João Pedro Viegas / Nicola Guazzaloca / Alvaro Rosso / Carlos Zingaro

Yet another meritorious delineation of hard-to-define yet idiosyncratic European improvised music is provided by A Pearl in Dirty Hands’ 10 selections. This may not be surprising considering the quartet includes Portuguese violinist Carlos “Zingaro”, who has been involved for years in this sort of pan-Continental Free Music with associates such as Joëlle Léandre. With musical magnanimity one of the genre’s hallmarks however, the dissonant sounds symbolically soil every participant’s digits-and-palms. Lisbon-based bass clarinetist João Pedro Viegas and double bassist Alvaro Rosso have recorded with the violinist in past while Bologna-based pianist Nicola Guazzaloca has played with other string stylists like Szilárd Mezei.

Self-contained, the CD’s sequences purposely or not amalgamate as an interconnected suite at the midpoint, encompassing self-reflecting titles like “By the Gale”, “By the Dusk”, “Down the Cave” and “On the Branches”. But as the parts connect as expressly as tributaries to body of water, the overriding emphasis leaves enough space for autonomous expression. With only the shades of the other instruments’ timbres in the background, the first tune is a near chamber recital with a pastel interface that takes in formal piano motifs and pressurized spiccato from the violin. Contrarily “On the Branches” is close to Jazz improvisations, with a chromatic subtext from Guazzaloca’s pedal pressure, rumbling rhythm variations from Rosso, Zingaro’s paced fiddle stops and Viegas’ distracted trills. Tremolo violin sweeps and a walking bass line also characterize “Down the Cave”, which is in reality a reed showcase, with Viegas’ mellow and modulated slurs displayed atop shimmering string stops which briefly mirror the reedist’s output. Toughest of the four sequences, “By the Dusk” is an assembly-line of speed-of-light stops from the fiddler whose touch is so fierce that he seems to slicing the gut strings as he plays.

More meditative are tracks such as `Reflexes and the concluding “Left clefts”. The former evolves with a fluid exposition, courtesy of Guazzaloca’s soundboard echoes, affiliates scrubs from the string players and tongued split tones from Viegas, building up to a crescendo spiccato jumps from Zingaro and a cyclone of reed tones. The pianist’s two-handed expression and swaying arpeggios characterize “Left clefts”, which finally achieves an atonal yet accommodating tonal breakthrough via the violinist’s stops and string stretches.

If the ‘pearl” here is the achievement of cultivated and creative imporivsed chamber music, than PU14 has achieved it with this disc. And if hands have to be dirty to achieve results like this musical cleanliness is obviously overrated.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Underwater 2. Soon it’s Late 3. Reflexes 4. Underground 5. By the Gale 6. By the Dusk 7. Down the Cave 8. On the Branches 9. Firestarter 10. Left clefts

Personnel: João Pedro Viegas (bass clarinet); Nicola Guazzaloca (piano); Carlos “Zingaro” (violin) and Alvaro Rosso (bass)