STEFANO TRAVAGLINI - Ellipse
Notami: NJ22
Stefano Travaglini: piano
Recorded September 2016 by Jan Erik Kongshaug at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
It is worth quoting Travaglini’s short liner notes in full to get an idea of what he is aiming for in this recording. He says “Ellipse is the result of an hour long, free recording session, unmodified by cuts or edits. I have freely conveyed extemporaneous inventions as well as themes and quotations with the sole purpose of offering a unique cohesive and elliptical work.” Certainly the sense of cohesion really shines out. On first listen, the pieces into which this set is divided are well linked that it feels like they have the clearly articulated structure of a piano suite. This, to my ears, creates a quite different feeling to some other piano solo recordings that present collections of improvised solos; there is a real sense that the ‘improvisation’ here is not just about the immediate tune but also covers a much longer timescale. Echoes of earlier tunes reappear later – a little like the comedian who sets up a string of stories and delivers the punch- lines just when you’d almost forgotten the start. It is easy to sink into the flow of the music and forget that is being spontaneously fashioned before our ears. But then, Travaglini’s web-page has a quote from Lee Konitz, ‘That’s my way of preparation – to not be prepared. And that takes a lot of preparation.’
Travaglini is a multi-instrumentalist, proficient in piano, oboe, bass guitar, who is equally at home in classical and jazz idioms. Travaglini's playing style has an almost Baroque air to it, albeit much less showy and boisterous but still with the richness of phrasing and sense of harmony. He studied with Arvo Part which is noteworthy because Travaglini brings some of the sensibility of Part’s approach to minimalism in his playing. I could, for instance, hear echoes of Part’s beautiful ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ in several places on this recording – the use of a repeated single note to introduce track 4 ‘Persistence’ and the way that the chords were combined and built on this and track 6 ‘Looking back’. In other places, the quotes come from the jazz world; either directly, as in his take on ‘Softly, as in a morning sunrise’ (track 8) a jazz standard from Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II (albeit played at a jaunty tempo that belies the song’s lyrics – perhaps he’d heard Nelson Eddy’s version rather than, say, Abbey Lincoln’s), or the way that he mines the complexity of Thelonious Monk’s ‘Monk’s Mood’ in track 5 which segues into ‘Presences’. As with the inspiration of Part, so Travaglini work’s Monk musical style into something that is uniquely his own.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Notami: NJ22
Stefano Travaglini: piano
Recorded September 2016 by Jan Erik Kongshaug at Rainbow Studio, Oslo
It is worth quoting Travaglini’s short liner notes in full to get an idea of what he is aiming for in this recording. He says “Ellipse is the result of an hour long, free recording session, unmodified by cuts or edits. I have freely conveyed extemporaneous inventions as well as themes and quotations with the sole purpose of offering a unique cohesive and elliptical work.” Certainly the sense of cohesion really shines out. On first listen, the pieces into which this set is divided are well linked that it feels like they have the clearly articulated structure of a piano suite. This, to my ears, creates a quite different feeling to some other piano solo recordings that present collections of improvised solos; there is a real sense that the ‘improvisation’ here is not just about the immediate tune but also covers a much longer timescale. Echoes of earlier tunes reappear later – a little like the comedian who sets up a string of stories and delivers the punch- lines just when you’d almost forgotten the start. It is easy to sink into the flow of the music and forget that is being spontaneously fashioned before our ears. But then, Travaglini’s web-page has a quote from Lee Konitz, ‘That’s my way of preparation – to not be prepared. And that takes a lot of preparation.’
Travaglini is a multi-instrumentalist, proficient in piano, oboe, bass guitar, who is equally at home in classical and jazz idioms. Travaglini's playing style has an almost Baroque air to it, albeit much less showy and boisterous but still with the richness of phrasing and sense of harmony. He studied with Arvo Part which is noteworthy because Travaglini brings some of the sensibility of Part’s approach to minimalism in his playing. I could, for instance, hear echoes of Part’s beautiful ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ in several places on this recording – the use of a repeated single note to introduce track 4 ‘Persistence’ and the way that the chords were combined and built on this and track 6 ‘Looking back’. In other places, the quotes come from the jazz world; either directly, as in his take on ‘Softly, as in a morning sunrise’ (track 8) a jazz standard from Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II (albeit played at a jaunty tempo that belies the song’s lyrics – perhaps he’d heard Nelson Eddy’s version rather than, say, Abbey Lincoln’s), or the way that he mines the complexity of Thelonious Monk’s ‘Monk’s Mood’ in track 5 which segues into ‘Presences’. As with the inspiration of Part, so Travaglini work’s Monk musical style into something that is uniquely his own.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
