Rodrigo Amado Motion trio with Alexander von Schlippenbach: The Field

Avant Jazz / Free Improvisation / Avant-Garde
premiera polska: 2021-10-06
opakowanie: Jewl Caseowe etui
wydano: 2021-10

freejazzblog.org * * * * *
… 56-minutowy tytułowy utwór "The Field" to mistrzowski pokaz swobodnej improwizacji, prowadzonej przez doświadczonych i niekwestionowanych szamanów gatunku, otwarty, spójny i organiczny, w którym efekt całościowy jest większy niż jego części. Transcendentalne doświadczenie słuchowe, które podpowiada, że chemia pomiędzy muzykami pozwoliła na najwyższy poziom komunikacji ...

jazzandblues.blogspot.com
… grupa jest bardzo dobrze zintegrowana i od pierwszej nuty mówi tym samym językiem. To język wolności, rozgrywający się na niezwykle efektownym, pięćdziesięciosześciominutowym, w pełni improwizowanym zdarzeniu. Rzadkie kompetencje instrumentalistów, którzy są wystarczająco pewni swoich umiejętności, sprawiają, że muzyka może płynąć organicznie i rozwijać wyrazistą narrację, rozwijaną w sposób konsekwentny i zdyscyplinowany. Medytacyjny charakter improwizowanej kompozycji stopniowo zaczyna się zmieniać, a muzyka nabiera formę suity, mieszczącej zarówno ekscytujące sekcje na kaskadowy fortepian, postrzępione akordy wiolonczeli i galopującą perkusję. Rodrigo Amado jest po prostu doskonały, w lot czyta strukturę rozwijającej się narracji, wchodząc w interakcję tylko w dobrych momentach ...

freejazzblog.org * * * * *
The Field is the second excellent album that Portuguese tenor sax player and bandleader Rodrigo Amado released this year, following his quartet This is Our Language’s Let The Free Be Men (Trost, 2021). The Field offers Amado’s Motion Trio - cellist Miguel Mira and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini, collaborating with one of Amado’s greatest all-time heroes and forefather of European free-improvisation, German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, the leader and founder of the Globe Unity Orchestra and his legendary trio, with Sax player Evan Parker and drummer Paul Lovens. The Field was recorded at the Vilnius Jazz Festival in October 2019, and Amado, who is also a gifted photographer, contributed the cover photo.

Amado told (Free Jazz Blog’s esteemed contributor) Stuart Broomer that he formed Motion Trio in 2009 and the von Schlippenbach Trio represented for the Motion Trio a model for what it was looking for in its own music. The von Schlippenbach Trio refines for the last five decades a bold and uncompromising abstraction of the jazz tradition (and von Schlippenbach is one of the most original interpreters of Thelonious Monk songbook), contemporary and roots music (von Schlippenbach incorporates compositional ideas of Arnold Schönberg and Anton Webern into his own compositions) into a new language of its own. Add to this inclusive vision the collaborative spirit of the Motion Trio, with trombonist Jeb Bishop (Burning Live at Jazz Ao Centro, JACC, 2012, and The Flame Alphabet, Clean Feed, 2014) and trumpeter Peter Evans (The Freedom Principle and Live in Lisbon, NoBusiness, 2014), and undocumented meetings with Steve Swell, Matthew Shipp and Larry Ochs, all emphasize Motion Trio confidence in its own identity and its openness to new adventures.

The 56-minute title piece of The Field is a masterful demonstration of free improvisation by experienced and strong-minded shamans of this art, an open-minded, coherent and organic one where the outcome is greater than its parts. A transcendental listening experience that suggests optimistic thoughts about camaraderie, collective artistic and social activity and the human spirit at all. Von Schlippenbach, 81 years old at the time of the live performance, bursts with fresh and articulate ideas and knows how to engage with or inform the idiosyncratic aesthetics of the Motion Trio with wise and insightful ideas, always with remarkable precision, and how to shift the intense dynamics and add timeless depth into it. Often he acts like a magician architect that instantly lies or removes the right blocks, creating a parallel harmony or liberating chaos. He often challenges the intense commotion of Amado, Mira and Ferrandini, as a trio and as individual improvisers, sometimes surprising fragile and emotional ones and other times patient and meditative ones, including the poetic coda. Amado sounds at times more rooted in the legacy of American jazz great tenorists than in his other outfits. And, yes, there are brief fragments where von Schilppenbach draws Monki-ish cyclical lines, and immediately answered by Amado who is well-proficient with Monk history with the great tenorists. Throughout this piece, and again and again, the Motion Trio and von Schlippenbach find their own conversational and well-balanced common ground as if this was not their first-ever performance.

The Field sounds like Amado and Motion Trio found their own field of dream with von Schlippenbach, full of wonder, passion and imagination.
By Eyal Hareuveni

jazzandblues.blogspot.com:
Of all the potential guests to join saxophonist Rodrigo Amado’s Motion Trio, which includes Miguel Mira on cello and Gabriel Ferrandini on drums, the legendary pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach is an inspired choice. From free improvisation to exploring the mysteries of Thelonious Monk’s compositions, he can do it all. The group is very well integrated and they are speaking the same language right from the first note. It is a language of freedom, played out on a very impressive fifty-six minute fully improvised performance. These are immensely talented musicians who are confident enough in their ability that the music can flow organically and develop a clear narrative that allows the music to develop patiently with sparse rhythm and spare notes and chords. The meditative nature of the piece gradually begins to change and the music takes on a suite like quality where there are exciting sections for cascading piano, punctuated by jagged chords, tumbling cello and percussion. Amado’s saxophones are typically excellent, deployed strategically throughout the length of the performance, offering long probing lines in the beginning, but branching out into thrilling full throated squalls of sound as the piece reaches its peak. This was an very fine performance by everyone involved, the Motion Trio is always a treat on their own, but adding the eminence of Alexander von Schlippenbach raises this to another level entirely. This live album, recorded in Vilnius in October of 2019 has excellent sound quality, well written liner notes from Stuart Boomer and a great photo of the band in action.
by Tim Niland

Editor's info:
When Rodrigo Amado formed Motion Trio in 2009, it was an important moment in both his own creative development and the burgeoning world of Lisbon free jazz, a time to develop a long-term form as well as long-term associations. In the decade between its founding and this recording, the trio had recorded both independently and with guests, horn players Jeb Bishop and Peter Evans. There have been recordings with first-rank pianists along the way, but events intervened to prevent their release. That history conspires to emphasize the singularity of this hour-long piece with Alexander Von Schlippenbach, one of the founding fathers of European free jazz. Recorded at the Vilnius Festival, on October, 18th, 2019 it produced fully alive music in all its contours all the more remarkable as an account of a first-ever encounter between Amado, Mira, Ferrandini, and Schlippenbach.

Line-up:
Rodrigo Amado - tenor saxophone
Alexander von Schlippenbach - piano
Miguel Mira - cello
Gabriel Ferrandini – drums

1. The Field 56:11

more info: www.nobusinessrecords.com