ROBERTO OTTAVIANO - The Different Worlds Of Two Sopranos
If the soprano has historically less exponents than the other members of the saxophone family, the problems inherent are in playing the instrument well and finding one’s own voice are made all the more difficult by the very fact of this shortage of practitioners of the instrument. Whilst many dabble (or double, I think is the politically correct term) few find an unmistakeable and identifiable voice, with Sidney Bechet, John Coltrane and of course Steve Lacy being the names that immediately spring to mind. To this list we can now add modern masters of the straight horn Sam Newsome, and Roberto Ottaviano.
Ottaviano is a musician who has been on my radar for many years, but for one reason or another, the opportunity to become acquainted with his music seemed to pass me by. When I heard about his latest release, Forgotten Matches – The Worlds of Steve Lacy it seemed the ideal time to put this right, presenting not just the opportunity to listen but also to talk to the saxophonist about his music and his relationship with Steve Lacy and the soprano. I was also fortunate in preparing this interview to be able to talk to pianist Alexander Hawkins, about the recording of the duo set.
Ottaviano is a musician who has been on my radar for many years, but for one reason or another, the opportunity to become acquainted with his music seemed to pass me by. When I heard about his latest release, Forgotten Matches – The Worlds of Steve Lacy it seemed the ideal time to put this right, presenting not just the opportunity to listen but also to talk to the saxophonist about his music and his relationship with Steve Lacy and the soprano. I was also fortunate in preparing this interview to be able to talk to pianist Alexander Hawkins, about the recording of the duo set.
“For a ‘pure’ soprano player, the influence and the biblical technical completeness and timbre of Lacy are essential” says Roberto. “Every time I’ve tried to take different musical directions, to dissolve aesthetic and expressive knots with my instrument, I found (on) my path a ready answer in a recording of Steve. It's amazing how you should always have some dealings with him. A bit like with Charlie Parker for an altoist. Frankly I do not know if I could find my authentic voice, surely are years that I’m trying, trying to cut this umbilical cord ... And I also try to convince myself that the goal is the music, the instrument is only a means.”
So with Lacy having passed away more than ten years ago, why did you wait until now to release an album of mostly tunes by or associated with the maestro, I asked Ottaviano. “I waited a lot, I know Lacy and his music since the early 70's, basically for two reasons. The first is that I am not a fan of tributes (in my life I only made one of Charlie Mingus music with my group of wind instruments Six Mobiles), and the second is because I don’t feel ready for such evidence. In fact, the comparison with the Maestro is still a huge challenge because Lacy is a giant from all points of view. For how he mastered the straight horn, for the ruthless logic with which he’s involved in his music and that of other contexts. Tributes generally still do not like it, however, but the music of Steve runs the risk of being forgotten after his death and the least I can do since the debt to his teachings, is trying to take the spirit alive and repertoire too.”
So with Lacy having passed away more than ten years ago, why did you wait until now to release an album of mostly tunes by or associated with the maestro, I asked Ottaviano. “I waited a lot, I know Lacy and his music since the early 70's, basically for two reasons. The first is that I am not a fan of tributes (in my life I only made one of Charlie Mingus music with my group of wind instruments Six Mobiles), and the second is because I don’t feel ready for such evidence. In fact, the comparison with the Maestro is still a huge challenge because Lacy is a giant from all points of view. For how he mastered the straight horn, for the ruthless logic with which he’s involved in his music and that of other contexts. Tributes generally still do not like it, however, but the music of Steve runs the risk of being forgotten after his death and the least I can do since the debt to his teachings, is trying to take the spirit alive and repertoire too.”
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This is an opinion echoed by pianist Alexander Hawkins, “Lacy's compositional language is really specific. The pieces each set up a very distinctive language area, and deposit the improviser in that space”, he says. “As a result, you need to be a very single minded improviser both to honour the composition, and to put a personal stamp on it. In this respect, I hear a legacy from Steve's tenure with Monk (whose compositions almost all each themselves create individual soundworlds). Of course, Lacy (almost by definition) has wonderful fluency within his own language; but for others, the compositions can be treacherous. On the one hand, there needs to be a point to choosing to play this repertoire; and on the other, come to them unguarded and you can end up simply 'aping' Lacy: and any soprano player in the world will come a distant second-best playing this game. One of the things I love about Roberto's playing is that he really 'gets' Steve's language and can properly 'inhabit' the compositions, but his personality is such that he sounds entirely like himself in so doing (and playing the soprano saxophone, no less: an instrument which Steve and only a very few others virtually defined in the modern era). After all, that's something of the essence of the magic of musicians like Lacy (and Monk for that matter) the fact that they sound like themselves, and no-one else. To put it another way, trying to sound like Steve would probably be the least Lacy-like option available in the context of a tribute.”
The duets with Hawkins are quite extraordinary and tremendously exciting as a listener, so I asked Ottaviano how they met and started playing together? “Of course I knew Alexander from before and I have always appreciated his mercurial creativity” explains the saxophonist. “He is the ideal pianist with whom weave interplay. The right combination of knowledge and curiosity of tradition with the taste and the intuition of the extemporaneous. Moreover, the perfect alchemy of my sound with his, the lyrical sense and the kinetic force. Much has certainly had to do with our common loves and frequentation of people like Louis Moholo Moholo.”
Again, from Hawkins “One of the things which was interesting about this session was that it was the first time Roberto and I had played together. Yes, he'd sent me the repertoire in advance, but the very first notes we ever played together were recorded. That said, we have a really extensive shared history, which meant that in some sense, we had a rapport before playing. For example, Roberto and I both have significant experience with the likes of Louis Moholo-Moholo (who of course played drums on Lacy's iconic 'The Forest and The Zoo', which some claim to be the first entirely 'free' improvised album), and so we came to the sessions with a number of shared understandings (hence paying tribute to the South African connection on the album with Harry Miller's tune 'Orange Grove'). And it's worth pointing out too that Roberto has an extremely deep knowledge of the British scene (e.g. he's recorded with the likes of Kenny Wheeler on a Pierre Favre ECM), and so we have mutual acquaintances there, whether personally, musically or both (Evan Parker, John Surman, John Taylor, Keith Tippett, etc.) ; and I'm also a lover of much Italian music - for example the work of the Instabile Orchestra, the later incarnations of which Roberto was a member.” Continuing, the pianist adds, “Yes, there are recordings out there of Steve with the likes of Gil Evans, Marilyn Crispell, Frederic Rzewski, and bootlegs with Horace Tapscott etc; but think Lacy and piano and the figure of Mal Waldron looms largest. Roberto has of course recorded with Mal, so it was a very courageous thing to do to record one of the discs of this set in duo. Mal is of course a great hero of mine too - one of the most dark, difficult and uncompromising masters of the last 50 years - so I was thrilled with the challenge of addressing this music in a meaningful way.”
Reflecting on the session with Ottaviano, Alexander concludes “This is a more nebulous point: but Roberto is not only a monster musician, but simply one of the nicest people one could wish to meet. I really think this helps along a session like this, since otherwise, recording an album of tunes in a new collaboration in the space of a single day could be stressful. But he's such a generous and friendly guy (and it's worth mentioning too here the beautiful studio, engineer, producer and piano), that it all felt very straightforward. I forget now if the released takes were all first takes; but my memory is that if not, we could have released all first takes, and still have ended up with a really nice album.”
Again, from Hawkins “One of the things which was interesting about this session was that it was the first time Roberto and I had played together. Yes, he'd sent me the repertoire in advance, but the very first notes we ever played together were recorded. That said, we have a really extensive shared history, which meant that in some sense, we had a rapport before playing. For example, Roberto and I both have significant experience with the likes of Louis Moholo-Moholo (who of course played drums on Lacy's iconic 'The Forest and The Zoo', which some claim to be the first entirely 'free' improvised album), and so we came to the sessions with a number of shared understandings (hence paying tribute to the South African connection on the album with Harry Miller's tune 'Orange Grove'). And it's worth pointing out too that Roberto has an extremely deep knowledge of the British scene (e.g. he's recorded with the likes of Kenny Wheeler on a Pierre Favre ECM), and so we have mutual acquaintances there, whether personally, musically or both (Evan Parker, John Surman, John Taylor, Keith Tippett, etc.) ; and I'm also a lover of much Italian music - for example the work of the Instabile Orchestra, the later incarnations of which Roberto was a member.” Continuing, the pianist adds, “Yes, there are recordings out there of Steve with the likes of Gil Evans, Marilyn Crispell, Frederic Rzewski, and bootlegs with Horace Tapscott etc; but think Lacy and piano and the figure of Mal Waldron looms largest. Roberto has of course recorded with Mal, so it was a very courageous thing to do to record one of the discs of this set in duo. Mal is of course a great hero of mine too - one of the most dark, difficult and uncompromising masters of the last 50 years - so I was thrilled with the challenge of addressing this music in a meaningful way.”
Reflecting on the session with Ottaviano, Alexander concludes “This is a more nebulous point: but Roberto is not only a monster musician, but simply one of the nicest people one could wish to meet. I really think this helps along a session like this, since otherwise, recording an album of tunes in a new collaboration in the space of a single day could be stressful. But he's such a generous and friendly guy (and it's worth mentioning too here the beautiful studio, engineer, producer and piano), that it all felt very straightforward. I forget now if the released takes were all first takes; but my memory is that if not, we could have released all first takes, and still have ended up with a really nice album.”
With all its difficulties in pitch control and tuning, along with the perceived limitations of the higher pitched members of the saxophone family it is quite surprising that there are musicians who are willing to go out on a limb and dedicate so much of their time and energy to the straight horn, so Iask Roberto why he chose the soprano as his main instrument? “ Besides Lacy, I must say that this has greatly contributed to my passion for some other sopranos who I was lucky enough to know personally. I could name many different players, but I like here mention one in particular: Lol Coxhill, another great undervalued player that I hope will be remembered more often. However, before coming to this obsession with the soprano, I played tenor, alto, sopranino, and also some baritone. In the first vinyl under my name, in 1983, "Aspects" for Ictus Records, I used them all in a long overdubbed suite.”
So what about your set up? “Here too experiments have been many”, says Ottaviano. “Currently my main instrument is a Yanagisawa S9930 PG, then my second choice is a Selmer Custom Series III, the mouthpiece is a wooden Pomarico made especially for me by Dr. Clerici and refiled by Fabio Menaglio. As an alternative to this I'm using a formidable Missing Link gave me from Joe Giardullo, an extraordinary player and great mouthpiece explorer. The reeds are Rigotti number 3 light and the ligature a simple wood ring made by Roberto's Wind in New York.”
Looking to find out a little more about the man and his music I ask Roberto how he becam interested in jazz. After some consideration, the saxophonist replies “Like almost every boy of my generation, I lived in the middle of a melting pot of sounds, where there was everything. As a conscious listener I started to take music very seriously through the English progressive rock scene, the Canterbury school and the key pass to the African/American Jazz were the Soft Machine. In the 50’s and 60’s in England the musical atmosphere was really in fervent with great liveliness classics and musicians that I was already experiencing were Tubby Hayes, Phil Seamen, Stan Tracey, Mike Westbrook, Tony Oxley, Keith Tippett, Chris McGregor, Harry Miller and all the friends of the Brotherhood of Breath. And then Trevor Watts, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, not to mention the likes of Dave Holland and John McLaughlin who reached Miles in the USA. Here this was for me the baptism and the departure to the discovery of jazz, its history, its tradition and spirit, which later brought me back to the present, like the time machine of HG Wells.”
As the conversation turns to the current jazz scene in Europe, and opportunities to play and develop one’s own music, Ottaviano is somewhat pessimistic. “ The European music scene has changed a lot since I toured between the 80’s and part of 90’s in company of extraordinary improvisers and designers of music as Georg Grawe, Connie and Hannes Bauer, Pierre Favre, Franz Koglmann, etc. Even circuits and places of references are gone or have radically changed philosophy. Certainly some still resist, there are bastion of research and they will keep alive a basic concept related to research combined with expressiveness, but around the world the organization of cultural policies and communication strategies are changing the essential meaning of all this. Changed objectives, and often some have been cleared and there are others replaced frankly uninspiring. Everything is glamour, fashion, trendy, contamination by two cents, and there are new characters in circulation between musicians and organizers who constantly look themselves as in a mirror. Honestly I put on a disc of the '60s and I still feel so many things to discover ...”
So what about your set up? “Here too experiments have been many”, says Ottaviano. “Currently my main instrument is a Yanagisawa S9930 PG, then my second choice is a Selmer Custom Series III, the mouthpiece is a wooden Pomarico made especially for me by Dr. Clerici and refiled by Fabio Menaglio. As an alternative to this I'm using a formidable Missing Link gave me from Joe Giardullo, an extraordinary player and great mouthpiece explorer. The reeds are Rigotti number 3 light and the ligature a simple wood ring made by Roberto's Wind in New York.”
Looking to find out a little more about the man and his music I ask Roberto how he becam interested in jazz. After some consideration, the saxophonist replies “Like almost every boy of my generation, I lived in the middle of a melting pot of sounds, where there was everything. As a conscious listener I started to take music very seriously through the English progressive rock scene, the Canterbury school and the key pass to the African/American Jazz were the Soft Machine. In the 50’s and 60’s in England the musical atmosphere was really in fervent with great liveliness classics and musicians that I was already experiencing were Tubby Hayes, Phil Seamen, Stan Tracey, Mike Westbrook, Tony Oxley, Keith Tippett, Chris McGregor, Harry Miller and all the friends of the Brotherhood of Breath. And then Trevor Watts, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, not to mention the likes of Dave Holland and John McLaughlin who reached Miles in the USA. Here this was for me the baptism and the departure to the discovery of jazz, its history, its tradition and spirit, which later brought me back to the present, like the time machine of HG Wells.”
As the conversation turns to the current jazz scene in Europe, and opportunities to play and develop one’s own music, Ottaviano is somewhat pessimistic. “ The European music scene has changed a lot since I toured between the 80’s and part of 90’s in company of extraordinary improvisers and designers of music as Georg Grawe, Connie and Hannes Bauer, Pierre Favre, Franz Koglmann, etc. Even circuits and places of references are gone or have radically changed philosophy. Certainly some still resist, there are bastion of research and they will keep alive a basic concept related to research combined with expressiveness, but around the world the organization of cultural policies and communication strategies are changing the essential meaning of all this. Changed objectives, and often some have been cleared and there are others replaced frankly uninspiring. Everything is glamour, fashion, trendy, contamination by two cents, and there are new characters in circulation between musicians and organizers who constantly look themselves as in a mirror. Honestly I put on a disc of the '60s and I still feel so many things to discover ...”
Click on the CD cover to read our review of "Forgotten Matches"
As with all creative musicians this need to continue to push themselves and the music forward, along with the need to find new means of expression finds artists continuously seeking out new collaborations. “I currently collaborate with Canto General which is about to leave the disc Rebel Flames for Ogun Records, with Keith Tippett and Julie Tippetts, with Elina Duni for the new project No Man's Land. Aside from the upcoming concerts dedicated to Lacy in Europe, with Alexander Hawkins we decided to set up a quartet based essentially on free improvisation that will circulate between some written traces. Then I'm writing the music for a new record upcoming for Dodicilune Records (the label with whom we have a successful partnership for some years). The work, based on the reworking of songs from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries taken from the codes Vemeill from Laudario of Cortona with other old medieval codes, will work with the quartet Astrolabio with me on soprano, Gianluigi Trovesi at the clarinets, Michel Godard on tuba and the serpent and Nils Wogram on trombone.”
