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SERGIO ARMAROLI / ROGER TURNER - Dance Steps

Leo Records CD LR 899

Sergio Armaroli, prepared vibraphone; Roger Turner, drums and percussion
Recorded at the Il Pollaio studio in Ronco Biellese, Biela, Piedmont, Italia, 13/10/2019.

Regarding music, Sergio Armaroli is a composer, percussionist, teacher and vibraphonist.  Though his activities resound through various artistic as well as musical fields, that of jazz is, probably, his most explored.  He has proposed that all of his work is established within the parameters defined by the language of jazz and improvisation.  His extensive resources in music include chamber jazz associations with British free jazz drummer Roger Turner, the subject of this article, with radical American guitarist Elliot Sharp (New York Avant-Gard) and other celebrities seen as undying intellects.

Roger Turner has been working as an improvising percussionist since the early 1970s, and has worked in numerous recognised ensembles as well as spur of the moment configurations.  He has also worked solo, with acoustic-electro ensembles, in open-form vocal work, with dance and visual artists and some among the most highly-rated jazz musicians, including Derek Bailey, Lol Coxhill, Axel Dorner, Charles Gayle, Phil Minton, Annette Peacock and Cecil Taylor.

Sergio Armaroli and his prepared vibraphone met Roger Turner, drums and percussion at the Il Pollaio recording studio in Ronco Biellese, in Italy, where they set to work, in their customary fashion, without scores or canvases to direct them.  The music produced is the result of their mutual inspiration and improvisation.  There are even suggestions of lyricism to be heard, probably, I think, due to the presence of the vibraphone.
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The music is something special, both instrumentalists constructing rhythmic passages, simultaneously or aeons apart, both instruments similarly playing protagonist.  These factors do not deny the interior lucidity of the pieces, which is sustained by the structures they have invented.  This duo is made of two musicians whose coalescence was inevitable, as this was always their intention and their purpose: new music for a new dance.

Reviewed by Ken Cheetham

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