Actis Band

Allende
Leo CD LR 462

Most antic of contemporary Italian improvisers, reedist Carlo Actis Dato regularly performs in multi-colored costumes complete with cloth fez. Although a charter member of significant ensembles like the Italian Instable Orchestra, he never lets solemnity get in the way of levity and imparts a broad sense of humor along with superior musicianship.

His helpmates in the Actis Band are second saxophonist Massimo Rossi, guitarist Karsten Lipp, drummer Dario Bruna, plus Federico Marchesano on electric bass. On this CD’s 10 high-octane originals, the result is a marriage of funk, folklore and freeform. Imagine Julius Hemphill at his bluesiest, R&B honker Leo Parker and James Brown’s JBs performing horas and tarantellas at an Italian wedding and you’ll get an inkling of the result.

Rubato and staccato, with frequent time and tempo changes balancing precariously on top of Bruna’s backbeat, a variety of additional influences from Arabic to Hard Rock riddle the tunes. Marchesano’s accompaniment heads for surf sounds when he’s not walking, while the sibilant screams and echoing split tones from the saxophonists touch on rock as often as Energy Music. Using a vibrato as wide as the Mediterranean, on baritone saxophone Actis Dato often provides a rhythmic ostinato to Rossi’s mewling altissimo forays and triple-tongued glissandi.

With constant beat-mongering and parades of tremolo note inflections encouraging the party atmosphere, Allende is intelligent good-time music. If there’s a weakness, it’s that, except for the atmospheric “Kamakura” with its sul ponticello bass lines, serpentine guitar reverb and smeary horn obbligatos, the band never relaxes. With every tone stretched to its limit, shading and contrast are lacking among the dazzling sonic colors.

-- Ken Waxman

July 27, 2006

ROSCOE MITCHELL/TATSU AOKI

First Look Chicago Duos
Southport S-SSD 0112

CARLO ACTIS DATO & BALDO MARTINEZ
Folklore Imaginario
Leo CD LR 437

Like evaluating a foreign art film and a Hollywood blockbuster in a similar fashion just because both appear on celluloid, these string-and-reed duos are superficially analogous. Yet by the time the imaginary final frames appear you realize that the four musicians involved, despite using the more-or-less-same instrumentation and the same medium, have created two radically different productions. The irony for some is that the Europeans on FOLKLORE IMAGINARIO have come up with the buoyant, in-your-face, aurally Technicolor product, with the equivalent of the spills, chills and thrills of a mainstream film. In contrast, the sounds created by the Americans on FIRST LOOK CHICAGO DUOS are as low-key and meltingly chiaroscuro as the screen images of an independent, usually foreign language production.

First of all you must remember that Turin-born baritone saxophonist and bass clarinetist Carlo Actis Dato is the Jim Carey of contemporary Italian jazz. Although a member of widely-respected ensembles like the Italian Instabile Orchestra, he’s usually dressed in a colorful costume complete with hat. Contributing a sense of wacky abandon to any improvised situation, his highly rhythmic style encompasses as many tongue slaps and honks as Carey’s work includes pratfalls.

Playing Dean Martin to Actis Dato’s Jerry Lewis is the respected Spanish bassist Baldo Martinez. Someone who has in the past worked with Canadian trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and American bassoonist Michael Rabinowitz among others, his style often includes a strain of ethnic music. In a way this CD is a continuation of an earlier project where he improvised on folkloric themes from the North of Portugal and Galician traditional music from the north of Spain.

That music may have been presented like a National Film Board documentary. But with Actis Dato on board, herky-jerky cabaletta and Klezmer interjection, not to mention freak notes from both his horns turn this imaginary folklore on its ear, ending up with FOLKLORE IMAGINARIO perked up with slapstick implications.

On the American side, FIRST LOOK CHICAGO DUOS could be the aural equivalent of a cinematic profile of a quick change artist, thespian or not. Roscoe Mitchell, one of the founders of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, uses his collection of reeds and percussion to assume various roles on the CD’s nine tracks. His partner, Tokyo-born, longtime Chicago resident Tatsu Aoki, not only exhibits his prowess on the double bass, but also strokes and bangs complementary tones with his percussion implements.

On “The Journey”, for instance, it sounds as if Aoki is slapping a taiko drum as well as his bass strings, until the strings’ steady pulse turns to accompanying a long-lined tremolo section from Mitchell’s alto saxophone. When the reed work becomes more intense and shrill, Aoki pummels the drum again, producing irregular pulsations that match up with the saxman’s overblown multiphonics and circular breathing.

Overwhelmingly percussive, the concluding “Out” finds Mitchell creating polyrhythmic textures that seem as if they could come from shaken tam tams, concussive claves, vibrated steel drum and rattling metallic balls. Aoki sticks to a steady bass line, which in the tune’s centre section harmonizes with Mitchell’s legato flute modulations.

Elsewhere the saxophonist uses tough and textured double tonguing from his soprano to go up against forefront stretching and vibrating bull fiddle strings. Slinky ney-like trills are tried sparingly but effectively on other tracks, usually as counterpoint to Aoki’s rumble and bounce. Yet on “Festa”, the drum-like wallop appears when Aoki pats and pops the ribs and belly of his bass, eventually taking on dumbek properties to match Mitchell’s Arabic timbres.

Constantly intersecting and adapting new pitches, each man can provide the accompanying ostinato, and either can step forward as soloist.

The same equal partnership exists on FOLKLORE IMAGINARIO, but with the added impetus of the other CD’s chiaroscuro grey scale and muted pulsations replaced with eight tunes sonically decorated with shocking flashes of vibrant colors and buoyant interactions so quick and violent that they’re analogous to an action film’s car chases.

Playing eight tunes by Actis Dato and eight by Martinez, as opposed to Aoki-Mitchell’s set of instant compositions, the Euro improvisers figuratively hit the ground running with the first track, the bassist’s “Sospeita”. Built on complex rasgueado from Martinez that evolve into slap bass technique, Actis Dato responds with baritone saxophone snorts, squeals, squeaks and yells vibrated from the body tube. After spiccato turns and pops from the bassist, while the saxman accompanies him, they switch roles and Actis Dato snorts out irregularly pitched lines on top of Martinez’s slap bass ostinato.

“Vejo Elmer” and “Compay Segundo” try out different strategies with the former depending on Actis Dato’s pitch-sliding bass clarinet coloring in the chalumeau register, while the later commences with sombre-sided bowed bass lines and basement-deep smears from the baritone. The former includes enough contrapuntal and subtly colored notes climaxing in a series of shredded squeals and passing tones, that in cinematic terms it could be linked to a sensitive dramatic turn by a comedic actor. Yet once the method-acting is out of the way on Actis Dato’s “Compay Segundo”, a snaky half Klezmer-half Hindustani pulse appears. Does it represent the novelty of exotic belly dancing in the shtetl? Round waddling notes from the baritone’s mid-range meet bull-fiddle strums with even more jocular reverberations added as the coda.

It’s these effervescent impulses which characterize most of the tracks here. If Actis Dato isn’t yowling and smearing timbres in a cabaletta-style rhythm, then he’s producing tongue flutters and honks from the big horn that would make R&B saxmen blush. Martinez’s Andalusian beat includes slaps, slides and single-string pizzicato snaps as well as arco double- and triple-stopping. Contrapuntally the two echo each others’ phrases, like an awkward duo finishing each others’ sentences in a teen comedy. They also pause a few times during the improvisation to harmonize on a vocalization of the title on “Mandingo”, a technique often used by the saxophonist on other CDs.

Although the folklore implications of the session are expressed often, because of the dance-like complexion of many of the tunes, no matter how outside the solos go, there’s always a recap of the theme sometimes before the finale.

Whether you prefer your duos Hollywood frantic or art house cerebral, there’s much to like on either of these discs.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Folklore: 1. Sospeita 2. Ashanti 3. Compay Segundo 4. A boca da ria 5. Luna Park 6. Vejo Elmer 7. Festa 8. Mandingo

Personnel: Folklore: Carlo Actis Dato (baritone saxophone and bass clarinet); Baldo Martinez (bass)

Track Listing: First: 1. In 2. East Side Easy 3. Number Five Wings Place 4. The Journey 5. Glide 6. Dot 7. Journey for the Cause 8. Yoshihashi 9. Out

Personnel: First: Roscoe Mitchell (alto and soprano saxophones, clarinet, flute and percussion); Tatsu Aoki (bass and percussion)

April 10, 2006

CECIL TAYLOR & THE ITALIAN INSTABILE ORCHESTRA

The Owner Of The River Bank
Justin Time/Enja JENJ 3317-2

Probably the first musician who legitimately melded African-American improvisational skills with hyper-European instrumental prowess, Cecil Taylor is a true citizen of the world.

Lionized as a combo leader and soloist, the now 75-year-old’s orchestral talents are less well known, since rehearsing any large band is time-consuming and expensive. Luckily as part of the celebration of the Italian Instabile Orchestra (IIO)’s 10th anniversary, the Talos Festival in Puglia, Italy’s arranged for this match up. The result gives Taylor the largest collection of orchestral colors to work with since he soloed with Michael Mantler’s 21-piece band on COMMUNICATIONS in 1968.

Unlike that legendary CD and the few other large bands the pianist has organized over the years, the 18-piece IIO has a more-or-less stable personnel made up of Italy’s top exploratory players. Thus, a disciplined and experienced group is on hand to interpret the graphical notation that makes up Taylor’s more than one hour score, and before this, during a series of rehearsals, was able to add individual interpretations of Taylor’s work.

THE OWNER OF THE RIVER BANK is no concerto for piano and orchestra however. Instead Taylor’s presence is conspicuous only when each compositional motif or movement ends with a piano intermezzo that brings on the next section. Viewing the bonus video track included on the disc, you can see that the pianism isn’t all Taylor either. Umberto Petrin, the IIO’s regular keyboardist, contributes as well, with only certain characteristic runs and, of course, his muttered throat singing directly attributable to the American.

Taken all of a piece, “The Owner of the River Bank” is not only so-called avant-garde and so-called jazzy, but also includes surprisingly lengthy impressionistic -- even romantic -- passages. Throughout, violinist Renato Geremia, cellist Paolo Damiani and bassist Giovanni Maier are as apt to play caprices and arpeggios as spiccato, sul tasto and ponticello. Additionally the alp-horn-like smears of Martin Mayes’ French horn and the thunder of Mazzone’s tympani are put to good and original use.

But don’t confuse this composition with a Third Stream exercise. At points the massed trombone choir spits out an overlay of triplets or liberates plunger sounds from deep within the horns’ bells. Screaming trumpet counter motifs vibrate from trilling rubato to chromatic explosions. Meanwhile the five reed players peep, slurp and low as they smear tones every which way.

By midpoint, the somewhat tentative sound shards coalesce into harsh building blocks of sound superimposed upon one another -- and held together with Taylor’s high frequency cadenzas. Rolling bounces and backbeats from tympani and drums give the piece rhythmic heft as a serpentine soprano saxophone line -- perhaps from Mario Schiano -- slithers sensuously through tremolo barnyard blasts from Carlo Actis Dato’s baritone saxophone and triple tonguing from one trumpeter, likely Pino Minafra.

Later on, the dynamic accents the pianist snatches from each side of the keyboard give way to a sort of legato duet with Petrin. No matter how impressionistic the two get, there’s still an underlying exploratory rhythm. Yet while no one would figure these passages are played by Alfred Brendel and Walter Klein or any other so-called immortal classical piano duo, they’re obvious not by a jazz duo like John Lewis and Hank Jones or Willie “The Lion” Smith and Luckey Roberts either.

Finally the band members’ distinctive Italian personality asserts itself as well. Among the double-stopping bass and cello lines, a spiccato violin section, plus wah wahs and smears from the syncopated horns, are group verbal improvisations that mirror Taylor’s vocal riffs. When he growls, they provide doo-wop vocalese and buffo pseudo opera. There’s even a quasi-Dixieland interjection, where Lauro Rossi or Giancarlo Schiaffini adds some Kid Ory-like laughing plunger work, and a trilling, double-tongued clarinet -- Gianluigi Trovesi? -- momentarily references Johnny Dodds. To counter, a trumpet line snakes over the massed band and Taylor contributes a high-intensity tremolo.

Taken at double speed, the suite’s penultimate movement finds the composer characteristically applying contrasting dynamics as he surges over the keys. With the other pianist playing treble clef accompaniment, Taylor shifts the harmonics northward helped by fricative percussion and colored air circulating through the reeds. When an almost martial contrapuntal theme arrives from the surging brass, it’s quieted by another piano display.

The finale features ascending chords goosed by a prestissimo drum beat, a romantic, moderato piano part and more individual vocal interjections -- topped by conspiratorial whispers and keening growls from Taylor. Double stopping, sul tasto bowing from the cello mix with emphasized airy reed smears and tongue slaps, until an agitated piano melodies leads the band to silence.

Often veloce, sometimes andante, usually frantic and frequently discordant, this bravura display of musicianship confirms the compositional, interpretational and creative talents of all 19 players.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Part 1 2. Part 2 3. Part 3 4. Part 4 5. Part 5 6. Part 6 7. Part 7: Mpg movie

Personnel: Guido Mazzon, Luca Calabrese, Alberto Mandarini (trumpets and voices); Giancarlo Schiaffini, Sebi Tramontana, Lauro Rossi (trombones and voices; Martin Mayes (French horn and voice); Eugenio Colombo (sopranino saxophone, flute, voice); Mario Schiano (alto and soprano saxophones, voice); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone, voice); Daniele Cavallanti (tenor saxophone, voice); Carlo Actis Dato (bass clarinet, baritone saxophone and voice); Renato Geremia (violin, voice); Cecil Taylor and Umberto Petrin (pianos and voices); Paolo Damiani (cello, voice); Giovanni Maier (bass, voice); Vincenzo Mazzone (drums, tympani and voice); Tiziano Tononi (drums, percussion and voice)

September 20, 2004

STEFANO MALTESE OPEN SKY ORCHESTRA

Hanging In The Sky
Splasc (H) CDH 139.2

Touted as the progenitor of the Italian Instabile Orchestra (IIO), Sicilian reedist Stefano Maltese’s Open Music Orchestra (OMO) was so only the way the Washingtonians begat Duke Ellington’s Famous Orchestra or the Cro Magnon was an ancestor to the Homo Spain.

As this reissue from 1987 shows, rather than being a slimmed down version of the 19-member IIO, the 10-piece OMO came from an entirely different and more singular place. Vehicles to express the ideas of Maltese, OMO compositions were less overtly Italian than those played by the IIO. Instead they reflected his personal amalgamation of languid Cool predilections and the stop-time blusiness that characterized some of Ellington’s work. Also, while several later IIO musicians -- including trumpeter Pino Minafra, reedist Carlo Actis Dato and trombonist Sebi Tramontana -- were in the OMO, it’s overriding voice -- literally -- was that of vocalist Giocondo Clio.

Clio, who has been part of all the groups Maltese has organized since then, adds to or detracts from the instrumental performances many places here. On the title tune, for instance, the gorgeous horn arrangement advanced on top of uneven arpeggios from pianist Martin Joseph, almost ground to a halt when she starts singing in a little girl’s voice with strangely accented English. As she versifies “Travelin’ Light” cushioned by reed tones, you wonder if this oddity has redirected the tune into a homage to Jimmy Giuffre’s big band arrangements of “Travelin’ Light” for Anita O’Day.

In the same way “Open Windows” and “Dans Le Ciels” -- which run into one another -- take on a different complexion at the conclusion when Clio’s singsongy vocal make it sound as if she’s rendering a kiddy ditty in Italian-accented French. The martial drumbeats and vamping horns behind her are a mere echo of the screaming Kentonian brass and reeds, that begin the piece. More impressively though, earlier on, short chords and silences make way for plunger trombone lines from Tramontana, buoyant hummingbird-light flute solos from Eugenio Colombo -- another future IIOer -- and romantic, muted grace notes from Minafra as Antonio Moncada works out on triangle and güiro.

On the other hand, the nearly 10-minute “Elephants Waltz”, and “Mirror Oblique”, the most abstract composition on the disc, both show the OMO in its best instrumental light. With Maltese and Dato’s twittering bass clarinets facing ponticello swipes from bassist Enrico Fazio, the later tune builds up with whinnying chromatic runs from Minafra. The former composition is a showcase for trombonist Luca Bonvini, who uses a steadying ostinato from the double bass as ballast on which to construct a slurred, chromatic line. Tension is accelerated by Maltese on serpentine soprano and split tones from Colombo on alto, until sustained horn vamps propel the piece from this side of freebop to quasi-R&B.

Clio’s role as Ivie Anderson to Maltese’s Ellington is brought into sharpest focus on the 16½-minute version of “Mood Indigo” that closes this set. Part of a 1999 OMO reunion gig, the arrangement puts the Ducal classic in POMO garb, especially when trombonist Lauro Rossi -- an IIO ringer -- begins breathing and buzzing and talking through his horn, one slide position at a time. Earlier, trumpeter Alberto Mandarini -- another IIO guest -- squeezes out plunger choruses in a call-and-response sequence over the well-modulated reed section.

Maltese’s own alto solo-- more Eric Dolphy than Johnny Hodges -- and a bit of slap bass from Giovanni Maier, augments the excitement that’s then taken to a whole new level by the vocalist in an unexpected Red Hot Mama persona. Clio, whose English seems to have improved during the band’s 11-year hiatus, started her career in blues bands with Maltese. This time out she shouts and holds notes for several measure at a time as the band riffs power chords behind her.

Valuable in its own right, HANGING IN THE SKY is also worth hearing for its all-star soloists and for what it reveals about the stirrings of Italian-oriented improv. But, after hearing the CD, the question of why Maltese, with his talent and connections, has never done a project with the IIO remains a question.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Open Window 2. Dans Le Ciels 3. Shadow of Yesterday 4. Hanging In The Sky 5. Something In the Air 6. Mirror Oblique 7. Elephants Waltz 8. At End of Day 9. Mood Indigo*

Personnel: Pino Minafra (trumpet and flugelhorn) or Alberto Mandarini (trumpet)*; Luca Bonvini, Sebi Tramontana, Lauro Rossi* (trombones); Stefano Maltese (soprano, alto and tenor saxophones); Eugenio Colombo (soprano and alto saxophone, flute, piccolo); Renato Germania (soprano and alto saxophone, flute); Carlo Actis Dato (baritone saxophone and bass clarinet); Martin Joseph or Umberto Petrin* (piano); Enrico Fazio or Giovanni Maier*(bass); Antonio Moncada (drums and percussion); Giocondo Clio (vocals)

August 23, 2004

Carlo Actis Dato

American Tour
Splasc(H)

By Ken Waxman

August 2, 2004

With his ebullient personality and colorful outfits that often suggest one of the Seven Dwarfs inbred with the Three Stooges, Turin’s Carlo Actis Dato is perhaps the prototypical Italian free improviser.

Valued member of a clutch of local bands under his own name or led by others -- not to mention his part in the all-star Italian Instabile Orchestra -- Actis Dato is up for any kind of improvisation, in varied situations with all types of musicians.

Imprecisely named for xenophobic Yanks, the 16 aural souvenirs on this CD find the Italian on tenor and baritone saxophones plus bass clarinet matching wits with his peers in three American and two Canadian cities. If truth be told, the seven tracks recorded in Toronto and Vancouver, B.C. are as zestful as those done south of the 49th parallel and may even have a slight edge.

Actis Dato appears to be perfectly matched with fellow baritone saxist David Mott, who teaches at Toronto’s York University and has recorded with drummer Gerry Hemingway. Almost from the first note on the fittingly entitled “Two Brothers” the reedists take up individual spots in the improvisations.

Encompassing a frisky Balkan-style dance, a blues-based romp and what could be the soundtrack for two terpsichorean hippos, the buffo pieces have one player in the balladic top range of the sax for a portion of the time, while the other provides portamento snorts and tongue slaps. Then they switch roles. With two men able to create bicycle horn tremolos and squeals, flutter-tongued sideslipping and glottal punctuation with the same facility, twin commingling is easily achieved.

Boston trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum provides an comparable foil for Actis Dato on their four selections named for the elements. The brassman can hold his own with any reedman having also recorded duets with Anthony Braxton. Most memorable number is “Water” where Actis Dato’s trilling of a freylach-style melody on clarinet is decorated with grace notes and growling pedal point by the brassman. Eventually the two reach a rapprochement with Ho Bynum following Actis Dato’s triple-tongued slides and slurs at an accelerated pitch so that the two sound as if they’re playing “Salt Peanuts” in a Dixieland setting.

Other compositions encompass foot-tapping Latin rhythms, old country dances -- Actis Dato’s old country not Ho Bynum’s -- and military style timbres sounded with quivering percussiveness. Throughout, the reedman shows off his serpentine bass clarinet work, embellished with tongue stops and tongue slaps, while the trumpeter speedily fingers triplets, single line mouthpiece trills and ornamental slides.

Elsewhere, Actis Dato’s two trio gigs are as different as the weather in Vancouver, B.C. and Chicago. His match up with guitarist Ron Samworth of Vancouver’s NOW orchestra, and drummer Dylan van der Schyff, who has worked with British saxist John Butcher among others, encompasses POMO electronic suggestions. His partnership with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, who seems to be on every second CD recorded in the Windy City and Wilco percussionist Glenn Kochi is harder and heavier.

Playing in British Columbia, the visitor gives the other musicians plenty of scope for inventiveness. Creating choruses of tongue slaps while overblowing, his tones fly over, around and through the drummer’s stick-on-stick nerve beats, ratamacues, wood block ratcheting and miniature cymbal strokes. From his corner, the guitarist introduces distorted reverb and electronic echoes.

Before the final notes are sounded however, Samworth has squealed out polyphonic chords, van der Schyff has created rugged rhythms with his bass drum, and Actis Dato uses the timbres flowing through his baritone’s body tube and bow to suggest some low-pitched Middle Eastern instrument. What would do you call an Italo-Arabic didjeridoo anyway?

Illinois brings out an entirely new side to the Italian reedist with the three selections rebounding from New music pointillism to out-and-out Free Jazz skronk.

“Alien Peace” is an example of the former with Actis Dato surrounding a middle section of chicken clucking arpeggios with tenor saxophone forays into mellow mid-range. Around him the cellist cascades chord patterns alive with spicatto, slurring bowing and, latterly, guitar-like strums. The drummer confines himself to cymbal clacks and press rolls. “Lost Melodies”, which follows, features New Thing-like smacks and lengthened trills from the reedist mixed with harsh flattement, side slipping and near whistles -- all from the saxman. Lonberg-Holm contributes double-stopping arco moments and Kotche wood block smacks.

Climax is reached with “Dawn” which begins with what appears to be Actis Dato bird calling through his detached mouthpiece, creating timbres that unexpectedly moderate into balladic trills. Lonberg-Holm’s ponticello slides turn louder and more staccato, first creating a miasmic cushion of pitches to contrast with the saxman’s riffs, then joining him to suggest a bouncing tarantella. Kotche is there with ruffs and rebounds. A crescendo is reached as Actis Dato tongue slaps a pogoing melody that the drummer extends with wood blocks thwacks.

Actis Dato’s three solo tracks here merely confirm the reed mastery that has he has. Shouting through his horn as he manipulates the keys, he appears able to sift timbres in such a way that they can be tough or tender depending on necessity and mood. As adapt at strained screaming textures which come from the gooseneck as exposing a sonorous tone situated deep in the bell, the reedist can split themes as well as tones, with the ability to produce two separate timbres from any of his horns.

Adept at his horns as well as amusing, Actis Dato’s antics never distract from his performance or his craftsmanship.

August 2, 2004

ANDREA CENTAZZO/MITTELEUROPA ORCHESTRA

Live
Felmay/NewTone Records RDC 5047 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Ken Waxman

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

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

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

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

April 21, 2003

PREVISIONI DEL TEMPO/FORECAST: Italian Instabile Orchestra

Co-ordinated by Francesco Martinelli and Massimo Iudicone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Ken Waxman

January 2, 2003

NADELÖHR

Merry Melodies
Unit UTR 4136

ACTIS’BAND
Don Quijote
Splasc (H) Records CDH 769.2

The main points of congruence and contrast between these two Continental combos are ones of inference. Young Swiss quartet Nadelöhr has created a CD designed to reproduce and subvert music composed to accompany cartoons. Meanwhile the five members of the Italian Actis’Band want to cavort like cartoon characters.

Northern Europe wins out over Southern Europe this time out because the quartet’s four composers add a variety of rhythms, tone and concepts to the simple melodies. Not without flaws, the end product is very promising. On the other hand, veteran Turin-based saxophonist Carlo Actis Dato, who wrote all of the tunes here, seems to have unexpectedly come up with a blot on his otherwise exemplary musical copybook. Seemingly dumbing down his music to the excessively undemanding standards of a blues-rock audience, the result is practically an inversion of the instrumental virtuosity and sense of fun that makes his more so-called avant-garde sounds so appealing. To be honest, what could be expected from a CD whose last track is entitled “Teenagers Taste” and mostly consists of the phrases “funky, funky” and “sexy” repeated over and over?

Dato who has produced exemplary work since the 1970s on his own, with the all-star Italian Instabile Orchestra and in various combos, may have stumbled when he conceived of this band as “the Italian answer to the New York downtown scene, combining avant-garde solos and upbeat funky rock”. So distinctive on his own, why should the reedist try to match what bands like the Lounge Lizards and Sex Mob are already doing? As well, his hometown sidemen, who all are part of the Arigret group, seem to have too much of a pop and rock orientation. It’s not that they haven’t studied improvisation academically (!) and played jazz professionally, it’s that they seem to lack Dato’s the dues-paying seasoning that would allow them to play with the tradition as they play it.

“Luna di Lampedusa”’, for example, with its galloping drum beats and protracted, echoing fuzz tones from bass guitar, seems to be a gentle subversion of a tarantella, mixed with rollicking Klezmer rhythms. But Massimo Rossi is so concerned with maintaining his hip, clean Return To Forever cadenzas on soprano saxophone, and guitarist Antonio Fontana, who has worked with rock bands, is so intent in showing off his speedy Beck/Clapton/Page note-squeezing-and-bending techniques, that the innocence of the tune is lost.

Or consider “East Mambo”, which mixes bird calls and a foot-tapping timbales-driven Latin beat from Dario Bruna, who has spent more than 15 years working with jazz and rock groups in northern Italy. Once the drummer asserts himself, however, the herky-jerky rhythm varies from Uptown Country to simple British Invasion big beat and Rossi on alto seems to consider David Sanborn-like smoothness preferable to harder R&B-type styling.

While Lindy-Hopping riffs, this-side-of-Ayler screaming tenor sax solos, glee-club-style unison vocals and fat-bottomed electric bass licks make their appearance elsewhere, nowhere is the time elastic enough to make you think the tunes are anything more than pastiche. Even “Los Tiburones”, which wants to take the band to a Tijuana road house, may have its share of sax honks and screams, chicken-plucking rhythm guitar licks and bass finger pops, but no one is ever going to confuse the Actis’Band with the JBs or the MGs.

Likewise “Fuck Mac”, though if we’re talking fast food, it may be commendable for its anti-globalization sentiment. Yet the thumpy, lumpy bass solo from Federico Marchesano, who has played jazz, worked with symphonies and the RAI Orchestra, isn’t going to convince anyone that this isn’t just another low-level attempt at jazz-rock. The guitarist is stuck in the 1970s, with his prolonged tremolos, the drumming is ersatz-Kiss and only Dacto’s frantic reed blowing seems at all memorable.

Heading north we find four musicians with jazz backgrounds constructing -- at times with remixes -- their own music and tweaking soundtracks originally designed to accompany European, American and Israeli cartoons. Taking John Zorn and Don Byron as exemplars, Nadelöhr is probably linked to the “New York downtown scene” as well, but doesn’t trumpet it. Many of the tunes come across as a combination of pubic service announcement music, silent movie accompaniment, mainstream jazz riffs and serious European inducements -- with some vibes rattles, synthesizer burps and gypsy violin tones thrown in for good measure.

“Dirdy Birdy”, for instance shows off the versatility of keyboardist Mathias Gloor, who plays in a jazz-rock group with drummer Lucas Niggli. Mixing vocal actualities from the real cartoon, along with some crackle and static, Gloor creates 1950s-style mood music organ, death metal guitar riffs -- is that “Satisfaction” being played? -- a synthesized version of M-O-R favorites the 101 Strings, electronic swiggles and jiggles and TV cop show riffs. Meanwhile alto saxophonist Christoph Grab, turns from roadhouse sax honks to smooth slurps, while drummer Dominik Burger throws in some heavy metal drumming in appropriate spots.

Between the faux organ chords and outer space sounds, you begin to wonder if “Für Vision” is a homage to those Sputnik-era rock bands like the Astronauts or the Tornados rather than filmmaker Killan Dellers’ “vision”, especially when a straight bebop sax lines and some miscellaneous voices appear. Repetitive string rhythms from violinist Christian Strässle, who also plays in tango bands and string quartets, then begins to suggests the music from the film 2001.

Even more ear-catching is “Cowconut”, the final number which morphs from a waltz played pretty conventionally by violin and accordion keyboard, to a stop-and-start wilder square dance, to end as a cacophony of shrill violin sweeps and lonely clarinet laments. The morose, Eastern-European saxophone dirge then threatens to turn into a tone that could only be created by Toots Thielemans’ harmonica before it dissolves into a faster, jolly ending.

Throughout, Strässle’s so-called “monster viola” can suggest cello parts, while alternately, his violin can leave its standard European tone to play as sharp as a Chinese erhu. Furthermore, use of the synthesizer to replicate instruments as varied as a cheesy roller rink organ, mood music vibes, a rubbed washboard and even a button accordion playing German beer drinking songs, shows that versatility is no problem. Eschewing freak effects but not irregular rhythms and varied time signatures, the other players contribute to this all together edifying session of program music in the literal sense of the term. Dissatisfaction only arrives, when, like the one tune that ends with what sounds like tape flapping off a reel, interesting tracks finish without proper resolution.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Don: 1. Takayama Rap 2. Los Tiburones 3. Sanchopanza 4. Rojo 5. Nairobi Night 6. East Mambo 7. Luna di Lampedusa 8. Fuck Mac 9. Boris Teenagers 10.Taste

Personnel: Don: Massimo Rossi (soprano and alto saxophones); Carlo Actis Dato (tenor and baritone saxophones, bass clarinet); Antonio Fontana (guitar, Marranzano, bird call, sexy voice); Federico Marchesano (bass, electric bass, loops); Dario Bruna (drums, interview etc.)

Track Listing: Merry: 1. Of All the Birds that I do know this One is the Most Complicated Character 2. Fräulein Schön und Das Tier 3. Ooh... 4. Dirdy Birdy 5. Changeant 6. Blue Velvet 7. Für Vision 8. Ayurveda 9. Cowconut

Personnel: Merry: Christoph Grab (soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, clarinet); Christian Strässle (violin, monster-viola) Mathias Gloor (piano, synthesizer); Dominik Burger, (drums, vibraphone)

October 14, 2002

CARLO ACTIS DATO

USA Tour/April 2001/Live Splasc (H) CDH 520.2

Someone once said that Benny Goodman didn’t smile that much; it was just his embouchure. In Carlos Actis Dato’s case it’s not his embouchure. As a matter of fact, if all woodwind players had as much fun improvising as he seems to have, then most sitcoms would have wacky saxophonists as next door neighbors.

Although he brings a goofy sense of fun to the proceedings, be aware that Actis Dato is no Louis Prima or Jack Sheldon who treats the music as secondary to his singing and comedy routine. He may get high spirited enough to sing at certain points of these 13 live performances, but he never debases the music in any way. Like Charles Mingus or Rahsaan Roland Kirk, vocalizing is just his way of showing how well things are going.

In reality, USA TOUR is diary of some of the highlights of his American visit in 2001. Recorded at approximately half of his U.S. appearance that year, the tracks find him partnered with jazz-rockers, keyboardist Wayne Horvitz and bassist Rueben Radding in Seattle; freebopers, bassist Clyde Reed and drummer Dave Storrs in Portland, Ore.; and free players, bassist Damon Smith and drummer Gino Robair in Oakland, Calif. Ken Vandermark showed up with his tenor saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet to duet in Chicago, while three outings are solo performances.

Usually wielding his largest horn -- the baritone sax -- Actis Dato excels at these match ups. Think of the colorfully costumed Italian as a lion tamer and his instrument as his feline, and you can hear how he easily puts the king of the reed family through its paces. Making it leap from its highest range down, down to its lowest, then putting it through the hoops of speedy pulsations, pseudo-nursery rhymes and jagged asides, like the best circus performer he does all this without abusing the animal and while communicating his sense of accomplishment.

Double your pleasure -- and fun -- when Vandermark shows up. Sticking to his bottom range and using tongue slaps to cement the rhythmic function, the visitor lets the homie use his higher-pitched axes to slip and slide around these instant compositions. Of course, Actis Dato is a credit to his bass (runs) when he shows that he can still come up with unexpected ways of leading from below. Sometimes, in fact. his tones push Vandermark’s to the side so that the American’s sound begins to dances to his reed ruminations.

Robair and Smith, who have experience interacting with adventurous reedists like Anthony Braxton, John Butcher and Wolfgang Fuchs, embroil Actis Dato’s bass clarinet in pure, non-stop improv. The reedist’s lower register lines are perfectly matched with Smith’s powerful strokes and Robair’s percussion. And the two are quick off the mark. When the reedman leads them into high-pitched, nonsense sounds, the drummer responds in kind -- vocally, with slide whistles, toys, shakers and miscellaneous percussion -- while Smith’s arco work keeps things on an even keel. Actis Dato is even inspired to bring out his tenor sax for a few pseudo Neapolitan operatic swells leading to several minutes of out and out swing.

Portland’s gig is just as interesting. Storrs and Reed are a seasoned bass and drums duo -- check out their trio work with fellow Northwesterner, tenor saxophonist Rich Halley -- and their exuberance clearly inspires Actis Dato. With all three of their numbers given a South American lilt, Actis Dato, on tenor producers a hearty tone midway between playful Sonny Rollins in his West Indian mode and early Gato Barbieri. Vancouver, B.C.-based Reed has played with his share of European explorers and keeps his sound powerful and unvarying, while Storrs shows that a bongo’s martillo torque and hard bop press rolls can equally be adapted to outside sounds.

Probably the weakest meeting is in Seattle, though. Horvitz’s shimmering dance- electronic synthesizer tones sounds more like Manchester (England) pop than committed improv. With Radding far in the background, it’s up to Actis Dato to inject the fortitude and soul into the proceedings, which he does. Imagine a few overdressed New Romantics being swept out of their wine bar as an R&B sax shouter clomps all over their table and you’ll get an idea of what the saxist does here. Sometimes, in fact, it appears as if he’s in a New Thing space all his own and his angry-sounding vocal interjects make be more than japes.

Although these live excursions suffer a bit from dodgy recording, too many fades in Portland and audible (!) audience cross talk on one Seattle piece, they’re a fine showcase of Actis Dato in full flight. In some cases you could say they’re the next best thing to being there.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Blue 2. Green 3. Brown 4. Poulet Fumé 5. Movin’ 6. Marina De Caribe 7. Old Time 8. Wonderful World 9. Clarbas 10. Bariten 11. Clabar 12. Witches 13. The Bay

Personnel: Carlo Actis Dato (tenor and baritone saxophones, bass clarinet); plus Ken Vandermark (tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet) [tracks 9-11]; Wayne Horvitz (keyboards) and Rueben Radding (bass) [tracks 1-3]; Clyde Reed (bass) and Dave Storrs (drums) [tracks 5-7]; Damon Smith (bass) and Gino Robair (drums) [track 13]

July 13, 2002

GIORGIO OCCHIPINTI HEREO NONETTO

Global Music and Circular Thought
Jazz'halo TS 012

Young Sicilian pianist Giorgio Occhipinti describes the sound on this CD as global music, but it certainly has little if anything in common with what most call World Music. Instead the suite he has written for this nonet reflects his version of global music: a mixture of opera buffa, Italian folk and marching songs, romantic pop, so-called classical music and a large parcel of jazz improvisation.

Nomenclature be damned, however. GLOBAL MUSIC is a stirring showpiece for the pianist's compositional skills that, in four lengthy compositions, utilize every one of his influences, flinging them together in a dense -- and very palatable -- mass. Separating the orchestral blow-outs are four miniature and airy dual-cello interludes, which serve the same purpose an amuse-gueule of sherbet does between courses in a hearty French meal: as an airy interlude to set you up for the substantial fare to follow.

Theatrical and splashy as only someone hailing from the birthplace of opera can be, Occhipinti's major compositions have a certain heft to them, and are decorated with the many orchestral colors he has available to him with nine plus instruments. The plus is Palermo-born clarinetist Maurizio Maiorana, whose tenor singing voice is used for little arias, both wordless and with Italian lyrics.

Whether you understand the language or not is unimportant, since the key to those songs is the vocal blend with the tunes and instrumentalists. And what sounds they produce. During the course of "Allegro Ibleo Con Ninna Nanna", for instance, the disc's showpiece at nearly 26 minutes, the tempo shifts from march to swing to free to jig and back again. Philharmonically-voiced string and horn passages follow a straightahead jazz motif with carefully accented snare and cymbal zaps and bop piano runs, Earlier passages move among raucous gutbucket trombone, quasi-Dixie high-note trumpeting and the clarinets' approximation of a tarantella. From time to time the dramatic Maiorana asserts himself, switching from a soaring operatic pitch to lyric reading that approximates a Virgilian Jacques Brel.

It does help, of course, to have some of the country's most accomplished musicians on board here. Trombonist Lauro Rossi, like Occhipinti and bass clarinetist Carlo Actis Dato a member of trumpeter Pino Minafra's all-star Sudori combo, can measure the bar lines in strict tempo with a proper sound as easily as he plays freely.

Reed madman Actis Dato, who is also known for his contributions to the Italian Instabile Orchestra and his own bands, is never at a loss for notes or ideas. Violaist Paolo Botti can put a folksy sheen on his tone on "Canone", then seemingly effortlessly soar over the massed ensemble as he does on "Danza Del Canto Supremo". One minute trumpeter Luca Calabrese, who first learned his trade in a wind banda, is making like an Italian Cat Anderson on "La Genesi Del Kaos", pushing higher and higher notes out of his horn. Shortly afterwards he's amplifying the Latin motif of "Canone" to such an extent that you next expect someone to yell "cha cha cha".

Despite its title, that tune, which is lively from beginning to end, comes across with a boogaloo beat following an introductory theme, that could be used on a TV cop show. While chaos may be created with blended horn section explosions and the many free passages -- not to mention Siracusa-based drummer Francesco Branciamore's apocalyptic kettledrums on "La Genesi Del Kaos", some of the earlier compositions switch between parade rhythms and Kurt Weillian-style waltz time.

Occhipinti is no slouch as a pianist either. When he takes centre stage, he can easily create some flowing Herbie Hancock-like contemporary keyboarding. Elsewhere he caresses compositions with right-handed glissandos.

A number of impressive European and North American orchestral projects have been released recently. With his creative mixture of inspiration, swing, humor and high musical standards, the pianist's disc certainly deserves to take its place near the top.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Cellos n°2* 2. Allegro Ibleo Con Ninna Nanna 3. Cellos n°1* 4. Canone 5. Cellos n°3* 6. Danza Del Canto Supremo 7. Cellos n°4* 8. La Genesi Del Kaos

Personnel: Luca Calabrese (trumpet, flugelhorn); Lauro Rossi (trombone); Maurizio Maiorana (voice, clarinet); Carlo Actis Dato (bass clarinet); Giorgio Occhipinti (piano); Paolo Botti (viola); Tiziana Cavaleri, Vito Amatulli* (cellos); Giuseppe Guarrella (bass); Francesco Branciamore (drums, kettledrums)

October 1, 2001

CARLO ACTIS DATO/ENZO ROCCO

Paella & Norimaki
Splasc(H) Records CDH 730.2

Part of the long jazz tradition of food album titles that includes CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS, CORNBREAD and KIDNEY STEW, PAELLA & NORIMAKI is another indication that no more than two chefs can create a scrumptious musical menu. The cooks here are two of Italy's most accomplished improvisers, multi-reedist Carlo Actis Dato and guitarist Enzo Rocco.

Since this is 2001, of course, the repasts are a little more cosmopolitan than those down home specialties celebrated in earlier compositions. Paella is Spanish and Norimaki Japanese, which as much as anything salutes the many countries in which the two musicians have played and the different musics that have influenced them. The motif is carried along into some of the titles of many of these 15 masterful miniatures, and recipes for both featured foods are included in the notes.

At home in seemingly any environment from solo recital to big bands, Turin-born Dato has been a new jazz pioneer since 1974 when he co-founded the Art Studio Group. Today he divides his time between his own bands and the Italian Instabile Orchestra. The career trajectory of Rocco, a guitarist from Crema is a little different. Almost as well-travelled as Dato, he has adapted folkloric and romantic themes into his compositions, created music for singers and theatre productions plus worked with hard core international improvisers and more conventional jazz groups.

Not afraid to whistle while they work, the two spice their creations with hearty handfuls of good humor. On "Bambù", for instance they hand clap and harmonize in Italian on the chorus, transforming what otherwise could be heard as a difficult tune into good time music. It's the same on "Mondo giusto" where baritone saxophone belches and staccato guitar chords are suddenly interrupted by what's probably a vocal dig at Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Nevertheless, immediately afterwards, on the ballad "Lu", the duo proves they can perform -- or is it prepare -- a soufflé-light, folksy composition as skillfully as they can throw hot peppers of satire into other tunes. With such a small kitchen staff, neither is the sous-chef, but takes turns passing the creation from one set of hands to another. Rocco's Latin tune, "Habablanca", for instance starts off with Dato's melodic tenor saxophone accompanied by lilting chording from the composer. When roles reverse, the saxophonist plays backing counterpoint while Rocco brings what could be a bluegrass mandolin attack to his single note solos; then they switch again. Practitioners of an Italian version of novelle cuisine, they know when to leave the compositions short and force the listener to salivate for more.

A mixmaster filled with Italian, Spanish, Oriental, Balkan and Improvised themes, this CD should be another well-thumbed page in the burgeoning Italian jazz cookbook. Even after it ends, you're still hungry for more music -- and the good food to go with it.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Mammamia! 2 Keffah? 3. Nakamura Song 4. Bambù 5. Habablanca 6. Faccia di pollo 7. Mandolinho 8. Vilnius 9. Ode to Henry Chinaski 10. Zarate 11. Entoeca 12. Ambrabbà 13. Mondo giusto 14. Lu 15. Rumba Bamba

Personnel: Carlo Actis Dato (tenor and baritone saxophones, bass clarinet); Enzo Rocco (guitar)

February 22, 2001

ACTIS DATO QUARTET

Ginosa Jungle
Splasc(h) Records CDH 710.2

If Carlo Actis Dato didn't exist someone -- perhaps other Italians -- would have to invent him.

The multi-reed linchpin of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, Sudori and a melange of other southern European bands -- including a few of his own -- Actis Dato is the prototypical modern Italian jazzman.

At home with funk, Middle Eastern, South American, classical Italian and just about any other sounds you can shake a pasta strainer at, he's equally proficient on saxophones and clarinets, but reserves his most robust playing for his baritone sax, with a tone as deep as the Mediterranean. Oh, and he isn't averse to donning a pair of Mr. Spock ears and cavorting around the stage if that will help the music alone.

The lucky burghers of Brugge, Belgium got a treat when this quartet rolled into town -- on April Fool's Day -- and the resulting live session is pinpoints exactly what these four music masters can create.

With two horns in the front line the band can be anything it wants to be from slippery klezmer group to precise marching band to slinky tango orchestra to the sort of Marachi band which hides behind the matador at a bull fight. And while it's clearly Actis Dato's show -- all compositions are by him along with most of the solos -- the other musicians get chances to shine as well.

On "Manouche", for instance Ponzo lets loose with some arching, Pisa tower-like skewed clarinet passages, while Actis Dato sticks to baritone riff backdrop. Fazio introduces "Jagua Nana" with intense, guitar-like intonation before the main tune careens like a Roman highway back and forth between a horn-driven swinger and a South American mambo. And, like a Spartan soldier, Sordini knows his place. He never overwhelms the soloists, but keeps the rhythm flowing smoothly with specific percussion accents while tossing in some mean bow screeches on "Djolibà".

Actis Dato, of course is a marvel as he ricochets between his three horns. Stop time baritone riffs first shape a tune like "Aeroflot", then gradually let it dissolve into march tempo -- is it Russian soldiers or Volga boatmen? -- then resolve itself as a little dance. Encouraging vocalism isn't alien to the saxist's presentation either -- check the mini-vaudeville chants near the end of "Cuarto Alegres" for instance.

Caesar came, saw and conquered Gaul. The Actis Dato Four did the same thing in Belgium, creating more festivity in the process.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Finalmente si balla 2. Salsangò 3. Cecenia 4. A la Martinique 5. Sahel 6. Black out 7. Jagua Nana 8. Aeroflot 9. Bossa di Bisceglie 10. Manouche 11. Djolibà 12. Cuarto Alegres

Personnel: Carlo Actis Dato (tenor and baritone saxophones, bass clarinet); Piero Ponzo (alto saxophone, clarinet); Enrico Fazio (bass); Fiorenzo Sordini (drums, percussion, bow)

September 11, 2000