Sawt Out

Favre/Armaroli/Centazzo/Gemmo
The Art of Sound(s)
Hat hut ezz-thetics 118

Equivalent to a PhD dissertation in percussion methodology, these sessions shape idiophone paradigms in distinctive manners. Unwilling to emphasize percussion textures above all else, the appropriately titled The Art of Sound(s) stretches its parameters with an eight-movement suite performed by four veteran improvisers, Swiss drummer/percussionist Pierre Favre and three Italians: pianist Francesca Gemmo, vibraphonist Sergio Armaroli and drummer/percussionist Andrea Centazzo. Expressing an even more radical paradigm, Fake Live in America preserves three live improvisations that German percussionists Burkhard Beins and Michael Vorfeld create alongside the extended techniques of Lebanese trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj.

Longtime associates Beins and Vorfeld have played with everyone from Philip Samartzis and John Butcher to Rhodri Davies. Meanwhile Kerbaj, who is also a published cartoonist, has worked with the likes of Sharif Sehnaoui. Beginning with a shrilling, scraped brass timbre, the Sawt Out trio’s interaction advances not only with unusual trumpet thrusts, but a panoply of textures that can be produced from percussion instruments. From that point on the tracks are studded with unexpected and exceptional tones encompassing cascades of smears and half-valve projections, vocalized tongue flutters, inner horn cackles, extended non-valve drones and heraldic honks from the trumpeter. Meanwhile the two percussionists jointly outline equivalent idiophone augmentation including gong reverb, full kit rumbles, doorstopper-like reverberations, scrapes along unyielding metal, music box-like tinkles and squeezed metal bowl echoes.

Centrepiece of the program is the over 42 minute “Don’t Block The Box” where all of these procedures are exhibited along with many more. Conveyer belts of drum top slaps, smashes and buzzes share space with gearwheel-like ratchets, passing freight-train-like vibrations, stark cymbal shrieks and lug-loosening vibrations. Not to be outdone Kerbaj’s intersection with these constantly changing percussion patterns includes tongue sucking, retching whooshes, extended buzzes, frenetic triplet patterns, strident trills and watery lip flutters.

Splintering still more in the track’s second sequence, the trumpeter’s alien whines and mumbles are amplified as if propelled through a megaphone and predominate until superseded by martial music-like pressure and steel drum-like slaps from the drummers which become blunter but louder as the improvisation progresses. Repeated wooden and metal clip clops and zither string-like strains produce a profusion of idiophone colors that reach a zenith of rattles and rebounds alongside aviary caws and cackles from the trumpet. All climax when speedy drum pounding combines with undulating brass trills.

A stricter situation, The Art of Sound(s) is as expressive, but more formal creation, possibly because the quartet members are involved in notated as well as extemporaneous musical situations. Favre has a long history in creative music with everyone from Irène Schweizer to Samuel Blaser. Armaroli has worked with the likes of Roger Turner and Evan Parker. Centazzo is known for leading the pioneering Mitteleuropa Orchestra and Gemmo has worked with Alvin Curran.

Divided into overlapping movements, piano comping, vibe reverb and mid-range percussion ruffs and bass drum echoes occupy the four until a stop-time expression with ascending marimba-like pops first defines the theme on “Second Movement”. From then on sounds intensify. The pianist turns from comping to a designated processional line as metal bar plinks and tinkles from the vibist color the narrative as it unrolls and ascends backed by cymbal crashes and bass drum vibrations.

Soon all four are operating at elevating intensity with energetic, two-handed piano pulses especially notable. Armaroli and Gemmo lobby the exposition between them undeterred by pressurized drum paradiddles until Favre and Centazzo shuffle an underlying leitmotif which resembles an authoritative military march on “Sixth Movement”. The pivot to 19^th Century-like Russian romantic contours from Gemmo, reintroduces precision from what could have reached a polyphonic outpouring. Light shading including cymbal clacks, drum pitter patter, isolated vibe resonation and single piano notes changes the narrative’s architecture. Eventually keyboard patterns and vibraphone reverb unite into a multi-colored and descending stop-time finale.

In the right hands multiple percussion with the right motivations and in the right combinations  can produce all the sonic colors needed for a memorable creation. Aided by non-idiophones, both sessions here demonstrate that axiom.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Fake: 1. Way In 2. Don’t Block The Box 3. Way Out

Personnel: Fake: Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet); Burkhard Beins and Michael Vorfeld (percussion)

Track Listing: Art: 1. First Movement 4:30 2. Second Movement 4:54 3. Third Movement 8:34 4. Fourth Movement 6:18 5. Fifth Movement 6:41 6. Sixth Movement 7. Seventh Movement 8. Eighth Movement

Personnel: Art: Francesca Gemmo (piano); Sergio Armaroli (vibraphone); Pierre Favre and Andrea Centazzo (drums and percussion)