votre image … ou votre action musicale. Une dimension mélodique free s’ébauche dans les articulations obliques et légèrement vocalisées du souffleur au sax soprano ou sopranino contrebalancées par les effets de coulisse, lèvres et sourdines de Giancarlo Schiaffini au trombone. Une dimension harmonique éthérée s’insère adroitement entre les souffles conjoints ou centrifuges, la face percussive et cristalline du vibraphone et celle venteuse et mystérieuse de l’accordéon. Les jeux respectifs de Veli Kujala et Sergio Armaroli se complètent étrangement de manière inattendue. Le son du vibraphone peut presque s’éteindre au bord du silence lorsque le timbre du trombone s’étire dans de longues notes soutenues discrètement dans le grave (Windows #2). La déambulation presque chaotique de Windows #3 s’appuie sur de vifs accents partagés entre l’articulation en soubresauts du sax soprano et les virevoltes subtiles du vibraphone, l’accordéon soufflant des contrepoints sinueux par intermittence. L’intérêt profond de la démarche collective de ce quartet d’exception tient dans une succession très habile d’univers différents d’une pièce à l’autre, chacune ayant ses caractéristiques propres comme s’il s’agissait de compositions aux éléments structurels et semi- formels bien définis. L'auditeur les reconnaît immédiatement lorsqu’il zappe d’un morceau à l’autre ou lorsque notre écoute s’estompe pour se ressaisir durant le morceau suivant. Une application ludique des principes issus du Pierrot Lunaire de Schönberg en roue libre. La sonorité de Sjöström est exquise, charnelle et éthérée et fait écho au timbre caractéristique vocalisé, aux glissandi et froncements du pavillon de Schiaffini, sans nul doute une des paires saxophone – trombone les plus mémorables depuis l’époque lointaine Lacy – Rudd des Schooldays. Leurs interactions conjointes, parallèles ou frontales avec l’accordéon mystérieux de Kujala et le vibraphone d’Armaroli , tout en légèreté, sont simplement providentielles et défient les lois de la pesanteur et de la géométrie dans l’espace. Comme quoi l’improvisation est à la base de la création de formes musicales qu’on croirait composées et partiellement préméditées. Laissons la réponse à cette suggestion en suspens, la musique parle pour elle-même. Tout l'intérêt de leurs superbes intervenstions individuelles réside dans leur agencement dans l'espace et le temps. C’est véritablement du grand art et on songe parfois aux mobiles de Calder
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
jmvanschouwburg@gmail.com
English Translation
Sergio Armaroli is an excellent Italian vibraphonist who was discovered by such essential musicians as percussionists Andrea Centazzo, Roger Turner and Fritz Hauser, Finnish saxophonist Harri Sjöström and trombonist Giancarlo Schiaffini. Sjöström's compatriot, accordionist Veli Kujala, who took part in the recording of the superb Soundscapes Festival #3 collected in a double CD Fundacja Sluchaj with an impressive aerialist, has now been added to this list (Sjöström, their instigator, Phil Wachsmann, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Sebi Tramontana, Floros Floridis Lawrence Casserley, Emilio Gordoa, Matthias Bauer, Wilbert de Joode, Matthias Bauer, Dag Magnus Narvesen, Kalle Kalima... ) that I had the pleasure to review here, a few months ago. We're back in an ethereal chamber quartet with three of the above-mentioned. Harri Sjöström has had the extraordinary experience of playing regularly with Cecil Taylor and has worked for decades with Paul Lovens and Phil Wachsmann. Veli Kujala is an accordion prodigy and Giancarlo Schiaffini has been a pioneer of free improvisation on the trombone since the sixties, as has Paul Rutherford. The work of this atypical quartet (soprano or sopranino sax, trombone, vibraphone and accordion) focuses on a distinguished, refined musicality, with each musician occupying an equal position in the auditory field. There is nothing like this to stimulate mutual listening by sharing roles, interventions and initiatives in a process of unstable and shifting balances during ten improvisations entitled Windows #1 to #5 and Mirrors #1 to #5. Here the glass, translucent material, accesses the outside light or reflects your image ... or your musical action. A free melodic dimension emerges in the oblique and slightly vocalized articulations of the soprano or sopranino sax blower counterbalanced by the slide, lip and mute effects of Giancarlo Schiaffini on trombone. An ethereal harmonic dimension is deftly inserted between the joint or centrifugal breaths, the percussive and crystalline face of the vibraphone and the windy and mysterious face of the accordion. The respective playing of Veli Kujala and Sergio Armaroli complement each other in a strange and unexpected way. The sound of the vibraphone can almost fade to the edge of silence when the timbre of the trombone stretches out in long, discreetly sustained notes in the low register (Windows #2). The almost chaotic wandering of Windows #3 is based on lively accents shared between the jolting articulation of the soprano sax and the subtle twirls of the vibraphone, with the accordion blowing sinuous counterpoints intermittently. The profound interest of the collective approach of this exceptional quartet lies in a very skilful succession of different universes from one piece to the next, each with its own characteristics as if they were compositions with well-defined structural and semi-formal elements. The listener recognises them immediately when he zaps from one piece to the next or when our listening fades to the next. A playful application of the principles of Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire in freewheeling fashion. Sjöström's sound is exquisite, carnal and ethereal and echoes the distinctive vocalized timbre, glissandi and bell puckers of Schiaffini, surely one of the most memorable saxophone-trombone pairs since the distant Lacy-Rudd days of the Schooldays. Their joint, parallel or frontal interactions with Kujala's mysterious accordion and Armaroli's light-hearted vibraphone are simply providential and defy the laws of gravity and geometry in space. This shows that improvisation is the basis for the creation of musical forms that seem to be composed and partially premeditated. Let's leave the answer to this suggestion in abeyance, the music speaks for itself. The interest of their superb individual interventions lies in their arrangement in space and time. It is truly high art and sometimes reminds one of Calder's mobiles.
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
--------
SoundScapes # 3 Festival- Munich (double CD)
review by Ettore Garzia
L’affermazione di Jung sembra aprirsi ad una sorta di realtà non spiegabile per tutti gli artisti. Nel passo citato egli insinua che le opere d’arte rivendicano l’istinto dei loro creatori e, pur non escludendo un possibile studio in materia, probabilmente non si appoggiano a cognizioni ben determinate: in realtà le parole di Jung forse andrebbero coordinate con uno dei suoi archetipi evolutivi, ossia l’archetipo “conoscenza” da mettere di fianco all’istinto così come definito prima. Il tempo ha dimostrato che l’arte, anche quella più spontanea, non può escludere dei procedimenti sedimentati in una sede dell’inconscio operativo dell’artista: la libera improvvisazione, per esempio, è piena di questi stimoli e nonostante essi siano il frutto di un impulso non ragionato dell’attimo esecutivo, sottintendono un’area nettamente più ampia in cui convergono formazione e strutture di rappresentazione utilizzabili nei momenti di ritorno alla piena cognizione. Ed esiste anche un inconscio operativo collettivo, qualcosa che il free jazz e la free improvisation hanno sperimentato per decenni tramite l’incontro aggregativo in festivals, workshop e altri eventi similari: solitamente si tratta di occasioni irripetibili per ascoltare la fusione di depositi espressivi differenti, dove le scintille creative degli artisti possono originare delle splendide relazioni, qualora non si facciano sopraffare dalla muscolosità delle loro azioni.
Un ottimo esempio di quanto detto viene da un CD doppio di musica totalmente improvvisata che arriva come testimonianza delle esibizioni al festival SoundScapes #3 del 2021, conclusione di Aspects of Free Improvisation 2021, un progetto culturale promosso dall’associazione Offene Ohren eV e sponsorizzato da Neustart Kultur e il ministero tedesco della cultura e media, in cui farsi affascinare da una pratica di cui oggi non si comprende la purezza e la complessità; gli artisti sul palco erano Harri Sjöström, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Sebi Tramontana, Veli Kujala, Wilbert de Joode, Kalle Kalima, Libero Mureddu, Matthias Bauer, Steve Heather, Lawrence Casserley, Philipp Wachsmann, Dag Magnus Narvesen, Floros Floridis, ai quali è stato chiesto di esibirsi secondo uno schema predeterminato da Sjöström (sia nella quantità che nella qualità dei connubi) e per non più di 15 minuti. Sono due giorni di concerto con un’apertura e chiusura corale (ossia suonano assieme tutti) e 12 sub-interventi divisi in formazioni di duo (4 duetti) , in trio (capita 2 volte), quartetto (per 4 episodi) e quintetti (2 gruppi), tutti condotti in un clima esaltante di capacità e competenze relazionali, di cui ve ne porto breve resoconto:
-il Tutti Orchestra (l’Opening Night e il Silence To Sound) sono delle giostre di confusione felliniane, l’impasto timbrico è azzeccato alla radice, ma quello che viene risaltato è il contorno strategico complessivo poiché le divergenze o dissonanze sonore che si formano nei due percorsi improvvisativi vanno nel senso di una costante capitolazione della realtà, sono splendido surrealismo sonoro;
-nei duetti l’aspetto relazionale è posto in forte evidenza: tra Sjöström e Kujala la tensione improvvisativa viaggia verso veri e propri schizzi sonori, favoriti dalle tecniche estensive da una parte (blocco e frammentazione sui registri alti, linee melodiche strozzate e senza gravità) e da un incalzante fornitura di sprazzi armonici dall’altra (che pian piano diventano “lampeggiamenti”); con la costante del trombone, gli altri duetti impegnano Schiaffini e Tramontana, dove il primo instaura portentosi colloqui con gli strappi anomali del clarinetto di Floros Floridis (lavorando su sordine e distorsioni timbriche) o discorre quasi languente contro l’anomala risposta di Emilio Gordoa al vibrafono, stemperato nel cercare soluzioni contingenti con gli oggetti invece che con i suoni tradizionali del suo strumento; il quarto duetto è invece un benefico incontro di 13 minuti tra Tramontana e Wachsmann, trombone e violino che costruiscono gradualmente un’affascinante discussione fatta di cucce silenziose o borbottio, iperboli improvvisi della comunicazione o fiera irrequietezza;
-nei due trii si attua una diversificazione, da una parte si uniscono Kalima, Heather e Mureddu, cioé chitarra, percussioni e pianoforte, unite da una forma libera che cresce nel linguaggio del cambiamento di stato degli eventi sonori, tensioni astratte che cercano anche una loro profondità; dall’altra il trio Casserley, Kalima e Kujala, cioé elettronica processata, percussioni e fisarmonica a quarti di tono, lavora sulla sonorizzazione e sul mistero, cercando di mettere in evidenza tutta una serie di implicazioni sulla costruzione della microtonalità, una massa sinusoidale o collettivamente selvaggia, più o meno in forza di espansione e creata sul momento;
-i quartetti vengono costruiti in modo da far entrare in contatto le essenze, i geni delle personalità dei musicisti: il quartetto Gordoa/De Joode/Schiaffini/Wachsmann mette in campo molte estensioni, frammentazioni, melodie inquartate e altri “sciaccallaggi” sonori che però sostentano incredibilmente il discorso musicale; Casserley dà subsonicità al quartetto con Gordoa/Heather/Narvesen (si può parlare di improvvisazione acusmatica?) oppure sfondo ricoprente al quartetto ribollente e acido tenuto con Sjöström, Mureddu e Wachsmann; la quaterna Bauer, Floridis, Heather e Mureddu dà invece l’idea di energia e inceppamento, una polveriera di istinti giocati nell’incauta rivoluzione che l’improvvisazione vuol raggiungere;
-i due quintetti occupano la parte centrale delle esibizioni e sono privilegi rarissimi dell’ascolto: quello di De Joode/Narvesen/Tramontana/Sjöström e Wachsmann è un incastro empatico che mostra un suo sviluppo coerente, voci strumentali di livello elevatissimo che portano scompiglio ma allo stesso tempo propongono un’incandescente entità sonora tutta da decifrare; l’altro quintetto vede una contrapposizione contrabbassi (De Joode e Bauer come propulsori al contrabbasso) contro ottoni (i 2 tromboni, quelli di Schiaffini e Tramontana e Floridis straniante al clarinetto), un esempio su come fornire un’idea aulica di movimento e dialogo.
SoundScapes Festival #3 fa pensare inevitabilmente alle più belle operazioni dell’improvvisazione di gruppo, alla socialità e all’esperienza rigenerante che si presenta alle nostre orecchie, ma ha anche molte altre qualità, sia individuali che collettive: il clima di quelle serate era propizio per realizzazioni real-time di gran spessore, tutti suonano ed improvvisano al top delle proprie intelligenze musicali oltre che dei propri impulsi naturali, facendo tuonare le sequenze senza interposizioni inopportune. Si capisce che aldilà delle generazioni coinvolte, questi musicisti hanno un comune spirito e una naturale predisposizione per appaganti architetture sonore di collegamento.
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English Translation
“…If the psychologist were able to demonstrate definite causalities in a work of art and in the process of artistic creation, he would leave aesthetics no ground to stand on and would reduce it to a special branch of his own science. Although he should never abandon his claim to investigate and establish the causality of complex psychic processes—to do so would be to deny psychology the right to exist—he will never be able to make good this claim in the fullest sense, because the creative urge which finds its clearest expression in art is irrational and will in the end make a mock of all our rationalistic undertakings...”
(C.G. Jung, Spirit in Man, Art, And Literature, from Collected Works, Princeton 1966)
Jung's statement seems to open up to a kind of unexplainable reality for all artists. In the quoted passage he insinuates that works of art claim the instincts of their creators and, while not ruling out a possible study in the matter, they probably do not rely on well-defined knowledge: in fact Jung's words should perhaps be coordinated with one of his evolutionary archetypes, namely the archetype 'knowledge' to be placed alongside instinct as defined earlier. Time has shown that art, even the most spontaneous, cannot exclude procedures sedimented in a seat of the artist's operative unconscious: free improvisation, for example, is full of these stimuli, and although they are the fruit of an unreasoned impulse of the moment of execution, they imply a much broader area in which formation and representational structures converge that can be used in moments of return to full cognition. And there is also a collective operating unconscious, something that free jazz and free improvisation have experienced for decades through aggregative encounters in festivals, workshops and other similar events: these are usually unrepeatable occasions to listen to the fusion of different expressive deposits, where the creative sparks of the artists can give rise to splendid relationships, if they do not let themselves be overwhelmed by the muscularity of their actions.
A very good example of this comes from a double CD of totally improvised music that comes as a testimony to the performances at the SoundScapes #3 festival in 2021, the conclusion of Aspects of Free Improvisation 2021, a cultural project promoted by the Offene Ohren eV association and sponsored by Neustart Kultur and the German Ministry of Culture and Media, in which to be fascinated by a practice whose purity and complexity is not understood today; The performers on stage were Harri Sjöström, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Sebi Tramontana, Veli Kujala, Wilbert de Joode, Kalle Kalima, Libero Mureddu, Matthias Bauer, Steve Heather, Lawrence Casserley, Philipp Wachsmann, Dag Magnus Narvesen, Floros Floridis, who were asked to perform according to a pattern predetermined by Sjöström (both in the quantity and quality of the combinations) and for no more than 15 minutes. It is a two-day concert with a choral opening and closing (i.e. they all play together) and 12 sub-interventions divided into duo formations (4 duets), trio (happens 2 times), quartet (for 4 episodes) and quintet (2 groups), all conducted in an exhilarating atmosphere of relational skills and competences, of which I give you a brief account:
-the Tutti Orchestra (the Opening Night and the Silence To Sound) are Fellini-esque merry-go-rounds of confusion, the timbral impasto is apt at the root, but what is emphasised is the overall strategic contour since the sonic divergences or dissonances that form in the two improvisational paths go in the direction of a constant capitulation to reality, they are splendid sonic surrealism;
-in the duets, the relational aspect is strongly emphasised: between Sjöström and Kujala, the improvisational tension travels towards veritable sound sketches, favoured by extensive techniques on the one hand (blocking and fragmentation on the high registers, choked and weightless melodic lines) and by a relentless supply of harmonic flashes on the other (which slowly become 'flashes'); with the constant of the trombone, the other duets engage Schiaffini and Tramontana, where the former establishes portentous conversations with the anomalous strains of Floros Floridis's clarinet (working on mutes and timbral distortions) or converses almost languorously against Emilio Gordoa's anomalous response on the vibraphone, diluted in seeking contingent solutions with objects instead of the traditional sounds of his instrument; the fourth duet, on the other hand, is a soothing 13-minute encounter between Tramontana and Wachsmann, trombone and violin gradually building up to a fascinating discussion made up of silent cuckooing or muttering, sudden hyperbole of communication or proud restlessness;
-in the two trios a diversification takes place, on the one hand Kalima, Heather and Mureddu, i.e. guitar, percussion and piano, are united by a free form that grows in the language of the changing state of sound events, abstract tensions that also seek their own depth; on the other hand, the trio Casserley, Kalima and Kujala, i.e. processed electronics, percussion and quarter-tone accordion, work on sonorisation and mystery, seeking to highlight a whole series of implications on the construction of microtonality, a sinusoidal or collectively wild mass, more or less in force of expansion and created on the spot;
-in the two trios a diversification takes place, on the one hand Kalima, Heather and Mureddu, i.e. guitar, percussion and piano, are united by a free form that grows in the language of the changing state of sound events, abstract tensions that also seek their own depth; on the other hand, the trio Casserley, Kalima and Kujala, i.e. processed electronics, percussion and quarter-tone accordion, work on sonorisation and mystery, attempting to highlight a whole series of implications on the construction of microtonality, a sinusoidal or collectively wild mass, more or less in force of expansion and created on the spot;
-quartets are constructed in such a way as to bring into contact the essences, the genes of the musicians' personalities: the Gordoa/De Joode/Schiaffini/Wachsmann quartet brings into play many extensions, fragmentations, fractious melodies and other sonic 'sciaccallaggi' that nonetheless incredibly sustain the musical discourse; Casserley gives subsonicity to the quartet with Gordoa/Heather/Narvesen (can one speak of acousmatic improvisation? ) or a covering background to the seething, acidic quartet held with Sjöström, Mureddu and Wachsmann; the quatern Bauer, Floridis, Heather and Mureddu instead gives the idea of energy and jamming, a powder keg of instincts played out in the reckless revolution that improvisation wants to achieve;
-the two quintets occupy the central part of the performances and are rare listening privileges: the one by De Joode/Narvesen/Tramontana/Sjöström and Wachsmann is an empathetic interlocking that displays its own coherent development, instrumental voices of the highest level that wreak havoc but at the same time propose an incandescent sound entity all to be deciphered; the other quintet sees a contrabass contrast (De Joode and Bauer as propellers on double bass) against brass (the 2 trombones, those of Schiaffini and Tramontana and Floridis alienating on clarinet), an example of how to provide a courtly idea of movement and dialogue.
SoundScapes Festival #3 inevitably brings to mind the most beautiful operations of group improvisation, sociability and the regenerating experience presented to our ears, but it also has many other qualities, both individual and collective: the climate of those evenings was conducive to real realisations of great depth, everyone playing and improvising at the top of their musical intelligences as well as their natural impulses, making the sequences thunder without inappropriate interpositions. One realises that beyond the generations involved, these musicians share a common spirit and a natural predisposition for satisfyingly connecting sound architectures.
Ettore Garzia
Music writer and founder of Percorsi Musicali, a multi-genre magazine focused on contemporary music and improvisation's forms. He wrote hundreads of essays and reviews of cds and books (over 1800 articles) and his work is widely appreciated in Italy and abroad via quotations, texts' translations, biographies, liner notes for prestigious composers, musicians and labels. He provides a modern conception of musical listening, which meditates on history, on the aesthetic seductions of sounds, on interdisciplinary relationships with other arts and cognitive sciences. He is also a graduate in Economics.
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The Treasures Are
Guilherme Rodrigues & Harri Sjöström
Dialogue of Insects
review by José Oliveira
How amazing! Suddenly, as if time had accelerated, here, two generations of improvisers meet in a conversation in which nothing is left out and nothing is left to chance. These two exceptional musicians, both living in Berlin, this astonishing city where everything important actually happens, join forces for a memorable session.
On this disk, Harri Sjöström, one of those musicians who have greatly influenced the long and rich history of European improvised music, and Guilherme Rodrigues, performer of already unquestionable acclaim within the new generation of Portuguese improvisers, show a compatibility and complementarity rarely found within the current panorama of free music. In fact both – the founder of the legendary Quintet Moderne and the young cellist born in Lisbon – demonstrate an exceptional proficiency with their respective instruments in this breathtaking session, creating a sound in which sopranino/soprano saxophone and cello combine and contrast, thus bringing forth an unfamiliar, yet distinctly European idiom that owes a lot to the history of jazz (and the legacy of Giuffre, Lacy, or Dolphy) as well as contemporary music, reminiscences of which are so clear sometimes.
And when at times Rodrigues brings his cello closer to the sonority and the language of the double bass (in the pizzicato streaks) (and the legacy of Tom Cora, Tristan Honsinger, Ernst Reijseger or David Holland) or Sjöström hints at a ballad of anarchic melancholy, soon a sudden change of direction occurs in the return to a pointillist abstraction, made of unforgettable syncopated fragments – albeit without ever neglecting the dialogue in this conversation about everything and nothing, which the two musicians fuel with their virtuosity in an unparalleled fashion throughout.
The collaboration of these two formidable alien insects, with their austere, intimate voices, has to be classed as chamber music. And, remarkably, this exceptional duo confirms the future of European improvised music in this fortunate meeting of two masters.
José Oliveira
Lisbon, March 2019
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HARRI SYSTEMS / GUILHERME RODRIGUES: The Treasures Are [Creative Sources Recordings, 2019] The second album featuring Harri Sjöström (soprano and soprano saxophone) is "The Treasures Are". He works with a cellist of a slightly younger generation, Portuguese Guilherme Rodrigues. The album is released by our well-known Portuguese Creative Sources Recordings, but it should not be recorded in Portugal, but in Berlin - where the two musicians reside.
"The Treasures Are" contains twenty tracks, ranging from one minute (exactly), to 7:54 (the longest in time). There are, as you realize, many themes ranging from one to two minutes on the CD and other varied. It is, therefore, a series of 'exercises', which test not only the capabilities of the three bodies, but also the strengths and ingenuities of the performers.
The result is radical. If Sjöström's saxophones recall the master of the instrument Steve Lacy, Rodrigues's cello plays, sometimes even substituting for the bass, refer to the long improv history of the instrument, and basically Tom Cora. Lyrical and melancholy moments alternate with loud and noisy, playful ones are replaced by other jokes, explosions and lunatics are uninterrupted, while references, which can start from "room" soundtracks and end up in jazz, end up in jazz and essential and ... condemning as to what is heard here and also how it is heard (eg seventeenth from "Treasures I-XX", with incredible timbre).
Contact: www.harrisjostrom.com Posted by FONTAS TROUSAS / PHONTAS TROUSSAS at 1:08 pm Email BlogThis! Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest Tags improv, jazz
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The Treasures Are
Guilherme Rodrigues & Harri Sjöström
Creative Sources CS605CD
Un duo violoncelle (Guilherme Rodrigues) et saxophone soprano et sopranino (Harri Sjöström) basé à Berlin. Guilherme est attaché à la mouvance Creative Sources, label portugais dirigé par son père Ernesto et pour lequel il a enregistré une quantité innombrable d’albums dans la veine lower-case « minimaliste radicale. Harri Sjöström est connu pour avoir joué régulièrement avec Cecil Taylor, Phil Wachsmann, Paul Lovens, Gianni Mimmo. Dans cet opus enthousiasmant, Guilherme nous fait découvrir son talent de violoncelliste plus proche de la tessiture « normale» de l’instrument en totale empathie avec le jeu étiré, serpentin et intense d’Harri Sjöström. Chacun d’eux mettent en valeur une pluralité de caractères sonores expressifs, vibrants, cachés, découverts dans l’instant de leurs instruments respectifs. Angles, accents, épures, sursauts, extrêmes, graves ou suraigus. On pourra comparer avec le duo de Gianni Mimmo et Daniel Levin qui partage la même instrumentation (Turbulent Flow /Amirani). Ce que j’apprécie particulièrement dans ces Treasures est l’éventail follement exhaustif de très nombreuses variations dans le choix des timbres et les imbrications, tuilages, juxtapositions, contrastes, enchaînements, tournoiements, qui les associent et nous donnent le tournis. Une forme de virtuosité véloce est contournée au profit d’une expressivité intense, d’échanges fructueux au niveau des palettes, des couleurs, des reflets rougeoyants, ambrés, ocres, fauves …. Je ne peux m'empêcher de réécouter cette merveilleuse suite d’histoires aux multiples rebondissements. C’est assurément un enregistrement unique de deux individus ouverts l’un à l’autre et qui dépasse leur valeur intrinsèque propre, grâce à leur intense écoute mutuelle et la compréhension profonde de leurs registres intimes particuliers à partager expressément dans leur rencontre. Une musique pleine de plaisirs et de générosités. Un très grand disque.
13 novembre 2019
Jean-Michel van Schouwburg
https://orynx-improvandsounds.blogspot.com/2019/11/guilherme-rodrigues-harri-sjostrom.html?m=1
English Translation
The Treasures Are
Guilherme Rodrigues & Harri Sjöström
Creative Sources CS605CD
A cello (Guilherme Rodrigues) and soprano-/sopraninosaxophone (Harri Sjöström) duo based in Berlin. Guilherme is attached to the Creative Sources movement, a Portuguese label directed by his father Ernesto and for which he has recorded an innumerable number of albums in the lower-case vein "minimalist radical". Harri Sjöström is known to have played regularly with Cecil Taylor and plays with Phil Wachsmann, Paul Lovens and Gianni Mimmo… . In this enthusiastic opus, Guilherme makes us discover his talent as a cellist closer to the "normal" range of the instrument in total empathy with Harri Sjöström's stretched, serpentine and intense play. Each of them develops a plurality of expressive, vibrating, hidden sound characters, discovered in the moment of their respective instruments. Angles, accents, sketches, bursts, extremes, serious or superimposed. We can compare with the duo of Gianni Mimmo and Daniel Levin which shares the same instrumentation (Turbulent Flow / Amirani). What I particularly like in these Treasures is the wildly exhaustive range of many variations in the choice of timbres and the interweaving, tiling, juxtapositions, contrasts, sequences, tournaments, which combine them and make us dizzy. A form of swift virtuosity is bypassed in favor of intense expressiveness, fruitful exchanges at the level of palettes, colors, glowing reflections, amber, ocher, tawny… .I can not help but to listen again to this wonderful series of stories with multiple twists. It is certainly a unique record of two individuals open to each other and beyond their intrinsic value, thanks to their intense mutual listening and deep understanding of their particular intimate registers to expressly share in their encounter. A music full of pleasures and generosities. A very big disk.
November 13, 2019
Jean-Michel van Schouwburg
https://orynx-improvandsounds.blogspot.com/2019/11/guilherme-rodrigues-harri-sjostrom.html?m=1
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AMN ReviewsAMN Reviews: The Balderin Sali Variations – Boreal Delights At the Soundscape & Soundportraits Festival – 2018 [Leo Records CD LR 870/871]; Harri Sjöström & Guilherme Rodrigues – The Treasures Are [Creative Sources Records cs605]
The most striking thing about the music on this two-CD set is its intelligent handling of space and color—striking, but not surprising, as that is one of the hallmarks of European free improvisation. The ensemble accomplishes this by setting up relationships that naturally vary the densities and timbres that come into play. The thirteen tracks are bookended by improvisations for the full ensemble; in between are improvisations for sub-groupings in sizes ranging from duos to quintets. Some of these subgroupings make for inspired instrumental combinations: soprano saxophone and violin; drums, trombone, and piano; soprano saxophone and quarter-tone accordion.
Another inspired, multi-generational combination of musicians is to be found on The Treasures Are, a duo recording from Sjöström and the younger cellist Guilherme Rodrigues. All of the music on the recording presumably was improvised, but the quality of the interplay is such that parts sound as if they had been composed prior to the performance. Much of the credit for this goes to Rodrigues, who seems largely to be responding to Sjöström’s inventive leads throughout much of the recording. Rodrigues has an almost telepathic ability to complete Sjöström’s phrases, create lucid, coherent harmonies from Sjöström’s melodies, and spin Sjöström’s lines into impromptu canons. Both Sjöström and Rodrigues take the music to many places–from abstract expressionist squeals and squeaks, through freely atonal lyricism, to quasi-conventional harmony—without losing a sense of continuity or stalling for time. In sum, a quite beautiful performance of contemporary European improvised music from two highly attuned players.
http://www.leorecords.com/
https://creativesourcesrec.com/
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MOVE IN MOERS
by Ettore Garzia:
http://www.percorsimusicali.eu/2021/05/26/le-illusioni-di-move-in-moers/
Painting "Building Greyness" by Thomas Nyqvist, CD cover of Move In Moers
Più di cinquanta anni fa, la logica filosofica dell’interpretazione della realtà non sembrava mai essere messa in discussione. I francesi teorici di un cambiamento percettivo come Derrida o Deleuze o i pensatori italiani come Eco e Vattimo, nonché una schiera infinita di artisti appartenenti alle varie diramazioni dell’arte, ne accoglievano la rilevanza in un mondo che sembrava quasi prestarsi naturalmente ad un’ermeneutica soggettivistica. Sappiamo che il ventunesimo secolo ha cambiato alcune prospettive ma non ha messo in dubbio che l’arte possa essere oggetto di ricombinazioni di cui si possa valutare il senso in modi differenti, fornendo proprie visioni. L’improvvisazione libera cade esattamente in quest’area di pensiero, è una pratica in cui la complessità del messaggio gioca a favore di una plurima interpretazione, ma guai pensare che sia un’arte accessibile e senza nessun bisogno di essere spiegata: in questo modo non si potrebbero apprezzare le sue ricchezze, la sua continua e mai effimera volubilità, il superamento delle incognite sonore che è in grado di offrire un ascolto mediato dalla conoscenza.
Un ottimo esempio delle qualità che possono rinvenirsi da un set improvvisativo ce lo offrono i Move, quintetto formato da Harri Sjöström (al soprano e sopranino sax), Achim Kaufmann (pianoforte), Adam Pultz Melbye (contrabbasso), Dag Magnus Narvesen (batteria) ed Emilio Gordoa (vibrafono): seconda pubblicazione discografica dopo Hyvinkää del 2017, il recentissimo Move In Moers documenta un bellissimo concerto tenuto durante il festival di Moers nel giugno del 2019; è un’aggregazione che ha un suo modo di porsi, che si impegna sulla lunga distanza (si tratta di esibizioni intorno ai 40 minuti) e non ha certamente un timing equilibrato dell’espressione (non segue un progetto coerente del tipo tensione-rilascio-tensione). I cinque musicisti mettono in campo tutta la loro esperienza, sono in grado di provocare scenari astratti con grande capacità di sapersi ascoltare, di ottenere una progettazione mimetica: è un sincronismo che suggerisce ambientazione, climi stemperati, obliquità ma anche rapide veloci, congestioni, sinossi percussive.
Per Move In Moers ognuno fa benissimo la sua parte: Sjöström ha un compito importante perché è colui che si adatta e stabilizza le situazioni musicali; lo stile e l’ampiezza di tecniche e forme dà luogo a legati velocissimi, lavorazioni sui registri, soffocamenti dei suoni, arpeggi con la figurazione del volo, multifonici, borbottii, frammentazioni; Harri è decisamente ancora oggi uno dei migliori sopranisti in circolazione e in alcuni momenti riesce a dare persino l’impressione che il suo strumenti si “pieghi”, tanto è veloce la legatura delle note.
Kaufmann è alla caccia di pendenze, di ambiguità che si esprimono in accordi che ti sbattono il cervello in un’altra dimensione, coadiuvato benissimo da Adam Pultz Melbye (a cui sembra far veramente difetto la funzione ritmica) e dai due percussionisti che si inseriscono a loro modo nelle trame accattivanti della musica. Ci sono un paio di pause relativamente melliflue, in cui trovare qualche tonfo acustico, somatizzazioni e ricerca di somiglianza timbrica, ma in generale sono pause portatrici di distruzione focale; nei trend più dinamici il quintetto si muove pensando al Cecil Taylor d’annata, con Sjöström che vi regala l’oggettiva sensazione dell’aquila impazzita, ma direi che ci sono momenti in cui torna brevemente alla memoria anche il mood del Miles Davis della psicosi jungle.
Move In Moers, dunque, è come un bel dipinto da analizzare e non è un caso che la cover del cd sia una rappresentazione astratta di un quadro di Thomas Nyqvist, pittore finlandese che guarda molto ai concetti di “rovina” e “grigiore” interpretativo: nel nostro caso il versante dell’analisi si sposta sull’illusione, sul potere di intercettare dei soundscapes senza poterli ascrivere a nessuna realtà; ma come sono queste illusioni? Certamente non sono sogni o allucinazioni quelli del quintetto Move, ma un’area del pensiero in cui il disordine formale è l’elemento in grado di alimentare paradossalmente la comprensione e come nel dipinto di Nyqvist c’è l’accenno strutturale delle rovine, così la musica di Move In Moers suscita un’informale demolizione acustica con pochi e selettivi approfondimenti concreti. E in questa “interpretazione” la musica acquista senza dubbio una singolarità tutta da godere.photo painting Building Greyness by Thomas Nyqvist, CD cover of Move In Moers
Più di cinquanta anni fa, la logica filosofica dell’interpretazione della realtà non sembrava mai essere messa in discussione. I francesi teorici di un cambiamento percettivo come Derrida o Deleuze o i pensatori italiani come Eco e Vattimo, nonché una schiera infinita di artisti appartenenti alle varie diramazioni dell’arte, ne accoglievano la rilevanza in un mondo che sembrava quasi prestarsi naturalmente ad un’ermeneutica soggettivistica. Sappiamo che il ventunesimo secolo ha cambiato alcune prospettive ma non ha messo in dubbio che l’arte possa essere oggetto di ricombinazioni di cui si possa valutare il senso in modi differenti, fornendo proprie visioni. L’improvvisazione libera cade esattamente in quest’area di pensiero, è una pratica in cui la complessità del messaggio gioca a favore di una plurima interpretazione, ma guai pensare che sia un’arte accessibile e senza nessun bisogno di essere spiegata: in questo modo non si potrebbero apprezzare le sue ricchezze, la sua continua e mai effimera volubilità, il superamento delle incognite sonore che è in grado di offrire un ascolto mediato dalla conoscenza.
Un ottimo esempio delle qualità che possono rinvenirsi da un set improvvisativo ce lo offrono i Move, quintetto formato da Harri Sjöström (al soprano e sopranino sax), Achim Kaufmann (pianoforte), Adam Pultz Melbye (contrabbasso), Dag Magnus Narvesen (batteria) ed Emilio Gordoa (vibrafono): seconda pubblicazione discografica dopo Hyvinkää del 2017, il recentissimo Move In Moers documenta un bellissimo concerto tenuto durante il festival di Moers nel giugno del 2019; è un’aggregazione che ha un suo modo di porsi, che si impegna sulla lunga distanza (si tratta di esibizioni intorno ai 40 minuti) e non ha certamente un timing equilibrato dell’espressione (non segue un progetto coerente del tipo tensione-rilascio-tensione). I cinque musicisti mettono in campo tutta la loro esperienza, sono in grado di provocare scenari astratti con grande capacità di sapersi ascoltare, di ottenere una progettazione mimetica: è un sincronismo che suggerisce ambientazione, climi stemperati, obliquità ma anche rapide veloci, congestioni, sinossi percussive.
Per Move In Moers ognuno fa benissimo la sua parte: Sjöström ha un compito importante perché è colui che si adatta e stabilizza le situazioni musicali; lo stile e l’ampiezza di tecniche e forme dà luogo a legati velocissimi, lavorazioni sui registri, soffocamenti dei suoni, arpeggi con la figurazione del volo, multifonici, borbottii, frammentazioni; Harri è decisamente ancora oggi uno dei migliori sopranisti in circolazione e in alcuni momenti riesce a dare persino l’impressione che il suo strumenti si “pieghi”, tanto è veloce la legatura delle note.
Kaufmann è alla caccia di pendenze, di ambiguità che si esprimono in accordi che ti sbattono il cervello in un’altra dimensione, coadiuvato benissimo da Adam Pultz Melbye (a cui sembra far veramente difetto la funzione ritmica) e dai due percussionisti che si inseriscono a loro modo nelle trame accattivanti della musica. Ci sono un paio di pause relativamente melliflue, in cui trovare qualche tonfo acustico, somatizzazioni e ricerca di somiglianza timbrica, ma in generale sono pause portatrici di distruzione focale; nei trend più dinamici il quintetto si muove pensando al Cecil Taylor d’annata, con Sjöström che vi regala l’oggettiva sensazione dell’aquila impazzita, ma direi che ci sono momenti in cui torna brevemente alla memoria anche il mood del Miles Davis della psicosi jungle.
Move In Moers, dunque, è come un bel dipinto da analizzare e non è un caso che la cover del cd sia una rappresentazione astratta di un quadro di Thomas Nyqvist, pittore finlandese che guarda molto ai concetti di “rovina” e “grigiore” interpretativo: nel nostro caso il versante dell’analisi si sposta sull’illusione, sul potere di intercettare dei soundscapes senza poterli ascrivere a nessuna realtà; ma come sono queste illusioni? Certamente non sono sogni o allucinazioni quelli del quintetto Move, ma un’area del pensiero in cui il disordine formale è l’elemento in grado di alimentare paradossalmente la comprensione e come nel dipinto di Nyqvist c’è l’accenno strutturale delle rovine, così la musica di Move In Moers suscita un’informale demolizione acustica con pochi e selettivi approfondimenti concreti. E in questa “interpretazione” la musica acquista senza dubbio una singolarità tutta da godere.
English Translation
Ettore Garzia
http://www.percorsimusicali.eu/2021/05/26/le-illusioni-di-move-in-moers/
Painting "Building Greyness" by Thomas Nyqvist, CD cover of Move In Moers
More than fifty years ago, the philosophical logic of interpreting reality never seemed to be questioned. French theorists of perceptual change such as Derrida or Deleuze or Italian thinkers such as Eco and Vattimo, as well as an endless array of artists from the various branches of art, accepted its relevance in a world that seemed to lend itself almost naturally to a subjectivistic hermeneutic. We know that the twenty-first century has changed some perspectives, but it has not cast doubt on the fact that art can be the subject of recombinations whose meaning can be assessed in different ways, providing our own visions. Free improvisation falls exactly in this area of thought, it is a practice in which the complexity of the message plays in favour of a multiple interpretation, but woe betide thinking that it is an accessible art with no need to be explained: in this way one would not be able to appreciate its riches, its continuous and never ephemeral fickleness, the overcoming of sound unknowns that a listening mediated by knowledge is able to offer.
An excellent example of the qualities that can be found in an improvisational set is offered by Move, a quintet formed by Harri Sjöström (soprano and sopranino sax), Achim Kaufmann (piano), Adam Pultz Melbye (double bass), Dag Magnus Narvesen (drums) and Emilio Gordoa (vibraphone): second discographic release after 2017's Hyvinkää, the very recent Move In Moers documents a beautiful concert held during the Moers festival in June 2019; it is an aggregation that has its own way of posing, that commits to the long distance (these are performances around 40 minutes) and certainly does not have a balanced timing of expression (it does not follow a coherent project of the tension-release-tension type). The five musicians bring all their experience to bear, they are able to provoke abstract scenarios with a great ability to know how to listen to each other, to achieve a mimetic design: it is a synchronism that suggests ambience, diluted climates, obliquities but also fast rapids, congestions, percussive synopses.
Sjöström has an important task because he is the one who adapts and stabilises the musical situations; the style and breadth of techniques and forms gives rise to very fast legato, working on registers, suffocating sounds, arpeggios with the figuration of flight, multiphonics, mumbling, fragmentations; Harri is definitely still one of the best sopranos in circulation today and in some moments he even manages to give the impression that his instruments are "bending", so fast is the note-binding.
Kaufmann is on the hunt for slopes, for ambiguities that are expressed in chords that whip your brain into another dimension, assisted very well by Adam Pultz Melbye (whose function seems larger and more than a rhythmical) and by the two percussionists who in their own way fit into the music's captivating textures. There are a couple of relatively mellifluous pauses, where you can find some acoustic thudding, somatisations and a search for timbral similarity, but in general they are pauses that bring focal destruction; in the more dynamic trends the quintet moves with the vintage Cecil Taylor in mind, with Sjöström giving you the objective sensation of a crazed eagle, but I would say that there are moments when the mood of the Miles Davis of jungle psychosis briefly comes to mind.
Move In Moers, then, is like a beautiful painting to be analysed and it is no coincidence that the cover of the CD is an abstract representation of a painting by Thomas Nyqvist, Finnish painter who looks a lot to the concepts of "ruin" and "greyness" interpretative: in our case the side of the analysis shifts on the illusion, the power to intercept the soundscapes without being able to ascribe them to any reality, but what are these illusions? Certainly the Move quintet's illusions are not dreams or hallucinations, but an area of thought in which formal disorder is the element capable of paradoxically nourishing understanding, and just as in Nyqvist's painting there is the structural hint of ruins, so the music of Move In Moers provokes an informal acoustic demolition with few and selective concrete insights. And in this "interpretation" the music undoubtedly acquires a singularity to be enjoyed.
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MOVE IN MOERS
by Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
https://orynx-improvandsounds.blogspot.com/2021/05/samo-kutin-lee-patterson-achim-kaufmann.html
Un concert au festival de Moers en juin 2019 durant 43 minutes bien remplies qui se déroulent en rubans improvisés souples et saccadés dans une musique excellemment construite. Chacun s’affirme par petites touches et vagues sonores mesurées, le saxophone sopranino d’Harri Sjöström étire les notes avec une articulation d’oiseau des îles, lunaire et sautillant pour lequel le pianiste Achim Kaufmann trace des accords clairsemés de notes oscillantes. La batterie de Dag Magnus Narvesen résonne à peine sous les frappes précises et aléatoires décortiquant les pulsations comme si on secouait un mobilier précieux. Adam Pultz Melbye frotte consciencieusement les cordes émettant des vibrations boisées et sourdes alors que le vibraphoniste Emilio Gordoa émet des signaux liquides et volatiles. Volatile est l’adjectif qui s’applique aux spirales et ellipses en coin du souffleur, élève de Steve Lacy qui évite soigneusement les modèles pour se concentrer dans une colloquialité d’oiseau parleur redistribuant gammes et intervalles et déchiquetant la pâte sonore à belles dents. Un sens de la prononciation achevé, même dans la frénésie. Cela finit par tournoyer grave avec un sens de l’équilibre précaire et reconsidéré au fil des secondes. Chacun des musiciens garde sa place tout en métamorphosant et s’échangeant les rôles au sein du quintet où tout le monde dirige et invente figures, signes, cadences, timbres, sonorités… Une belle anarchie assumée où chacun trouve sa place, sa partie, son espace. Le pianiste fait vibrer des harmoniques en calant les cordes alors que cela frotte, sussure, grince, avec des sons aigus flottant et interférant dans l’atmosphère dilatée ou contractée selon l’humeur et l’état d’esprit du moment. Une capacité à faire évoluer et transformer le paysage et l’intensité de l’ensemble, avec ses audaces, ses hésitations, ses lenteurs et ses fureurs. Le point de non-retour du free jazz dont il maintient adroitement des éléments expressifs et architectoniques. Savant dosage dans la répartition instrumentale et individuelle des actions improvisées dans l’instant. Remarquable quintet issu de la très active scène Berlinoise.
English Translation
A concert at the Moers Festival in June 2019 for 43 packed minutes that unfold in smooth, jerky improvised ribbons in excellently constructed music. Each asserts itself in small, measured touches and waves of sound, Harri Sjöström's sopranino saxophone stretches the notes with an island bird articulation, lunar and bouncy for which pianist Achim Kaufmann traces sparse chords of oscillating notes. Dag Magnus Narvesen's drums barely resonate under the precise, random strikes that peel back the pulses like shaking precious furniture. Adam Pultz Melbye dutifully rubs the strings emitting muted, woody vibrations while vibraphonist Emilio Gordoa emits liquid, volatile signals. Volatile is the adjective that applies to the spirals and wedge-shaped ellipses of the blower, a pupil of Steve Lacy who carefully avoids patterns to concentrate in a talking bird colloquiality redistributing scales and intervals and shredding the sonic pulp to death. A perfect sense of pronunciation, even in the frenzy. It ends up swirling low with a sense of balance that is precarious and reconsidered as the seconds pass. Each of the musicians keeps his place while changing and exchanging roles within the quintet where everyone directs and invents figures, signs, cadences, timbres, sonorities... A beautiful anarchy assumed where everyone finds his place, his part, his space. The pianist makes harmonics vibrate by adjusting the strings while it rubs, sings, squeaks, with high-pitched sounds floating and interfering in the dilated or contracted atmosphere according to the mood and the state of mind of the moment. An ability to make the landscape and the intensity of the whole evolve and transform, with its audacities, hesitations, slowness and fury. The point of no return of free jazz, of which he skilfully maintains expressive and architectural elements. A skilful balance in the instrumental and individual distribution of improvised actions in the moment. A remarkable quintet from the very active Berlin scene.
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
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DUOS & TRIOS
Armaroli / Schiaffini / Sjöström
Leo Records, Year 2019
Improvised music still has something special that is not just the radicality with which it has been defined in the past. There is also a "soft" approach to dialogue, almost passionate, as demonstrated by this trio consisting of Giancarlo Schiaffini on trombone, Sergio Armaroli on vibraphone and Harri Sjöström on soprano and sopranino saxophone. The idea of involving the Finnish musician, who has been living in Berlin for some time, came from Armaroli, who records him in nine performances as a duo, the other three, for over half an hour of the long record, seventy minutes, are in trio. It is a very special sound that stands out against the silence, between the metallic notes of the vibraphone and the sax of Sjöström, poetic, dreamy, even when he goes to look for the higher notes of his sopranino. It is a dialogue that works, which involves precisely because of this quiet aspect, in its own sentimental way, which proceeds enveloping the attentive listener. When Schiaffini arrives, at the beginning and then in the two final tracks of the disc, the music is enriched with a new element which however does not alter the basic balance, the three are perfectly in tune with the direction to take. The result is a nice, mature record that does not want to scare anyone but to be listened to, to communicate, to leave a sentimental trace even in the moments when the dialogue becomes more intense, in what is improvised music in Europe.
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DUOS & TRIOS
by Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
Quel plaisir de retrouver l’irrésistible tromboniste Giancarlo Schiaffini dans le Trio One qui ouvre ce bel album Trios and Duos. Schiaffini, le vibraphoniste Sergio Armaroli et le saxophoniste soprano Harri Sjöström jouent dans trois Trios (One, Two et Three) les deux autres étant situés à la fin du disque, entourant pas moins de huit duos Armaroli/ Sjöström. On aurait aimé entendre plus longtemps le tromboniste Italien pour chacun de ses notes, celles-ci étant calibrées chacun avec un timbre, un accent, un effet, une densité particulière comme un Roswell Rudd qui s’inspirerait de Paul Rutherford. Mais en fait nous ne perdons pas au change, les qualités d’improvisateur original de Schiaffini s’applique aussi à Harri Sjöström, un véritable orfèvre du sax soprano, élève de Steve Lacy dont il partage beaucoup de qualités au point de vue de la sonorité et de la « simplicité » complexe de son jeu. Chaque note est soupesée, travaillée, émise avec une précision remarquable comme si elle était habitée d’une vie indépendante, comme si elle paraissait être des signes visuels articulés dans une écriture mystérieuse pleine de significations. Ses improvisations développent une belle dimension narrative avec un style tout – à fait, personnel, lyrique précis et chaleureux. Son collègue Sergio Armaroli cultive un jeu aérien et délicat, toutes notes suspendues et flottant dans l’espace, le timbre des lames s’échappant dans l’infini du silence comme dans Duet Six, la plus longue des courtes improvisations. Celles-ci tournent entre deux et quatre ou six minutes et Duet Six atteint 10:43. Pour notre plus grand bonheur la dernière improvisation, Trio Two, dure 22:36 et rassemble les trois musiciens, nous permettant de nous régaler de la présence du tromboniste Giancarlo Schiaffini. En fait, je considère que le trombone était l’instrument (ou un des instruments) phare de la révolution « musique improvisée libre » européenne. Et donc en ce qui me concerne, Schiaffini (comme Rutherford, Christmann, Malfatti, les Bauer, Paul Hubweber ou encore Sarah Brand) est un pionnier incontournable. Il faut l’entendre travailler le son, ses glissandi dans le grave, vocaliser dans le pavillon, vibrer la colonne d’air, la compresser etc… Un magnifique alter-ego pour le distingué Harri Sjöström dont l’articulation fait merveille. Le jeu zigzagant et sautillant du vibraphoniste Sergio Armaroli et sa vision libertaire de l'instrument, crée une troisième dimension, un relief à la fois éthéré, transparent et substantiel, qui contribue à l’architecture des échanges, traçant des écrins choisis pour les vents inspirés. Une merveilleuse musique de chambre.
English Translation
What a pleasure to find the irresistible trombonist Giancarlo Schiaffini in the Trio One which opens this beautiful album Trios and Duos. Schiaffini, vibraphonist Sergio Armaroli and soprano saxophonist Harri Sjöström play in three Trios (One, Two and Three) the other two being located at the end of the record, surrounding no less than eight Armaroli / Sjöström duos. We would have liked to hear the Italian trombonist longer for each of his notes, each one calibrated with a particular timbre, accent, effect, density like a Roswell Rudd inspired by Paul Rutherford. But in fact we do not lose out, the qualities of Schiaffini's original improviser also apply to Harri Sjöström, a true silversmith of the soprano sax, pupil of Steve Lacy with whom he shares many qualities in terms of sound. and the complex "simplicity" of its playing. Each note is weighed, worked, emitted with remarkable precision as if it were inhabited by an independent life, as if it seemed to be visual signs articulated in a mysterious writing full of meanings . His improvisations develop a beautiful narrative dimension with a style completely - personal, precise and warm lyrical. His colleague Sergio Armaroli cultivates an aerial and delicate game, all notes suspended and floating in space, the timbre of the blades escaping into the infinite silence as in Duet Six, the longest of the short improvisations. These run between two and four or six minutes and Duet Six reaches 10:43. To our delight, the last improvisation, Trio Two, lasts 22:36 and brings together the three musicians, allowing us to enjoy the presence of trombonist Giancarlo Schiaffini. In fact, I consider the trombone to be the flagship instrument (or one of the instruments) of the European "free improvised music" revolution. And so in my case, Schiaffini (like Rutherford, Christmann, Malfatti, the Bauers, Paul Hubweber or Sarah Brand) is an essential pioneer. You have to hear it working on the sound, its glissandi in the bass, vocalizing in the horn, vibrating the air column, compressing it etc ... A magnificent alter-ego for the distinguished Harri Sjöström whose articulation is marvelous. The zigzagging and hopping play of vibraphonist Sergio Armaroli and his libertarian vision of the instrument, creates a third dimension, a relief that is at the same time ethereal, transparent and substantial, which contributes to the architecture of exchanges, tracing cases chosen for the winds. inspired. Wonderful chamber music.
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
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SESTETTO INTERNAZIONALE
Saint Vitus’ Dance at the ‘Lighght’
by Martin Burger, on Jazzpodium 3/19
(Translation Angelika Michitsch)
And yet another ‘Offene Ohren e.V.’ [The Open Ears Society] line-up at the MUG [Underground at the Einstein, Munich], programmed somewhere between the more experimental side of jazz and freestyle contemporary art music: the Sestetto Internazionale, put together by the Finnish soprano saxophonist Harri Sjöström.
Half of the Sestetto consists of the Trio Internazionale – soprano saxophonists Gianni Mimmo and Sjöström together with the Finnish universal accordionist Veli Kujala, who had already impressed at the Einstein venue 3 years ago.
The instrumentation of the other half is no less exceptional: the English Alison Blunt, violin, Achim Kaufmann from Berlin playing the piano, Ignaz Schick operating the turntables.
It’s no exaggeration to say that this was a magical evening that took you beyond all established musical categories. The rapport of the six musicians – their somnambulistic awareness of each other – was obvious from Sjöström’s first delicate sax tones onward. Mimmo leads with a melancholic melody line, transforms it into animated passages, then accents from Kujala’s almost imperceptible quarter-tone accordion. The piano starts, Blunt takes on Mimmo’s melody and expands, followed by the first turntable samples that sound as if they simply can't help but glisten and twinkle at exactly this moment in time, in exactly this sequence. By then you are trapped, subject to the spell of these six musicians who most of all listen to each other.
No-one plays to be the first, no-one needs to prove their ego, and yet there are six distinct individuals - weaving an acoustic fabric with feeling for detail, an infallible sense of how to develop this group composition, and with much humor.
This first part, some 40 minutes long, gives rise to much anticipation for the duo miniatures promised to follow. The duos! Mimmo and Blunt tenderly swirl around each other unisono, diametric and emotionally charged in a veritable cascade of sound. Then piano and turntables carry us off to intergalactic aural spheres where jollity and drama indulge each other and every sonic development holds new surprises.
The Finnish duo tops: at first microtonal and intricate soundscapes that command utter concentration, only for the soprano sax and accordion to climb into a speedy dervish-like St Vitus’ dance that in the end leaves musicians and audience stunned, breathless and in awe. ‘You never know it before! You never know it before!’ Sjöström celebrates later.
Another sextet piece followed – this time frugal consonant and dissonant expansions of tone and interferences, repetitive sequencing reminiscent of the instruments’ linear moods and intonations that soon resolve into multi-melodious modulations. More than once the listeners are tasked to decide which of the complex and simultaneously evolving sound images to follow.
Needless to say, the applause demands an encore – Sjöström announces ‘Pikku Pala’ (a little piece).
As luck would have it, the public-service radio station Bayerischer Rundfunk recorded this highlight live: BR-Klassik will broadcast the concert on 14th June 2019. This music deserves to be listened to again. Just as much as attention should be paid to the Offene Ohren society’s spirited programming.
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Aural Vertigo
Sestetto Internazionale
All About Jazz review:
By DANIEL BARBIERO
July 9, 2017
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The Sestetto Internazionale is a truly international group of European musicians, having been put together by Finnish soprano saxophonist Harri Sjöström for a September 2015 tour of Finland. In addition to Sjöström, the sextet includes fellow Finn accordionist Veli Kujala; the masterful Italian soprano saxophonist Gianni Mimmo; UK violinist Alison Blunt; and the Germans Achim Kaufmann and Ignaz Schick on piano and turntables, respectively. This exciting live recording captures the ensemble's concerts at Helsinki and Turku, each of which is represented by one long track.
The makeup of the group is unusual even for a free improvisation ensemble unbound by conventions governing instrumentation. To begin with, there's an intriguing, built-in redundancy of function and range. Three of the instruments—the violin and the two soprano saxophones—are of similar compass, while the piano and quartertone accordion are both chording instruments. The quartertone accordion in itself adds an unusual flavor, but when paired with either the tempered piano or the violin, it opens up the possibility of dissolving conventional harmonies into less-determinate pitch bands. The addition of turntables to this acoustic grouping further multiplies the potential for novel sound combinations.
Accordingly, the music here is music of detail. Movement doesn't come by way of harmonic change but rather by way of shadings of timbre and pitch. The overlap in range of soprano saxophones and violin shapes much of the sound profile, setting up contrasts between reeds and strings or even between reeds, as when Sjöström uses a mute in contraposition to Mimmo's more open-voiced sound. But contrast is as much a matter of identity as it is of difference, as when the coincidence of pitch erupting in the middle of a sound block or during a moment of unison playing will seem to summon a new instrument whose timbre is a composite of violin, saxophone and accordion.
In the end, it isn't the qualities of the instruments alone but rather the energy and finely-honed actions and interactions of the individual musicians that animate these pieces. The two saxophonists may play the same instrument but they do so quite differently; Sjöström constructs angular, hard-edged bursts that leap registers, while Mimmo favors longer lines built of carefully balanced, rounded phrases—he is a melodist as much as a colorist. Blunt, for her part, also pursues line but with an emphasis on the untempered side of the violin, whether playing micro tonally-inflected chords and passages following their own logic, or deftly deploying glissandi against Kujala's quarter tones. Underneath it all, Kaufmann's percussive pianism contributes an element of urgency and taut drama.
Much of the time the music is analogous to an abstract painting whose color fields move around over the picture plane. The picture plane in this case being Schick's turntables—a scuffy, static-permeated background much like a canvas of rough weave.
Track Listing: Aural; Vertigo
Personnel: Harri Sjöström: soprano and sopranino saxophones; Gianni Mimmo: soprano saxophone; Alison Blunt: violin; Achim Kaufmann: piano; Veli Kujala: quarter tone accordion; Ignaz Schick: turntables
Title: Aural Vertigo | Year Released: 2017 | Record Label: Amirani Records
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Liner Notes - Sestetto Internazionale
by Ulli Habersetzer - Bayerischer Rundfunk
Six sounds, six perspectives, six personalities.
The “Sestetto Internazinale” is unique in different ways. You won’t find this line up a second time: two sopranosaxophones, violine, piano, turntables and quartertone accordeon. Three high melody instruments and three instruments which act rhythmically and harmonically and melodically. But those cathegories don’t exist here. The only thing that counts is listening. These six worldclass improvisors like to create and expend sound scapes. It’s not about one great solo, it’s only about the collective.
The sound creature of “Sestetto Internazionale” is a wild one, edged, with pleasure, full of life.
Sechs Sounds, sechs Sichtweisen, sechs Charaktäre.
Das „Sestetto Internazionale“ ist gleich auf mehrere Arten einzigartig. Eine Besetzung, wie es sie nicht wieder gibt: zwei Sopransaxophone, Violine, Klavier, Turntables und Vierteltonakkordeon. Drei hohe Melodieinstrumente und drei Instrumente, die rhythmisch, harmonisch und melodisch ins Geschehen eingreifen können. Doch solche Kathegorien gibt es hier nicht. Was einzig zählt, ist das Zuhören. Die sechs Weltklasse-Improvisatoren wollen gemeinsam Klangräume schaffen und erweitern. Es geht nicht um die einzelne solistische Leistung, es geht nur um das Kollektiv.
Das Klanggeschöpf des „Sestetto Internazionale“ ist ein Wildes, ein Sperriges, ein Lustvolles, ein Lebendiges.
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ORBITS
ICTUS RECORDS
Andrea Centazzo, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Sergio Armaroli, Harri Sjöström
Album released on Andrea Centazzo's Ictus label, Orbits brings together two atypical blowers, the Finnish soprano saxophonist Harri Sjöström with his meticulous and intuitively melodic sound work and the Italian trombonist Giancarlo Schiaffini with his contrasting voice, gravelly and full of sonic nuances, and two percussionists, the Swiss vibraphonist Sergio Armaroli with an airy and delicate playing and the very fine Andrea Centazzo who diversifies with a mallet kat, very complementary to the vibraphone. The music takes place suspended or floating in space and everyone's improvisations imprint gravitational attractions as if their individual paths crossed in fields of attraction giving rise to subtle ellipses and sonic magnetisms. The basic principle of this atypical quartet is defined by a paradoxical feeling of static mobility or illusion of movement and of each person's independence from the whole. The crystalline vibrations of the vibraphone are punctuated by a volatile maraca (Orbits # 3) and joined by the sound punctuations of the two blowers. Each of the 13 improvisations develops its own dynamic and stages a new story +. The principle of Orbits consists in that one of the musicians begins to improvise - to play alone and is joined successively by the three others who come to place themselves in orbit each choosing his orbital position, his speed, his distance, the elliptical outline… This formula orchestral and its dynamics would evoke a little that of the group of Leo Smith with the vibraphonist Bobby Naughton, but the music of Orbits holds many other secrets which are worth to be discovered with the wire of successive listening. Harri Sjöström was Steve Lacy’s student and for a long time played with Cecil Taylor, Centazzo and Schiaffini are arguably among the few most important pioneers of free improvisation on the peninsula, and perhaps the most original. Listening to these superb Orbits, annotated by Evan Parker, we tell ourselves that they have not finished looking for new paths by fitting into Sergio Armaroli's concept-project. If Steve Lacy had been in a quartet sounding this way, fans and critics would have exclaimed in rapturous praise.
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
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ORBITS / STEPS
FEBRUARY 2022 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD
review by Steven Loewy
For more than three decades, percussionist, producer and organizer Andrea Centazzo has done a marvelous job documenting his work with a plethora of outstanding international musicians exploring various free improvisational strategies. His label Ictus Records has studiously catalogued these recordings, which form an impressive collection.
Steps is a trio of Centazzo with Finnish soprano saxophonist Harri Sjöström (who turns 70 this month) and vibraphonist Sergio Armaroli, with Centazzo’s longtime collaborator, trombonist Giancarlo Schiaffini, added on Orbits.
Orbits is a largely static, though powerful work. According to Evan Parker’s liner notes, one player begins improvising on each track and the others join in “… one by one, until the cycle or ‘orbit’ is completed.” The American-educated Sjöström has performed extensively in Europe and is probably best known as
a sideman with Cecil Taylor on live recordings with small groups and larger ensembles. While Sjöström’s work with Taylor received mixed reviews, the pianist’s embrace enhanced the saxophonist’s reputation and brought him to the attention of a wider audience. The participation of Schiaffini on Orbits is solid, though disappointingly limited. On the opening “Orbits #1”, loosely muted trombone joins gingerly, in an atmospheric setting, in which vibraphone seems to reign supreme. This is followed by a feature for Armaroli, who sports impressive chops on “Orbits #2”.
Centazzo is a facilitator throughout, a role he plays well, and his mysterious bells on “Orbits #4” and elsewhere mesh well with the mesmerizing sounds of the soprano, with its slowly trilling lines and whooshes of air, while Schiaffini quietly and sporadically
punches through with tastefully subdued runs. Sjöström never really breaks out in any substantial way, though he contributes substantially to the collective sound. Overall, the atmospherics prevail and there is a sense of wandering, gently but relentlessly. On “Orbits #5”, the saxophonist opens at length with spunk, later joined by vibraphone in counterpoint. Schiaffini pleases on “Orbits #10” with his opening muted blats, growls and splats, eventually joined by the others in a somewhat more diverse offering, with impressive pointillistic playing from trombone and saxophone. The recording ends with “Orbits #11”, which opens with a wonderfully engaging and fast drum solo, later joined by muted trombone and saxophone in a lovely closing.
Steps gives a bit more time to the trio. Sjöström seems more emboldened and Armaroli revels in the moment with beautiful lines and tone. Sometimes, as on “Steps #2”, there are slower moments, but on “Steps #5”, for example, the tempo picks up and Sjöström is more aggressive, sporting shimmering beauty. On “Steps #6”, He display some of his best work, his lines snaking all over the horn. The tracks work best when they are liveliest and when all members of the trio are fully engaged, such as on “Steps #7”. Centazzo is always solidly in support, pushing forward as an equal member and driving force.
For more information, visit ictusrecords.com
-----Windows and Mirrors: Armaroli/Kujala/Sjöström/Schiaffini
by Nicola Barin - 30 Novembre 2022
Il connubio tra Sergio Armaroli e Giancarlo Schiaffini è di lunga data: vanno ricordati ad esempio Micro And More Exercises, The Biella Session, The Out Off Session, Trigonos, Duos & Trio, con il contributo del sassofonista Harri Sjöstrom.
Questa nuova uscita in casa Leo Records dal titolo Windows and Mirrors testimonia l’incontro con due artisti finlandesi: il sassofonista Harri Sjöström e il fisarmonicista Veli Kujala. L’entrata in campo della fisarmonica e del soprano permette una fluidità sonora vivace e inedita come lo è l’abbinamento del sax soprano con il vibrafono.
E’ riduttivo parlare solo di musica per un progetto di questo genere in cui si esprime non solo la poetica musicale dei componenti ma anche il tentativo di andare oltre tale ambito. Sulla scorta dei concetti dello studioso americano Arnold I. Davidson, in particolare nel volume Gli esercizi spirituali della musica, si può tentare di andare oltre l’ambito musicale: ”L’ascolto di un certo tipo di jazz può essere il modo di comprendere, al tempo stesso, un aspetto etico, politico, epistemologico, e ovviamente estetico.”
In breve l’estetica musicale (soprattutto di Schiaffini e Armaroli) non è solo musicale, veicola concetti e idee filosofiche, espone concetti e flussi di pensiero che illustrano la contemporaneità. Lo testimonia anche la pagina web di Armaroli che riporta le seguenti parole: “La poetica di Sergio Armaroli abbraccia molteplici ambiti espressivi alla costante ricerca di una unità dell’esperienza. Si dichiara pittore, percussionista concreto, poeta frammentario e artista sonoro oltre a fondare il proprio operare all’interno del “linguaggio del jazz” e dell’improvvisazione totale come “estensione del concetto di arte”.
I concetti di identità, molteplicità, nomadismo, rizoma, vengono teorizzati nel pensiero filosofico dal pensatore francese Gilles Deleuze e si ritrovano presenti in questo progetto in maniera vitale, ci attraversano come lame. L’approccio di Armaroli denota la volontà di destrutturare la melodia ma anche l’armonia, cosi come opera Schiaffini, al suo interno ritroviamo l’uso di questi concetti filosofici. Si potrebbe anche dire, sulla stregua di Deleuze, che i due elaborano nuovi concetti attraverso la vibrazione di sè stessi attraverso lo strumento. I pensieri complessi, problematici si dispiegano, si generano nelle dieci tracce del progetto, come succede per esempio in Mirrors#2, forse la traccia in cui improvvisazione e jazz si manifestano all’unisono grazie all’apporto e alle evoluzioni del sassofono soprano, del trombone e dell’inusuale approccio di Kujala alla fisarmonica.
L’improvvisazione si esautora dall’idioma jazzistico per approdare a territori inesplorati in cui la propensione al libero scambio di concetti si fa palpabile. Mirror#3 concentra le forze sulle dinamiche della fisarmonica, a suo agio nel creare una corrente sonora inquietante che stimola il libero fraseggio di Schiaffini e i tagli potenti del sax soprano.
Un progetto che accenna e mette a nudo la preparazione non solo tecnica dei componenti ma che ci instilla la difficoltà a definire come musicisti questi pensatori che ci introducono ai concetti basilari della contemporaneità, ad una nuova terminologia filosofica e musicale della loro estetica.
English Translation
The union between Sergio Armaroli and Giancarlo Schiaffini is a long-standing one: examples include Micro And More Exercises, The Biella Session, The Out Off Session, Trigonos, Duos & Trio, with the contribution of saxophonist Harri Sjöstrom.
This new Leo Records release entitled Windows and Mirrors bears witness to the encounter with two Finnish artists: saxophonist Harri Sjöström and accordionist Veli Kujala. The entry of the accordion and soprano allows for a lively and unprecedented fluidity of sound, as is the combination of the soprano sax with the vibraphone.
It is reductive to speak only of music for a project of this kind in which not only the musical poetics of the components is expressed, but also the attempt to go beyond that. Based on the concepts of the American scholar Arnold I. Davidson, particularly in his book The Spiritual Exercises of Music, one can attempt to go beyond the musical sphere: "Listening to a certain kind of jazz can be a way of understanding, at the same time, an ethical, political, epistemological, and obviously aesthetic aspect."
In short, musical aesthetics (especially by Schiaffini and Armaroli) is not only musical, it conveys philosophical concepts and ideas, it expounds concepts and streams of thought that illustrate contemporaneity. This is also testified by Armaroli's webpage, which states: 'Sergio Armaroli's poetics embrace multiple spheres of expression in the constant search for a unity of experience. He declares himself to be a painter, a concrete percussionist, a fragmentary poet and a sound artist as well as founding his work within the "language of jazz" and total improvisation as an "extension of the concept of art".
The concepts of identity, multiplicity, nomadism, rhizome, are theorised in philosophical thought by the French thinker Gilles Deleuze and are present in this project in a vital way, they run through us like blades. Armaroli's approach denotes a willingness to deconstruct melody but also harmony, as does Schiaffini's work, within which we find the use of these philosophical concepts. One could also say, along the lines of Deleuze, that the two elaborate new concepts by vibrating themselves through the instrument. Complex, problematic thoughts unfold, are generated in the project's ten tracks, as happens for example in Mirrors#2, perhaps the track where improvisation and jazz manifest themselves in unison thanks to the contribution and evolutions of the soprano saxophone, trombone and Kujala's unusual approach to the accordion.
The improvisation departs from the jazz idiom to land in unexplored territories where the propensity for the free exchange of concepts becomes palpable. Mirror#3 concentrates its forces on the dynamics of the accordion, at ease in creating an unsettling sound current that stimulates Schiaffini's free phrasing and the powerful cuts of the soprano sax.
A project that hints at and lays bare not only the technical preparation of the members but also instils in us the difficulty of defining as musicians these thinkers who introduce us to the basic concepts of contemporaneity, to a new philosophical and musical terminology of their aesthetics.
Nicola Barin
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WINDOWS & MIRRORS | MILANO DIALOGUES
Armaroli / Kujala / Schaiffini / Sjöström
review by Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
Sergio Armaroli est un excellent vibraphoniste italien découvert auprès de musiciens essentiels tels que les percussionnistes Andrea Centazzo, Roger Turner et Fritz Hauser, le saxophoniste finlandais Harri Sjöström et le tromboniste Giancarlo Schiaffini. Voici que s’ajoute à cette liste un compatriote de Sjöström, l’accordéoniste Veli Kujala qui avait participé à l’enregistrement des superbes Soundscapes Festival #3 réunies dans un double CD Fundacja Sluchaj avec un aéropage impressionnant (Sjöström, leur instigateur, Phil Wachsmann, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Sebi Tramontana, Floros Floridis Lawrence Casserley, Emilio Gordoa, Matthias Bauer, Wilbert de Joode, Matthias Bauer, Dag Magnus Narvesen, Kalle Kalima…) que je me suis fait le plaisir de chroniquer ici, il y a quelques mois. Partie remise dans un quartette de chambre aérien et éthéré avec trois des précités. Harri Sjöström a fait l’extraordinaire expérience de jouer régulièrement avec Cecil Taylor et travaille depuis des décennies avec Paul Lovens et Phil Wachsmann. Veli Kujala est un prodige de l’accordéon et Giancarlo Schiaffini est un pionnier de l’improvisation libre au trombone depuis les sixties au même titre que Paul Rutherford. Le travail de ce quartet atypique (sax soprano ou sopranino, trombone, vibraphone et accordéon) se focalise sur une musicalité distinguée, raffinée, chaque musicien se situant dans une position égalitaire dans le champ auditif. Rien de tel pour stimuler l’écoute mutuelle en partageant les rôles, les interventions et les initiatives dans une démarche d’équilibres instables et mouvants lors de dix improvisations intitulées Windows #1 jusque #5 et Mirrors #1 à #5. Ici le verre, matière translucide, accède à la lumière extérieure ou reflète votre image … ou votre action musicale. Une dimension mélodique free s’ébauche dans les articulations obliques et légèrement vocalisées du souffleur au sax soprano ou sopranino contrebalancées par les effets de coulisse, lèvres et sourdines de Giancarlo Schiaffini au trombone. Une dimension harmonique éthérée s’insère adroitement entre les souffles conjoints ou centrifuges, la face percussive et cristalline du vibraphone et celle venteuse et mystérieuse de l’accordéon. Les jeux respectifs de Veli Kujala et Sergio Armaroli se complètent étrangement de manière inattendue. Le son du vibraphone peut presque s’éteindre au bord du silence lorsque le timbre du trombone s’étire dans de longues notes soutenues discrètement dans le grave (Windows #2). La déambulation presque chaotique de Windows #3 s’appuie sur de vifs accents partagés entre l’articulation en soubresauts du sax soprano et les virevoltes subtiles du vibraphone, l’accordéon soufflant des contrepoints sinueux par intermittence. L’intérêt profond de la démarche collective de ce quartet d’exception tient dans une succession très habile d’univers différents d’une pièce à l’autre, chacune ayant ses caractéristiques propres comme s’il s’agissait de compositions aux éléments structurels et semi- formels bien définis. L'auditeur les reconnaît immédiatement lorsqu’il zappe d’un morceau à l’autre ou lorsque notre écoute s’estompe pour se ressaisir durant le morceau suivant. Une application ludique des principes issus du Pierrot Lunaire de Schönberg en roue libre. La sonorité de Sjöström est exquise, charnelle et éthérée et fait écho au timbre caractéristique vocalisé, aux glissandi et froncements du pavillon de Schiaffini, sans nul doute une des paires saxophone – trombone les plus mémorables depuis l’époque lointaine Lacy – Rudd des Schooldays. Leurs interactions conjointes, parallèles ou frontales avec l’accordéon mystérieux de Kujala et le vibraphone d’Armaroli , tout en légèreté, sont simplement providentielles et défient les lois de la pesanteur et de la géométrie dans l’espace. Comme quoi l’improvisation est à la base de la création de formes musicales qu’on croirait composées et partiellement préméditées. Laissons la réponse à cette suggestion en suspens, la musique parle pour elle-même. Tout l'intérêt de leurs superbes intervenstions individuelles réside dans leur agencement dans l'espace et le temps. C’est véritablement du grand art et on songe parfois aux mobiles de Calder
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
jmvanschouwburg@gmail.com
English Translation
Sergio Armaroli is an excellent Italian vibraphonist who was discovered by such essential musicians as percussionists Andrea Centazzo, Roger Turner and Fritz Hauser, Finnish saxophonist Harri Sjöström and trombonist Giancarlo Schiaffini. Sjöström's compatriot, accordionist Veli Kujala, who took part in the recording of the superb Soundscapes Festival #3 collected in a double CD Fundacja Sluchaj with an impressive aerialist, has now been added to this list (Sjöström, their instigator, Phil Wachsmann, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Sebi Tramontana, Floros Floridis Lawrence Casserley, Emilio Gordoa, Matthias Bauer, Wilbert de Joode, Matthias Bauer, Dag Magnus Narvesen, Kalle Kalima... ) that I had the pleasure to review here, a few months ago. We're back in an ethereal chamber quartet with three of the above-mentioned. Harri Sjöström has had the extraordinary experience of playing regularly with Cecil Taylor and has worked for decades with Paul Lovens and Phil Wachsmann. Veli Kujala is an accordion prodigy and Giancarlo Schiaffini has been a pioneer of free improvisation on the trombone since the sixties, as has Paul Rutherford. The work of this atypical quartet (soprano or sopranino sax, trombone, vibraphone and accordion) focuses on a distinguished, refined musicality, with each musician occupying an equal position in the auditory field. There is nothing like this to stimulate mutual listening by sharing roles, interventions and initiatives in a process of unstable and shifting balances during ten improvisations entitled Windows #1 to #5 and Mirrors #1 to #5. Here the glass, translucent material, accesses the outside light or reflects your image ... or your musical action. A free melodic dimension emerges in the oblique and slightly vocalized articulations of the soprano or sopranino sax blower counterbalanced by the slide, lip and mute effects of Giancarlo Schiaffini on trombone. An ethereal harmonic dimension is deftly inserted between the joint or centrifugal breaths, the percussive and crystalline face of the vibraphone and the windy and mysterious face of the accordion. The respective playing of Veli Kujala and Sergio Armaroli complement each other in a strange and unexpected way. The sound of the vibraphone can almost fade to the edge of silence when the timbre of the trombone stretches out in long, discreetly sustained notes in the low register (Windows #2). The almost chaotic wandering of Windows #3 is based on lively accents shared between the jolting articulation of the soprano sax and the subtle twirls of the vibraphone, with the accordion blowing sinuous counterpoints intermittently. The profound interest of the collective approach of this exceptional quartet lies in a very skilful succession of different universes from one piece to the next, each with its own characteristics as if they were compositions with well-defined structural and semi-formal elements. The listener recognises them immediately when he zaps from one piece to the next or when our listening fades to the next. A playful application of the principles of Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire in freewheeling fashion. Sjöström's sound is exquisite, carnal and ethereal and echoes the distinctive vocalized timbre, glissandi and bell puckers of Schiaffini, surely one of the most memorable saxophone-trombone pairs since the distant Lacy-Rudd days of the Schooldays. Their joint, parallel or frontal interactions with Kujala's mysterious accordion and Armaroli's light-hearted vibraphone are simply providential and defy the laws of gravity and geometry in space. This shows that improvisation is the basis for the creation of musical forms that seem to be composed and partially premeditated. Let's leave the answer to this suggestion in abeyance, the music speaks for itself. The interest of their superb individual interventions lies in their arrangement in space and time. It is truly high art and sometimes reminds one of Calder's mobiles.
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
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SoundScapes # 3 Festival- Munich (double CD)
review by Ettore Garzia
L’affermazione di Jung sembra aprirsi ad una sorta di realtà non spiegabile per tutti gli artisti. Nel passo citato egli insinua che le opere d’arte rivendicano l’istinto dei loro creatori e, pur non escludendo un possibile studio in materia, probabilmente non si appoggiano a cognizioni ben determinate: in realtà le parole di Jung forse andrebbero coordinate con uno dei suoi archetipi evolutivi, ossia l’archetipo “conoscenza” da mettere di fianco all’istinto così come definito prima. Il tempo ha dimostrato che l’arte, anche quella più spontanea, non può escludere dei procedimenti sedimentati in una sede dell’inconscio operativo dell’artista: la libera improvvisazione, per esempio, è piena di questi stimoli e nonostante essi siano il frutto di un impulso non ragionato dell’attimo esecutivo, sottintendono un’area nettamente più ampia in cui convergono formazione e strutture di rappresentazione utilizzabili nei momenti di ritorno alla piena cognizione. Ed esiste anche un inconscio operativo collettivo, qualcosa che il free jazz e la free improvisation hanno sperimentato per decenni tramite l’incontro aggregativo in festivals, workshop e altri eventi similari: solitamente si tratta di occasioni irripetibili per ascoltare la fusione di depositi espressivi differenti, dove le scintille creative degli artisti possono originare delle splendide relazioni, qualora non si facciano sopraffare dalla muscolosità delle loro azioni.
Un ottimo esempio di quanto detto viene da un CD doppio di musica totalmente improvvisata che arriva come testimonianza delle esibizioni al festival SoundScapes #3 del 2021, conclusione di Aspects of Free Improvisation 2021, un progetto culturale promosso dall’associazione Offene Ohren eV e sponsorizzato da Neustart Kultur e il ministero tedesco della cultura e media, in cui farsi affascinare da una pratica di cui oggi non si comprende la purezza e la complessità; gli artisti sul palco erano Harri Sjöström, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Sebi Tramontana, Veli Kujala, Wilbert de Joode, Kalle Kalima, Libero Mureddu, Matthias Bauer, Steve Heather, Lawrence Casserley, Philipp Wachsmann, Dag Magnus Narvesen, Floros Floridis, ai quali è stato chiesto di esibirsi secondo uno schema predeterminato da Sjöström (sia nella quantità che nella qualità dei connubi) e per non più di 15 minuti. Sono due giorni di concerto con un’apertura e chiusura corale (ossia suonano assieme tutti) e 12 sub-interventi divisi in formazioni di duo (4 duetti) , in trio (capita 2 volte), quartetto (per 4 episodi) e quintetti (2 gruppi), tutti condotti in un clima esaltante di capacità e competenze relazionali, di cui ve ne porto breve resoconto:
-il Tutti Orchestra (l’Opening Night e il Silence To Sound) sono delle giostre di confusione felliniane, l’impasto timbrico è azzeccato alla radice, ma quello che viene risaltato è il contorno strategico complessivo poiché le divergenze o dissonanze sonore che si formano nei due percorsi improvvisativi vanno nel senso di una costante capitolazione della realtà, sono splendido surrealismo sonoro;
-nei duetti l’aspetto relazionale è posto in forte evidenza: tra Sjöström e Kujala la tensione improvvisativa viaggia verso veri e propri schizzi sonori, favoriti dalle tecniche estensive da una parte (blocco e frammentazione sui registri alti, linee melodiche strozzate e senza gravità) e da un incalzante fornitura di sprazzi armonici dall’altra (che pian piano diventano “lampeggiamenti”); con la costante del trombone, gli altri duetti impegnano Schiaffini e Tramontana, dove il primo instaura portentosi colloqui con gli strappi anomali del clarinetto di Floros Floridis (lavorando su sordine e distorsioni timbriche) o discorre quasi languente contro l’anomala risposta di Emilio Gordoa al vibrafono, stemperato nel cercare soluzioni contingenti con gli oggetti invece che con i suoni tradizionali del suo strumento; il quarto duetto è invece un benefico incontro di 13 minuti tra Tramontana e Wachsmann, trombone e violino che costruiscono gradualmente un’affascinante discussione fatta di cucce silenziose o borbottio, iperboli improvvisi della comunicazione o fiera irrequietezza;
-nei due trii si attua una diversificazione, da una parte si uniscono Kalima, Heather e Mureddu, cioé chitarra, percussioni e pianoforte, unite da una forma libera che cresce nel linguaggio del cambiamento di stato degli eventi sonori, tensioni astratte che cercano anche una loro profondità; dall’altra il trio Casserley, Kalima e Kujala, cioé elettronica processata, percussioni e fisarmonica a quarti di tono, lavora sulla sonorizzazione e sul mistero, cercando di mettere in evidenza tutta una serie di implicazioni sulla costruzione della microtonalità, una massa sinusoidale o collettivamente selvaggia, più o meno in forza di espansione e creata sul momento;
-i quartetti vengono costruiti in modo da far entrare in contatto le essenze, i geni delle personalità dei musicisti: il quartetto Gordoa/De Joode/Schiaffini/Wachsmann mette in campo molte estensioni, frammentazioni, melodie inquartate e altri “sciaccallaggi” sonori che però sostentano incredibilmente il discorso musicale; Casserley dà subsonicità al quartetto con Gordoa/Heather/Narvesen (si può parlare di improvvisazione acusmatica?) oppure sfondo ricoprente al quartetto ribollente e acido tenuto con Sjöström, Mureddu e Wachsmann; la quaterna Bauer, Floridis, Heather e Mureddu dà invece l’idea di energia e inceppamento, una polveriera di istinti giocati nell’incauta rivoluzione che l’improvvisazione vuol raggiungere;
-i due quintetti occupano la parte centrale delle esibizioni e sono privilegi rarissimi dell’ascolto: quello di De Joode/Narvesen/Tramontana/Sjöström e Wachsmann è un incastro empatico che mostra un suo sviluppo coerente, voci strumentali di livello elevatissimo che portano scompiglio ma allo stesso tempo propongono un’incandescente entità sonora tutta da decifrare; l’altro quintetto vede una contrapposizione contrabbassi (De Joode e Bauer come propulsori al contrabbasso) contro ottoni (i 2 tromboni, quelli di Schiaffini e Tramontana e Floridis straniante al clarinetto), un esempio su come fornire un’idea aulica di movimento e dialogo.
SoundScapes Festival #3 fa pensare inevitabilmente alle più belle operazioni dell’improvvisazione di gruppo, alla socialità e all’esperienza rigenerante che si presenta alle nostre orecchie, ma ha anche molte altre qualità, sia individuali che collettive: il clima di quelle serate era propizio per realizzazioni real-time di gran spessore, tutti suonano ed improvvisano al top delle proprie intelligenze musicali oltre che dei propri impulsi naturali, facendo tuonare le sequenze senza interposizioni inopportune. Si capisce che aldilà delle generazioni coinvolte, questi musicisti hanno un comune spirito e una naturale predisposizione per appaganti architetture sonore di collegamento.
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English Translation
“…If the psychologist were able to demonstrate definite causalities in a work of art and in the process of artistic creation, he would leave aesthetics no ground to stand on and would reduce it to a special branch of his own science. Although he should never abandon his claim to investigate and establish the causality of complex psychic processes—to do so would be to deny psychology the right to exist—he will never be able to make good this claim in the fullest sense, because the creative urge which finds its clearest expression in art is irrational and will in the end make a mock of all our rationalistic undertakings...”
(C.G. Jung, Spirit in Man, Art, And Literature, from Collected Works, Princeton 1966)
Jung's statement seems to open up to a kind of unexplainable reality for all artists. In the quoted passage he insinuates that works of art claim the instincts of their creators and, while not ruling out a possible study in the matter, they probably do not rely on well-defined knowledge: in fact Jung's words should perhaps be coordinated with one of his evolutionary archetypes, namely the archetype 'knowledge' to be placed alongside instinct as defined earlier. Time has shown that art, even the most spontaneous, cannot exclude procedures sedimented in a seat of the artist's operative unconscious: free improvisation, for example, is full of these stimuli, and although they are the fruit of an unreasoned impulse of the moment of execution, they imply a much broader area in which formation and representational structures converge that can be used in moments of return to full cognition. And there is also a collective operating unconscious, something that free jazz and free improvisation have experienced for decades through aggregative encounters in festivals, workshops and other similar events: these are usually unrepeatable occasions to listen to the fusion of different expressive deposits, where the creative sparks of the artists can give rise to splendid relationships, if they do not let themselves be overwhelmed by the muscularity of their actions.
A very good example of this comes from a double CD of totally improvised music that comes as a testimony to the performances at the SoundScapes #3 festival in 2021, the conclusion of Aspects of Free Improvisation 2021, a cultural project promoted by the Offene Ohren eV association and sponsored by Neustart Kultur and the German Ministry of Culture and Media, in which to be fascinated by a practice whose purity and complexity is not understood today; The performers on stage were Harri Sjöström, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Sebi Tramontana, Veli Kujala, Wilbert de Joode, Kalle Kalima, Libero Mureddu, Matthias Bauer, Steve Heather, Lawrence Casserley, Philipp Wachsmann, Dag Magnus Narvesen, Floros Floridis, who were asked to perform according to a pattern predetermined by Sjöström (both in the quantity and quality of the combinations) and for no more than 15 minutes. It is a two-day concert with a choral opening and closing (i.e. they all play together) and 12 sub-interventions divided into duo formations (4 duets), trio (happens 2 times), quartet (for 4 episodes) and quintet (2 groups), all conducted in an exhilarating atmosphere of relational skills and competences, of which I give you a brief account:
-the Tutti Orchestra (the Opening Night and the Silence To Sound) are Fellini-esque merry-go-rounds of confusion, the timbral impasto is apt at the root, but what is emphasised is the overall strategic contour since the sonic divergences or dissonances that form in the two improvisational paths go in the direction of a constant capitulation to reality, they are splendid sonic surrealism;
-in the duets, the relational aspect is strongly emphasised: between Sjöström and Kujala, the improvisational tension travels towards veritable sound sketches, favoured by extensive techniques on the one hand (blocking and fragmentation on the high registers, choked and weightless melodic lines) and by a relentless supply of harmonic flashes on the other (which slowly become 'flashes'); with the constant of the trombone, the other duets engage Schiaffini and Tramontana, where the former establishes portentous conversations with the anomalous strains of Floros Floridis's clarinet (working on mutes and timbral distortions) or converses almost languorously against Emilio Gordoa's anomalous response on the vibraphone, diluted in seeking contingent solutions with objects instead of the traditional sounds of his instrument; the fourth duet, on the other hand, is a soothing 13-minute encounter between Tramontana and Wachsmann, trombone and violin gradually building up to a fascinating discussion made up of silent cuckooing or muttering, sudden hyperbole of communication or proud restlessness;
-in the two trios a diversification takes place, on the one hand Kalima, Heather and Mureddu, i.e. guitar, percussion and piano, are united by a free form that grows in the language of the changing state of sound events, abstract tensions that also seek their own depth; on the other hand, the trio Casserley, Kalima and Kujala, i.e. processed electronics, percussion and quarter-tone accordion, work on sonorisation and mystery, seeking to highlight a whole series of implications on the construction of microtonality, a sinusoidal or collectively wild mass, more or less in force of expansion and created on the spot;
-in the two trios a diversification takes place, on the one hand Kalima, Heather and Mureddu, i.e. guitar, percussion and piano, are united by a free form that grows in the language of the changing state of sound events, abstract tensions that also seek their own depth; on the other hand, the trio Casserley, Kalima and Kujala, i.e. processed electronics, percussion and quarter-tone accordion, work on sonorisation and mystery, attempting to highlight a whole series of implications on the construction of microtonality, a sinusoidal or collectively wild mass, more or less in force of expansion and created on the spot;
-quartets are constructed in such a way as to bring into contact the essences, the genes of the musicians' personalities: the Gordoa/De Joode/Schiaffini/Wachsmann quartet brings into play many extensions, fragmentations, fractious melodies and other sonic 'sciaccallaggi' that nonetheless incredibly sustain the musical discourse; Casserley gives subsonicity to the quartet with Gordoa/Heather/Narvesen (can one speak of acousmatic improvisation? ) or a covering background to the seething, acidic quartet held with Sjöström, Mureddu and Wachsmann; the quatern Bauer, Floridis, Heather and Mureddu instead gives the idea of energy and jamming, a powder keg of instincts played out in the reckless revolution that improvisation wants to achieve;
-the two quintets occupy the central part of the performances and are rare listening privileges: the one by De Joode/Narvesen/Tramontana/Sjöström and Wachsmann is an empathetic interlocking that displays its own coherent development, instrumental voices of the highest level that wreak havoc but at the same time propose an incandescent sound entity all to be deciphered; the other quintet sees a contrabass contrast (De Joode and Bauer as propellers on double bass) against brass (the 2 trombones, those of Schiaffini and Tramontana and Floridis alienating on clarinet), an example of how to provide a courtly idea of movement and dialogue.
SoundScapes Festival #3 inevitably brings to mind the most beautiful operations of group improvisation, sociability and the regenerating experience presented to our ears, but it also has many other qualities, both individual and collective: the climate of those evenings was conducive to real realisations of great depth, everyone playing and improvising at the top of their musical intelligences as well as their natural impulses, making the sequences thunder without inappropriate interpositions. One realises that beyond the generations involved, these musicians share a common spirit and a natural predisposition for satisfyingly connecting sound architectures.
Ettore Garzia
Music writer and founder of Percorsi Musicali, a multi-genre magazine focused on contemporary music and improvisation's forms. He wrote hundreads of essays and reviews of cds and books (over 1800 articles) and his work is widely appreciated in Italy and abroad via quotations, texts' translations, biographies, liner notes for prestigious composers, musicians and labels. He provides a modern conception of musical listening, which meditates on history, on the aesthetic seductions of sounds, on interdisciplinary relationships with other arts and cognitive sciences. He is also a graduate in Economics.
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The Treasures Are
Guilherme Rodrigues & Harri Sjöström
Dialogue of Insects
review by José Oliveira
How amazing! Suddenly, as if time had accelerated, here, two generations of improvisers meet in a conversation in which nothing is left out and nothing is left to chance. These two exceptional musicians, both living in Berlin, this astonishing city where everything important actually happens, join forces for a memorable session.
On this disk, Harri Sjöström, one of those musicians who have greatly influenced the long and rich history of European improvised music, and Guilherme Rodrigues, performer of already unquestionable acclaim within the new generation of Portuguese improvisers, show a compatibility and complementarity rarely found within the current panorama of free music. In fact both – the founder of the legendary Quintet Moderne and the young cellist born in Lisbon – demonstrate an exceptional proficiency with their respective instruments in this breathtaking session, creating a sound in which sopranino/soprano saxophone and cello combine and contrast, thus bringing forth an unfamiliar, yet distinctly European idiom that owes a lot to the history of jazz (and the legacy of Giuffre, Lacy, or Dolphy) as well as contemporary music, reminiscences of which are so clear sometimes.
And when at times Rodrigues brings his cello closer to the sonority and the language of the double bass (in the pizzicato streaks) (and the legacy of Tom Cora, Tristan Honsinger, Ernst Reijseger or David Holland) or Sjöström hints at a ballad of anarchic melancholy, soon a sudden change of direction occurs in the return to a pointillist abstraction, made of unforgettable syncopated fragments – albeit without ever neglecting the dialogue in this conversation about everything and nothing, which the two musicians fuel with their virtuosity in an unparalleled fashion throughout.
The collaboration of these two formidable alien insects, with their austere, intimate voices, has to be classed as chamber music. And, remarkably, this exceptional duo confirms the future of European improvised music in this fortunate meeting of two masters.
José Oliveira
Lisbon, March 2019
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HARRI SYSTEMS / GUILHERME RODRIGUES: The Treasures Are [Creative Sources Recordings, 2019] The second album featuring Harri Sjöström (soprano and soprano saxophone) is "The Treasures Are". He works with a cellist of a slightly younger generation, Portuguese Guilherme Rodrigues. The album is released by our well-known Portuguese Creative Sources Recordings, but it should not be recorded in Portugal, but in Berlin - where the two musicians reside.
"The Treasures Are" contains twenty tracks, ranging from one minute (exactly), to 7:54 (the longest in time). There are, as you realize, many themes ranging from one to two minutes on the CD and other varied. It is, therefore, a series of 'exercises', which test not only the capabilities of the three bodies, but also the strengths and ingenuities of the performers.
The result is radical. If Sjöström's saxophones recall the master of the instrument Steve Lacy, Rodrigues's cello plays, sometimes even substituting for the bass, refer to the long improv history of the instrument, and basically Tom Cora. Lyrical and melancholy moments alternate with loud and noisy, playful ones are replaced by other jokes, explosions and lunatics are uninterrupted, while references, which can start from "room" soundtracks and end up in jazz, end up in jazz and essential and ... condemning as to what is heard here and also how it is heard (eg seventeenth from "Treasures I-XX", with incredible timbre).
Contact: www.harrisjostrom.com Posted by FONTAS TROUSAS / PHONTAS TROUSSAS at 1:08 pm Email BlogThis! Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest Tags improv, jazz
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The Treasures Are
Guilherme Rodrigues & Harri Sjöström
Creative Sources CS605CD
Un duo violoncelle (Guilherme Rodrigues) et saxophone soprano et sopranino (Harri Sjöström) basé à Berlin. Guilherme est attaché à la mouvance Creative Sources, label portugais dirigé par son père Ernesto et pour lequel il a enregistré une quantité innombrable d’albums dans la veine lower-case « minimaliste radicale. Harri Sjöström est connu pour avoir joué régulièrement avec Cecil Taylor, Phil Wachsmann, Paul Lovens, Gianni Mimmo. Dans cet opus enthousiasmant, Guilherme nous fait découvrir son talent de violoncelliste plus proche de la tessiture « normale» de l’instrument en totale empathie avec le jeu étiré, serpentin et intense d’Harri Sjöström. Chacun d’eux mettent en valeur une pluralité de caractères sonores expressifs, vibrants, cachés, découverts dans l’instant de leurs instruments respectifs. Angles, accents, épures, sursauts, extrêmes, graves ou suraigus. On pourra comparer avec le duo de Gianni Mimmo et Daniel Levin qui partage la même instrumentation (Turbulent Flow /Amirani). Ce que j’apprécie particulièrement dans ces Treasures est l’éventail follement exhaustif de très nombreuses variations dans le choix des timbres et les imbrications, tuilages, juxtapositions, contrastes, enchaînements, tournoiements, qui les associent et nous donnent le tournis. Une forme de virtuosité véloce est contournée au profit d’une expressivité intense, d’échanges fructueux au niveau des palettes, des couleurs, des reflets rougeoyants, ambrés, ocres, fauves …. Je ne peux m'empêcher de réécouter cette merveilleuse suite d’histoires aux multiples rebondissements. C’est assurément un enregistrement unique de deux individus ouverts l’un à l’autre et qui dépasse leur valeur intrinsèque propre, grâce à leur intense écoute mutuelle et la compréhension profonde de leurs registres intimes particuliers à partager expressément dans leur rencontre. Une musique pleine de plaisirs et de générosités. Un très grand disque.
13 novembre 2019
Jean-Michel van Schouwburg
https://orynx-improvandsounds.blogspot.com/2019/11/guilherme-rodrigues-harri-sjostrom.html?m=1
English Translation
The Treasures Are
Guilherme Rodrigues & Harri Sjöström
Creative Sources CS605CD
A cello (Guilherme Rodrigues) and soprano-/sopraninosaxophone (Harri Sjöström) duo based in Berlin. Guilherme is attached to the Creative Sources movement, a Portuguese label directed by his father Ernesto and for which he has recorded an innumerable number of albums in the lower-case vein "minimalist radical". Harri Sjöström is known to have played regularly with Cecil Taylor and plays with Phil Wachsmann, Paul Lovens and Gianni Mimmo… . In this enthusiastic opus, Guilherme makes us discover his talent as a cellist closer to the "normal" range of the instrument in total empathy with Harri Sjöström's stretched, serpentine and intense play. Each of them develops a plurality of expressive, vibrating, hidden sound characters, discovered in the moment of their respective instruments. Angles, accents, sketches, bursts, extremes, serious or superimposed. We can compare with the duo of Gianni Mimmo and Daniel Levin which shares the same instrumentation (Turbulent Flow / Amirani). What I particularly like in these Treasures is the wildly exhaustive range of many variations in the choice of timbres and the interweaving, tiling, juxtapositions, contrasts, sequences, tournaments, which combine them and make us dizzy. A form of swift virtuosity is bypassed in favor of intense expressiveness, fruitful exchanges at the level of palettes, colors, glowing reflections, amber, ocher, tawny… .I can not help but to listen again to this wonderful series of stories with multiple twists. It is certainly a unique record of two individuals open to each other and beyond their intrinsic value, thanks to their intense mutual listening and deep understanding of their particular intimate registers to expressly share in their encounter. A music full of pleasures and generosities. A very big disk.
November 13, 2019
Jean-Michel van Schouwburg
https://orynx-improvandsounds.blogspot.com/2019/11/guilherme-rodrigues-harri-sjostrom.html?m=1
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AMN ReviewsAMN Reviews: The Balderin Sali Variations – Boreal Delights At the Soundscape & Soundportraits Festival – 2018 [Leo Records CD LR 870/871]; Harri Sjöström & Guilherme Rodrigues – The Treasures Are [Creative Sources Records cs605]
- Post author
The most striking thing about the music on this two-CD set is its intelligent handling of space and color—striking, but not surprising, as that is one of the hallmarks of European free improvisation. The ensemble accomplishes this by setting up relationships that naturally vary the densities and timbres that come into play. The thirteen tracks are bookended by improvisations for the full ensemble; in between are improvisations for sub-groupings in sizes ranging from duos to quintets. Some of these subgroupings make for inspired instrumental combinations: soprano saxophone and violin; drums, trombone, and piano; soprano saxophone and quarter-tone accordion.
Another inspired, multi-generational combination of musicians is to be found on The Treasures Are, a duo recording from Sjöström and the younger cellist Guilherme Rodrigues. All of the music on the recording presumably was improvised, but the quality of the interplay is such that parts sound as if they had been composed prior to the performance. Much of the credit for this goes to Rodrigues, who seems largely to be responding to Sjöström’s inventive leads throughout much of the recording. Rodrigues has an almost telepathic ability to complete Sjöström’s phrases, create lucid, coherent harmonies from Sjöström’s melodies, and spin Sjöström’s lines into impromptu canons. Both Sjöström and Rodrigues take the music to many places–from abstract expressionist squeals and squeaks, through freely atonal lyricism, to quasi-conventional harmony—without losing a sense of continuity or stalling for time. In sum, a quite beautiful performance of contemporary European improvised music from two highly attuned players.
http://www.leorecords.com/
https://creativesourcesrec.com/
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MOVE IN MOERS
by Ettore Garzia:
http://www.percorsimusicali.eu/2021/05/26/le-illusioni-di-move-in-moers/
Painting "Building Greyness" by Thomas Nyqvist, CD cover of Move In Moers
Più di cinquanta anni fa, la logica filosofica dell’interpretazione della realtà non sembrava mai essere messa in discussione. I francesi teorici di un cambiamento percettivo come Derrida o Deleuze o i pensatori italiani come Eco e Vattimo, nonché una schiera infinita di artisti appartenenti alle varie diramazioni dell’arte, ne accoglievano la rilevanza in un mondo che sembrava quasi prestarsi naturalmente ad un’ermeneutica soggettivistica. Sappiamo che il ventunesimo secolo ha cambiato alcune prospettive ma non ha messo in dubbio che l’arte possa essere oggetto di ricombinazioni di cui si possa valutare il senso in modi differenti, fornendo proprie visioni. L’improvvisazione libera cade esattamente in quest’area di pensiero, è una pratica in cui la complessità del messaggio gioca a favore di una plurima interpretazione, ma guai pensare che sia un’arte accessibile e senza nessun bisogno di essere spiegata: in questo modo non si potrebbero apprezzare le sue ricchezze, la sua continua e mai effimera volubilità, il superamento delle incognite sonore che è in grado di offrire un ascolto mediato dalla conoscenza.
Un ottimo esempio delle qualità che possono rinvenirsi da un set improvvisativo ce lo offrono i Move, quintetto formato da Harri Sjöström (al soprano e sopranino sax), Achim Kaufmann (pianoforte), Adam Pultz Melbye (contrabbasso), Dag Magnus Narvesen (batteria) ed Emilio Gordoa (vibrafono): seconda pubblicazione discografica dopo Hyvinkää del 2017, il recentissimo Move In Moers documenta un bellissimo concerto tenuto durante il festival di Moers nel giugno del 2019; è un’aggregazione che ha un suo modo di porsi, che si impegna sulla lunga distanza (si tratta di esibizioni intorno ai 40 minuti) e non ha certamente un timing equilibrato dell’espressione (non segue un progetto coerente del tipo tensione-rilascio-tensione). I cinque musicisti mettono in campo tutta la loro esperienza, sono in grado di provocare scenari astratti con grande capacità di sapersi ascoltare, di ottenere una progettazione mimetica: è un sincronismo che suggerisce ambientazione, climi stemperati, obliquità ma anche rapide veloci, congestioni, sinossi percussive.
Per Move In Moers ognuno fa benissimo la sua parte: Sjöström ha un compito importante perché è colui che si adatta e stabilizza le situazioni musicali; lo stile e l’ampiezza di tecniche e forme dà luogo a legati velocissimi, lavorazioni sui registri, soffocamenti dei suoni, arpeggi con la figurazione del volo, multifonici, borbottii, frammentazioni; Harri è decisamente ancora oggi uno dei migliori sopranisti in circolazione e in alcuni momenti riesce a dare persino l’impressione che il suo strumenti si “pieghi”, tanto è veloce la legatura delle note.
Kaufmann è alla caccia di pendenze, di ambiguità che si esprimono in accordi che ti sbattono il cervello in un’altra dimensione, coadiuvato benissimo da Adam Pultz Melbye (a cui sembra far veramente difetto la funzione ritmica) e dai due percussionisti che si inseriscono a loro modo nelle trame accattivanti della musica. Ci sono un paio di pause relativamente melliflue, in cui trovare qualche tonfo acustico, somatizzazioni e ricerca di somiglianza timbrica, ma in generale sono pause portatrici di distruzione focale; nei trend più dinamici il quintetto si muove pensando al Cecil Taylor d’annata, con Sjöström che vi regala l’oggettiva sensazione dell’aquila impazzita, ma direi che ci sono momenti in cui torna brevemente alla memoria anche il mood del Miles Davis della psicosi jungle.
Move In Moers, dunque, è come un bel dipinto da analizzare e non è un caso che la cover del cd sia una rappresentazione astratta di un quadro di Thomas Nyqvist, pittore finlandese che guarda molto ai concetti di “rovina” e “grigiore” interpretativo: nel nostro caso il versante dell’analisi si sposta sull’illusione, sul potere di intercettare dei soundscapes senza poterli ascrivere a nessuna realtà; ma come sono queste illusioni? Certamente non sono sogni o allucinazioni quelli del quintetto Move, ma un’area del pensiero in cui il disordine formale è l’elemento in grado di alimentare paradossalmente la comprensione e come nel dipinto di Nyqvist c’è l’accenno strutturale delle rovine, così la musica di Move In Moers suscita un’informale demolizione acustica con pochi e selettivi approfondimenti concreti. E in questa “interpretazione” la musica acquista senza dubbio una singolarità tutta da godere.photo painting Building Greyness by Thomas Nyqvist, CD cover of Move In Moers
Più di cinquanta anni fa, la logica filosofica dell’interpretazione della realtà non sembrava mai essere messa in discussione. I francesi teorici di un cambiamento percettivo come Derrida o Deleuze o i pensatori italiani come Eco e Vattimo, nonché una schiera infinita di artisti appartenenti alle varie diramazioni dell’arte, ne accoglievano la rilevanza in un mondo che sembrava quasi prestarsi naturalmente ad un’ermeneutica soggettivistica. Sappiamo che il ventunesimo secolo ha cambiato alcune prospettive ma non ha messo in dubbio che l’arte possa essere oggetto di ricombinazioni di cui si possa valutare il senso in modi differenti, fornendo proprie visioni. L’improvvisazione libera cade esattamente in quest’area di pensiero, è una pratica in cui la complessità del messaggio gioca a favore di una plurima interpretazione, ma guai pensare che sia un’arte accessibile e senza nessun bisogno di essere spiegata: in questo modo non si potrebbero apprezzare le sue ricchezze, la sua continua e mai effimera volubilità, il superamento delle incognite sonore che è in grado di offrire un ascolto mediato dalla conoscenza.
Un ottimo esempio delle qualità che possono rinvenirsi da un set improvvisativo ce lo offrono i Move, quintetto formato da Harri Sjöström (al soprano e sopranino sax), Achim Kaufmann (pianoforte), Adam Pultz Melbye (contrabbasso), Dag Magnus Narvesen (batteria) ed Emilio Gordoa (vibrafono): seconda pubblicazione discografica dopo Hyvinkää del 2017, il recentissimo Move In Moers documenta un bellissimo concerto tenuto durante il festival di Moers nel giugno del 2019; è un’aggregazione che ha un suo modo di porsi, che si impegna sulla lunga distanza (si tratta di esibizioni intorno ai 40 minuti) e non ha certamente un timing equilibrato dell’espressione (non segue un progetto coerente del tipo tensione-rilascio-tensione). I cinque musicisti mettono in campo tutta la loro esperienza, sono in grado di provocare scenari astratti con grande capacità di sapersi ascoltare, di ottenere una progettazione mimetica: è un sincronismo che suggerisce ambientazione, climi stemperati, obliquità ma anche rapide veloci, congestioni, sinossi percussive.
Per Move In Moers ognuno fa benissimo la sua parte: Sjöström ha un compito importante perché è colui che si adatta e stabilizza le situazioni musicali; lo stile e l’ampiezza di tecniche e forme dà luogo a legati velocissimi, lavorazioni sui registri, soffocamenti dei suoni, arpeggi con la figurazione del volo, multifonici, borbottii, frammentazioni; Harri è decisamente ancora oggi uno dei migliori sopranisti in circolazione e in alcuni momenti riesce a dare persino l’impressione che il suo strumenti si “pieghi”, tanto è veloce la legatura delle note.
Kaufmann è alla caccia di pendenze, di ambiguità che si esprimono in accordi che ti sbattono il cervello in un’altra dimensione, coadiuvato benissimo da Adam Pultz Melbye (a cui sembra far veramente difetto la funzione ritmica) e dai due percussionisti che si inseriscono a loro modo nelle trame accattivanti della musica. Ci sono un paio di pause relativamente melliflue, in cui trovare qualche tonfo acustico, somatizzazioni e ricerca di somiglianza timbrica, ma in generale sono pause portatrici di distruzione focale; nei trend più dinamici il quintetto si muove pensando al Cecil Taylor d’annata, con Sjöström che vi regala l’oggettiva sensazione dell’aquila impazzita, ma direi che ci sono momenti in cui torna brevemente alla memoria anche il mood del Miles Davis della psicosi jungle.
Move In Moers, dunque, è come un bel dipinto da analizzare e non è un caso che la cover del cd sia una rappresentazione astratta di un quadro di Thomas Nyqvist, pittore finlandese che guarda molto ai concetti di “rovina” e “grigiore” interpretativo: nel nostro caso il versante dell’analisi si sposta sull’illusione, sul potere di intercettare dei soundscapes senza poterli ascrivere a nessuna realtà; ma come sono queste illusioni? Certamente non sono sogni o allucinazioni quelli del quintetto Move, ma un’area del pensiero in cui il disordine formale è l’elemento in grado di alimentare paradossalmente la comprensione e come nel dipinto di Nyqvist c’è l’accenno strutturale delle rovine, così la musica di Move In Moers suscita un’informale demolizione acustica con pochi e selettivi approfondimenti concreti. E in questa “interpretazione” la musica acquista senza dubbio una singolarità tutta da godere.
English Translation
Ettore Garzia
http://www.percorsimusicali.eu/2021/05/26/le-illusioni-di-move-in-moers/
Painting "Building Greyness" by Thomas Nyqvist, CD cover of Move In Moers
More than fifty years ago, the philosophical logic of interpreting reality never seemed to be questioned. French theorists of perceptual change such as Derrida or Deleuze or Italian thinkers such as Eco and Vattimo, as well as an endless array of artists from the various branches of art, accepted its relevance in a world that seemed to lend itself almost naturally to a subjectivistic hermeneutic. We know that the twenty-first century has changed some perspectives, but it has not cast doubt on the fact that art can be the subject of recombinations whose meaning can be assessed in different ways, providing our own visions. Free improvisation falls exactly in this area of thought, it is a practice in which the complexity of the message plays in favour of a multiple interpretation, but woe betide thinking that it is an accessible art with no need to be explained: in this way one would not be able to appreciate its riches, its continuous and never ephemeral fickleness, the overcoming of sound unknowns that a listening mediated by knowledge is able to offer.
An excellent example of the qualities that can be found in an improvisational set is offered by Move, a quintet formed by Harri Sjöström (soprano and sopranino sax), Achim Kaufmann (piano), Adam Pultz Melbye (double bass), Dag Magnus Narvesen (drums) and Emilio Gordoa (vibraphone): second discographic release after 2017's Hyvinkää, the very recent Move In Moers documents a beautiful concert held during the Moers festival in June 2019; it is an aggregation that has its own way of posing, that commits to the long distance (these are performances around 40 minutes) and certainly does not have a balanced timing of expression (it does not follow a coherent project of the tension-release-tension type). The five musicians bring all their experience to bear, they are able to provoke abstract scenarios with a great ability to know how to listen to each other, to achieve a mimetic design: it is a synchronism that suggests ambience, diluted climates, obliquities but also fast rapids, congestions, percussive synopses.
Sjöström has an important task because he is the one who adapts and stabilises the musical situations; the style and breadth of techniques and forms gives rise to very fast legato, working on registers, suffocating sounds, arpeggios with the figuration of flight, multiphonics, mumbling, fragmentations; Harri is definitely still one of the best sopranos in circulation today and in some moments he even manages to give the impression that his instruments are "bending", so fast is the note-binding.
Kaufmann is on the hunt for slopes, for ambiguities that are expressed in chords that whip your brain into another dimension, assisted very well by Adam Pultz Melbye (whose function seems larger and more than a rhythmical) and by the two percussionists who in their own way fit into the music's captivating textures. There are a couple of relatively mellifluous pauses, where you can find some acoustic thudding, somatisations and a search for timbral similarity, but in general they are pauses that bring focal destruction; in the more dynamic trends the quintet moves with the vintage Cecil Taylor in mind, with Sjöström giving you the objective sensation of a crazed eagle, but I would say that there are moments when the mood of the Miles Davis of jungle psychosis briefly comes to mind.
Move In Moers, then, is like a beautiful painting to be analysed and it is no coincidence that the cover of the CD is an abstract representation of a painting by Thomas Nyqvist, Finnish painter who looks a lot to the concepts of "ruin" and "greyness" interpretative: in our case the side of the analysis shifts on the illusion, the power to intercept the soundscapes without being able to ascribe them to any reality, but what are these illusions? Certainly the Move quintet's illusions are not dreams or hallucinations, but an area of thought in which formal disorder is the element capable of paradoxically nourishing understanding, and just as in Nyqvist's painting there is the structural hint of ruins, so the music of Move In Moers provokes an informal acoustic demolition with few and selective concrete insights. And in this "interpretation" the music undoubtedly acquires a singularity to be enjoyed.
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MOVE IN MOERS
by Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
https://orynx-improvandsounds.blogspot.com/2021/05/samo-kutin-lee-patterson-achim-kaufmann.html
Un concert au festival de Moers en juin 2019 durant 43 minutes bien remplies qui se déroulent en rubans improvisés souples et saccadés dans une musique excellemment construite. Chacun s’affirme par petites touches et vagues sonores mesurées, le saxophone sopranino d’Harri Sjöström étire les notes avec une articulation d’oiseau des îles, lunaire et sautillant pour lequel le pianiste Achim Kaufmann trace des accords clairsemés de notes oscillantes. La batterie de Dag Magnus Narvesen résonne à peine sous les frappes précises et aléatoires décortiquant les pulsations comme si on secouait un mobilier précieux. Adam Pultz Melbye frotte consciencieusement les cordes émettant des vibrations boisées et sourdes alors que le vibraphoniste Emilio Gordoa émet des signaux liquides et volatiles. Volatile est l’adjectif qui s’applique aux spirales et ellipses en coin du souffleur, élève de Steve Lacy qui évite soigneusement les modèles pour se concentrer dans une colloquialité d’oiseau parleur redistribuant gammes et intervalles et déchiquetant la pâte sonore à belles dents. Un sens de la prononciation achevé, même dans la frénésie. Cela finit par tournoyer grave avec un sens de l’équilibre précaire et reconsidéré au fil des secondes. Chacun des musiciens garde sa place tout en métamorphosant et s’échangeant les rôles au sein du quintet où tout le monde dirige et invente figures, signes, cadences, timbres, sonorités… Une belle anarchie assumée où chacun trouve sa place, sa partie, son espace. Le pianiste fait vibrer des harmoniques en calant les cordes alors que cela frotte, sussure, grince, avec des sons aigus flottant et interférant dans l’atmosphère dilatée ou contractée selon l’humeur et l’état d’esprit du moment. Une capacité à faire évoluer et transformer le paysage et l’intensité de l’ensemble, avec ses audaces, ses hésitations, ses lenteurs et ses fureurs. Le point de non-retour du free jazz dont il maintient adroitement des éléments expressifs et architectoniques. Savant dosage dans la répartition instrumentale et individuelle des actions improvisées dans l’instant. Remarquable quintet issu de la très active scène Berlinoise.
English Translation
A concert at the Moers Festival in June 2019 for 43 packed minutes that unfold in smooth, jerky improvised ribbons in excellently constructed music. Each asserts itself in small, measured touches and waves of sound, Harri Sjöström's sopranino saxophone stretches the notes with an island bird articulation, lunar and bouncy for which pianist Achim Kaufmann traces sparse chords of oscillating notes. Dag Magnus Narvesen's drums barely resonate under the precise, random strikes that peel back the pulses like shaking precious furniture. Adam Pultz Melbye dutifully rubs the strings emitting muted, woody vibrations while vibraphonist Emilio Gordoa emits liquid, volatile signals. Volatile is the adjective that applies to the spirals and wedge-shaped ellipses of the blower, a pupil of Steve Lacy who carefully avoids patterns to concentrate in a talking bird colloquiality redistributing scales and intervals and shredding the sonic pulp to death. A perfect sense of pronunciation, even in the frenzy. It ends up swirling low with a sense of balance that is precarious and reconsidered as the seconds pass. Each of the musicians keeps his place while changing and exchanging roles within the quintet where everyone directs and invents figures, signs, cadences, timbres, sonorities... A beautiful anarchy assumed where everyone finds his place, his part, his space. The pianist makes harmonics vibrate by adjusting the strings while it rubs, sings, squeaks, with high-pitched sounds floating and interfering in the dilated or contracted atmosphere according to the mood and the state of mind of the moment. An ability to make the landscape and the intensity of the whole evolve and transform, with its audacities, hesitations, slowness and fury. The point of no return of free jazz, of which he skilfully maintains expressive and architectural elements. A skilful balance in the instrumental and individual distribution of improvised actions in the moment. A remarkable quintet from the very active Berlin scene.
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
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DUOS & TRIOS
Armaroli / Schiaffini / Sjöström
Leo Records, Year 2019
Improvised music still has something special that is not just the radicality with which it has been defined in the past. There is also a "soft" approach to dialogue, almost passionate, as demonstrated by this trio consisting of Giancarlo Schiaffini on trombone, Sergio Armaroli on vibraphone and Harri Sjöström on soprano and sopranino saxophone. The idea of involving the Finnish musician, who has been living in Berlin for some time, came from Armaroli, who records him in nine performances as a duo, the other three, for over half an hour of the long record, seventy minutes, are in trio. It is a very special sound that stands out against the silence, between the metallic notes of the vibraphone and the sax of Sjöström, poetic, dreamy, even when he goes to look for the higher notes of his sopranino. It is a dialogue that works, which involves precisely because of this quiet aspect, in its own sentimental way, which proceeds enveloping the attentive listener. When Schiaffini arrives, at the beginning and then in the two final tracks of the disc, the music is enriched with a new element which however does not alter the basic balance, the three are perfectly in tune with the direction to take. The result is a nice, mature record that does not want to scare anyone but to be listened to, to communicate, to leave a sentimental trace even in the moments when the dialogue becomes more intense, in what is improvised music in Europe.
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DUOS & TRIOS
by Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
Quel plaisir de retrouver l’irrésistible tromboniste Giancarlo Schiaffini dans le Trio One qui ouvre ce bel album Trios and Duos. Schiaffini, le vibraphoniste Sergio Armaroli et le saxophoniste soprano Harri Sjöström jouent dans trois Trios (One, Two et Three) les deux autres étant situés à la fin du disque, entourant pas moins de huit duos Armaroli/ Sjöström. On aurait aimé entendre plus longtemps le tromboniste Italien pour chacun de ses notes, celles-ci étant calibrées chacun avec un timbre, un accent, un effet, une densité particulière comme un Roswell Rudd qui s’inspirerait de Paul Rutherford. Mais en fait nous ne perdons pas au change, les qualités d’improvisateur original de Schiaffini s’applique aussi à Harri Sjöström, un véritable orfèvre du sax soprano, élève de Steve Lacy dont il partage beaucoup de qualités au point de vue de la sonorité et de la « simplicité » complexe de son jeu. Chaque note est soupesée, travaillée, émise avec une précision remarquable comme si elle était habitée d’une vie indépendante, comme si elle paraissait être des signes visuels articulés dans une écriture mystérieuse pleine de significations. Ses improvisations développent une belle dimension narrative avec un style tout – à fait, personnel, lyrique précis et chaleureux. Son collègue Sergio Armaroli cultive un jeu aérien et délicat, toutes notes suspendues et flottant dans l’espace, le timbre des lames s’échappant dans l’infini du silence comme dans Duet Six, la plus longue des courtes improvisations. Celles-ci tournent entre deux et quatre ou six minutes et Duet Six atteint 10:43. Pour notre plus grand bonheur la dernière improvisation, Trio Two, dure 22:36 et rassemble les trois musiciens, nous permettant de nous régaler de la présence du tromboniste Giancarlo Schiaffini. En fait, je considère que le trombone était l’instrument (ou un des instruments) phare de la révolution « musique improvisée libre » européenne. Et donc en ce qui me concerne, Schiaffini (comme Rutherford, Christmann, Malfatti, les Bauer, Paul Hubweber ou encore Sarah Brand) est un pionnier incontournable. Il faut l’entendre travailler le son, ses glissandi dans le grave, vocaliser dans le pavillon, vibrer la colonne d’air, la compresser etc… Un magnifique alter-ego pour le distingué Harri Sjöström dont l’articulation fait merveille. Le jeu zigzagant et sautillant du vibraphoniste Sergio Armaroli et sa vision libertaire de l'instrument, crée une troisième dimension, un relief à la fois éthéré, transparent et substantiel, qui contribue à l’architecture des échanges, traçant des écrins choisis pour les vents inspirés. Une merveilleuse musique de chambre.
English Translation
What a pleasure to find the irresistible trombonist Giancarlo Schiaffini in the Trio One which opens this beautiful album Trios and Duos. Schiaffini, vibraphonist Sergio Armaroli and soprano saxophonist Harri Sjöström play in three Trios (One, Two and Three) the other two being located at the end of the record, surrounding no less than eight Armaroli / Sjöström duos. We would have liked to hear the Italian trombonist longer for each of his notes, each one calibrated with a particular timbre, accent, effect, density like a Roswell Rudd inspired by Paul Rutherford. But in fact we do not lose out, the qualities of Schiaffini's original improviser also apply to Harri Sjöström, a true silversmith of the soprano sax, pupil of Steve Lacy with whom he shares many qualities in terms of sound. and the complex "simplicity" of its playing. Each note is weighed, worked, emitted with remarkable precision as if it were inhabited by an independent life, as if it seemed to be visual signs articulated in a mysterious writing full of meanings . His improvisations develop a beautiful narrative dimension with a style completely - personal, precise and warm lyrical. His colleague Sergio Armaroli cultivates an aerial and delicate game, all notes suspended and floating in space, the timbre of the blades escaping into the infinite silence as in Duet Six, the longest of the short improvisations. These run between two and four or six minutes and Duet Six reaches 10:43. To our delight, the last improvisation, Trio Two, lasts 22:36 and brings together the three musicians, allowing us to enjoy the presence of trombonist Giancarlo Schiaffini. In fact, I consider the trombone to be the flagship instrument (or one of the instruments) of the European "free improvised music" revolution. And so in my case, Schiaffini (like Rutherford, Christmann, Malfatti, the Bauers, Paul Hubweber or Sarah Brand) is an essential pioneer. You have to hear it working on the sound, its glissandi in the bass, vocalizing in the horn, vibrating the air column, compressing it etc ... A magnificent alter-ego for the distinguished Harri Sjöström whose articulation is marvelous. The zigzagging and hopping play of vibraphonist Sergio Armaroli and his libertarian vision of the instrument, creates a third dimension, a relief that is at the same time ethereal, transparent and substantial, which contributes to the architecture of exchanges, tracing cases chosen for the winds. inspired. Wonderful chamber music.
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
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SESTETTO INTERNAZIONALE
Saint Vitus’ Dance at the ‘Lighght’
by Martin Burger, on Jazzpodium 3/19
(Translation Angelika Michitsch)
And yet another ‘Offene Ohren e.V.’ [The Open Ears Society] line-up at the MUG [Underground at the Einstein, Munich], programmed somewhere between the more experimental side of jazz and freestyle contemporary art music: the Sestetto Internazionale, put together by the Finnish soprano saxophonist Harri Sjöström.
Half of the Sestetto consists of the Trio Internazionale – soprano saxophonists Gianni Mimmo and Sjöström together with the Finnish universal accordionist Veli Kujala, who had already impressed at the Einstein venue 3 years ago.
The instrumentation of the other half is no less exceptional: the English Alison Blunt, violin, Achim Kaufmann from Berlin playing the piano, Ignaz Schick operating the turntables.
It’s no exaggeration to say that this was a magical evening that took you beyond all established musical categories. The rapport of the six musicians – their somnambulistic awareness of each other – was obvious from Sjöström’s first delicate sax tones onward. Mimmo leads with a melancholic melody line, transforms it into animated passages, then accents from Kujala’s almost imperceptible quarter-tone accordion. The piano starts, Blunt takes on Mimmo’s melody and expands, followed by the first turntable samples that sound as if they simply can't help but glisten and twinkle at exactly this moment in time, in exactly this sequence. By then you are trapped, subject to the spell of these six musicians who most of all listen to each other.
No-one plays to be the first, no-one needs to prove their ego, and yet there are six distinct individuals - weaving an acoustic fabric with feeling for detail, an infallible sense of how to develop this group composition, and with much humor.
This first part, some 40 minutes long, gives rise to much anticipation for the duo miniatures promised to follow. The duos! Mimmo and Blunt tenderly swirl around each other unisono, diametric and emotionally charged in a veritable cascade of sound. Then piano and turntables carry us off to intergalactic aural spheres where jollity and drama indulge each other and every sonic development holds new surprises.
The Finnish duo tops: at first microtonal and intricate soundscapes that command utter concentration, only for the soprano sax and accordion to climb into a speedy dervish-like St Vitus’ dance that in the end leaves musicians and audience stunned, breathless and in awe. ‘You never know it before! You never know it before!’ Sjöström celebrates later.
Another sextet piece followed – this time frugal consonant and dissonant expansions of tone and interferences, repetitive sequencing reminiscent of the instruments’ linear moods and intonations that soon resolve into multi-melodious modulations. More than once the listeners are tasked to decide which of the complex and simultaneously evolving sound images to follow.
Needless to say, the applause demands an encore – Sjöström announces ‘Pikku Pala’ (a little piece).
As luck would have it, the public-service radio station Bayerischer Rundfunk recorded this highlight live: BR-Klassik will broadcast the concert on 14th June 2019. This music deserves to be listened to again. Just as much as attention should be paid to the Offene Ohren society’s spirited programming.
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Aural Vertigo
Sestetto Internazionale
All About Jazz review:
By DANIEL BARBIERO
July 9, 2017
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The Sestetto Internazionale is a truly international group of European musicians, having been put together by Finnish soprano saxophonist Harri Sjöström for a September 2015 tour of Finland. In addition to Sjöström, the sextet includes fellow Finn accordionist Veli Kujala; the masterful Italian soprano saxophonist Gianni Mimmo; UK violinist Alison Blunt; and the Germans Achim Kaufmann and Ignaz Schick on piano and turntables, respectively. This exciting live recording captures the ensemble's concerts at Helsinki and Turku, each of which is represented by one long track.
The makeup of the group is unusual even for a free improvisation ensemble unbound by conventions governing instrumentation. To begin with, there's an intriguing, built-in redundancy of function and range. Three of the instruments—the violin and the two soprano saxophones—are of similar compass, while the piano and quartertone accordion are both chording instruments. The quartertone accordion in itself adds an unusual flavor, but when paired with either the tempered piano or the violin, it opens up the possibility of dissolving conventional harmonies into less-determinate pitch bands. The addition of turntables to this acoustic grouping further multiplies the potential for novel sound combinations.
Accordingly, the music here is music of detail. Movement doesn't come by way of harmonic change but rather by way of shadings of timbre and pitch. The overlap in range of soprano saxophones and violin shapes much of the sound profile, setting up contrasts between reeds and strings or even between reeds, as when Sjöström uses a mute in contraposition to Mimmo's more open-voiced sound. But contrast is as much a matter of identity as it is of difference, as when the coincidence of pitch erupting in the middle of a sound block or during a moment of unison playing will seem to summon a new instrument whose timbre is a composite of violin, saxophone and accordion.
In the end, it isn't the qualities of the instruments alone but rather the energy and finely-honed actions and interactions of the individual musicians that animate these pieces. The two saxophonists may play the same instrument but they do so quite differently; Sjöström constructs angular, hard-edged bursts that leap registers, while Mimmo favors longer lines built of carefully balanced, rounded phrases—he is a melodist as much as a colorist. Blunt, for her part, also pursues line but with an emphasis on the untempered side of the violin, whether playing micro tonally-inflected chords and passages following their own logic, or deftly deploying glissandi against Kujala's quarter tones. Underneath it all, Kaufmann's percussive pianism contributes an element of urgency and taut drama.
Much of the time the music is analogous to an abstract painting whose color fields move around over the picture plane. The picture plane in this case being Schick's turntables—a scuffy, static-permeated background much like a canvas of rough weave.
Track Listing: Aural; Vertigo
Personnel: Harri Sjöström: soprano and sopranino saxophones; Gianni Mimmo: soprano saxophone; Alison Blunt: violin; Achim Kaufmann: piano; Veli Kujala: quarter tone accordion; Ignaz Schick: turntables
Title: Aural Vertigo | Year Released: 2017 | Record Label: Amirani Records
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Liner Notes - Sestetto Internazionale
by Ulli Habersetzer - Bayerischer Rundfunk
Six sounds, six perspectives, six personalities.
The “Sestetto Internazinale” is unique in different ways. You won’t find this line up a second time: two sopranosaxophones, violine, piano, turntables and quartertone accordeon. Three high melody instruments and three instruments which act rhythmically and harmonically and melodically. But those cathegories don’t exist here. The only thing that counts is listening. These six worldclass improvisors like to create and expend sound scapes. It’s not about one great solo, it’s only about the collective.
The sound creature of “Sestetto Internazionale” is a wild one, edged, with pleasure, full of life.
Sechs Sounds, sechs Sichtweisen, sechs Charaktäre.
Das „Sestetto Internazionale“ ist gleich auf mehrere Arten einzigartig. Eine Besetzung, wie es sie nicht wieder gibt: zwei Sopransaxophone, Violine, Klavier, Turntables und Vierteltonakkordeon. Drei hohe Melodieinstrumente und drei Instrumente, die rhythmisch, harmonisch und melodisch ins Geschehen eingreifen können. Doch solche Kathegorien gibt es hier nicht. Was einzig zählt, ist das Zuhören. Die sechs Weltklasse-Improvisatoren wollen gemeinsam Klangräume schaffen und erweitern. Es geht nicht um die einzelne solistische Leistung, es geht nur um das Kollektiv.
Das Klanggeschöpf des „Sestetto Internazionale“ ist ein Wildes, ein Sperriges, ein Lustvolles, ein Lebendiges.
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ORBITS
ICTUS RECORDS
Andrea Centazzo, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Sergio Armaroli, Harri Sjöström
Album released on Andrea Centazzo's Ictus label, Orbits brings together two atypical blowers, the Finnish soprano saxophonist Harri Sjöström with his meticulous and intuitively melodic sound work and the Italian trombonist Giancarlo Schiaffini with his contrasting voice, gravelly and full of sonic nuances, and two percussionists, the Swiss vibraphonist Sergio Armaroli with an airy and delicate playing and the very fine Andrea Centazzo who diversifies with a mallet kat, very complementary to the vibraphone. The music takes place suspended or floating in space and everyone's improvisations imprint gravitational attractions as if their individual paths crossed in fields of attraction giving rise to subtle ellipses and sonic magnetisms. The basic principle of this atypical quartet is defined by a paradoxical feeling of static mobility or illusion of movement and of each person's independence from the whole. The crystalline vibrations of the vibraphone are punctuated by a volatile maraca (Orbits # 3) and joined by the sound punctuations of the two blowers. Each of the 13 improvisations develops its own dynamic and stages a new story +. The principle of Orbits consists in that one of the musicians begins to improvise - to play alone and is joined successively by the three others who come to place themselves in orbit each choosing his orbital position, his speed, his distance, the elliptical outline… This formula orchestral and its dynamics would evoke a little that of the group of Leo Smith with the vibraphonist Bobby Naughton, but the music of Orbits holds many other secrets which are worth to be discovered with the wire of successive listening. Harri Sjöström was Steve Lacy’s student and for a long time played with Cecil Taylor, Centazzo and Schiaffini are arguably among the few most important pioneers of free improvisation on the peninsula, and perhaps the most original. Listening to these superb Orbits, annotated by Evan Parker, we tell ourselves that they have not finished looking for new paths by fitting into Sergio Armaroli's concept-project. If Steve Lacy had been in a quartet sounding this way, fans and critics would have exclaimed in rapturous praise.
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg
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ORBITS / STEPS
FEBRUARY 2022 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD
review by Steven Loewy
For more than three decades, percussionist, producer and organizer Andrea Centazzo has done a marvelous job documenting his work with a plethora of outstanding international musicians exploring various free improvisational strategies. His label Ictus Records has studiously catalogued these recordings, which form an impressive collection.
Steps is a trio of Centazzo with Finnish soprano saxophonist Harri Sjöström (who turns 70 this month) and vibraphonist Sergio Armaroli, with Centazzo’s longtime collaborator, trombonist Giancarlo Schiaffini, added on Orbits.
Orbits is a largely static, though powerful work. According to Evan Parker’s liner notes, one player begins improvising on each track and the others join in “… one by one, until the cycle or ‘orbit’ is completed.” The American-educated Sjöström has performed extensively in Europe and is probably best known as
a sideman with Cecil Taylor on live recordings with small groups and larger ensembles. While Sjöström’s work with Taylor received mixed reviews, the pianist’s embrace enhanced the saxophonist’s reputation and brought him to the attention of a wider audience. The participation of Schiaffini on Orbits is solid, though disappointingly limited. On the opening “Orbits #1”, loosely muted trombone joins gingerly, in an atmospheric setting, in which vibraphone seems to reign supreme. This is followed by a feature for Armaroli, who sports impressive chops on “Orbits #2”.
Centazzo is a facilitator throughout, a role he plays well, and his mysterious bells on “Orbits #4” and elsewhere mesh well with the mesmerizing sounds of the soprano, with its slowly trilling lines and whooshes of air, while Schiaffini quietly and sporadically
punches through with tastefully subdued runs. Sjöström never really breaks out in any substantial way, though he contributes substantially to the collective sound. Overall, the atmospherics prevail and there is a sense of wandering, gently but relentlessly. On “Orbits #5”, the saxophonist opens at length with spunk, later joined by vibraphone in counterpoint. Schiaffini pleases on “Orbits #10” with his opening muted blats, growls and splats, eventually joined by the others in a somewhat more diverse offering, with impressive pointillistic playing from trombone and saxophone. The recording ends with “Orbits #11”, which opens with a wonderfully engaging and fast drum solo, later joined by muted trombone and saxophone in a lovely closing.
Steps gives a bit more time to the trio. Sjöström seems more emboldened and Armaroli revels in the moment with beautiful lines and tone. Sometimes, as on “Steps #2”, there are slower moments, but on “Steps #5”, for example, the tempo picks up and Sjöström is more aggressive, sporting shimmering beauty. On “Steps #6”, He display some of his best work, his lines snaking all over the horn. The tracks work best when they are liveliest and when all members of the trio are fully engaged, such as on “Steps #7”. Centazzo is always solidly in support, pushing forward as an equal member and driving force.
For more information, visit ictusrecords.com
