ROBERTA MACI NBS QUARTET Featuring ALEX MAGUIRE - I’m On The Way
Labirinti Sonori Records CD LS 024
Roberta Maci: saxophones, flutes, percussion, voice; Stefano Maltese: saxophones, flute, tin whistle, percussion, marimba box, voice; Alex Maguire: piano; Giovanni Arena: double bass; Antonio Moncada: drums and percussion
Recorded at Sonoria Studio, Scordia (CT), Italy, February 1st and 2nd 2019
Roberta Maci’s track through music has led her through her studies of bebop and into the most modern forms of jazz music, forming the NBS Quartet just last year (2018). Currently the band performs its own music, with song-like melodies and structures drawn from jazz forms and her own Sicilian roots. No surprise for this latter as she started studying saxophone aged 7 and jazz at 13.
Maci’s style of playing and of handling her instrument suggest a confirmed approach to using her technical skills to broach current definitions of genre with the idea of redefining them and pushing the boundaries of compositional practice.
Alex Maguire studied with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Steve Lacy and Howard Riley and has accompanied Derek Bailey and Evan Parker. He has a very broad interest in musical styles and roots and his own style is explicit and unambiguous. Maci is reported as saying that she wanted him particularly as a guest because of his musical sense and his knowing what would be right, musically, and the best way of achieving it.
Maci’s music and its presentation bring excitement from her technical cognizance and her improvisational virtuosity, both emblematic of the inventiveness of her language and the force of her musical persona. ‘I’m On The Way’ indeed.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
Labirinti Sonori Records CD LS 024
Roberta Maci: saxophones, flutes, percussion, voice; Stefano Maltese: saxophones, flute, tin whistle, percussion, marimba box, voice; Alex Maguire: piano; Giovanni Arena: double bass; Antonio Moncada: drums and percussion
Recorded at Sonoria Studio, Scordia (CT), Italy, February 1st and 2nd 2019
Roberta Maci’s track through music has led her through her studies of bebop and into the most modern forms of jazz music, forming the NBS Quartet just last year (2018). Currently the band performs its own music, with song-like melodies and structures drawn from jazz forms and her own Sicilian roots. No surprise for this latter as she started studying saxophone aged 7 and jazz at 13.
Maci’s style of playing and of handling her instrument suggest a confirmed approach to using her technical skills to broach current definitions of genre with the idea of redefining them and pushing the boundaries of compositional practice.
Alex Maguire studied with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Steve Lacy and Howard Riley and has accompanied Derek Bailey and Evan Parker. He has a very broad interest in musical styles and roots and his own style is explicit and unambiguous. Maci is reported as saying that she wanted him particularly as a guest because of his musical sense and his knowing what would be right, musically, and the best way of achieving it.
Maci’s music and its presentation bring excitement from her technical cognizance and her improvisational virtuosity, both emblematic of the inventiveness of her language and the force of her musical persona. ‘I’m On The Way’ indeed.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
