ARMAROLI / SCHIAFFINI / SJÖSTRÖM - Duos & Trios
Leo Records CD LR 892
Sergio Armaroli, vibraphone; Giancarlo Schiaffini, trombone; Harri Sjöström, soprano and sopranino saxophones
Recorded December 5-7, 2019, at Pollaio Studios, 2 Pollaio, Ronco Biellese, Biella, Italy
Sergio Armaroli, already a regular musical partner to Giancarlo Schiaffini, invited saxophonist Harri Sjöström to join them in Italy to play and record a set of free, improvised music. Duos and Trios is the result of this event and given the combination of instruments, one has to say that the outcome is little short of magical.
The duos of Armaroli and Sjöström exhibit a highly perceptive degree of comprehension between the two musicians, in spite of the novelty of their meeting. Their interactions are confident and eloquently lucid. Schiaffini’s sonorous trombone introduces a full-bodied bass presence and a contrapuntal texture to the trios: the three voices together illustrate that the music is created by the musicians, not by their instruments unaided.
Giancarlo Schiaffini was self-taught and appeared in the first, Free-jazz concerts in Italy. He plays at concerts and multi-media events in jazz, improvisation, literature and visual arts and has collaborated with John Cage, Paul Gauguin, Henrik Ibsen and James Joyce.
Sergio Armaroli is a composer, percussionist, vibraphonist, teacher and total artist. His actions resonate through various artistic and musical fields, that of jazz being, perhaps, his most practised. He declares himself to be a painter, concrete percussionist, fragmentary poet and sound artist as well as founding his work “within the language of jazz and improvisation” as an "extension of the concept of art".
Harri Sjöström is a member of the Quintet Moderne, though perhaps the least known of the five. The group is made up of two generations of accomplished improvisers, an all-star, EU combination. Sjöström has lived in Berlin for a long time and is recognised as one of the best masters of such music in Europe, able to broaden the gamut of his instrument’s expression to the extreme. His soprano playing impresses, whether through a handsomely pitched passage of brook-like babbling or an impulsive paroxysm of staccato tonguing.
Free improvisation does not rely on the formal structures of the pieces being played – indeed there may be no structure. Expressive revelations of the music’s interior are achieved through the musicians’ empathy and so can they create such eloquent performances.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
Leo Records CD LR 892
Sergio Armaroli, vibraphone; Giancarlo Schiaffini, trombone; Harri Sjöström, soprano and sopranino saxophones
Recorded December 5-7, 2019, at Pollaio Studios, 2 Pollaio, Ronco Biellese, Biella, Italy
Sergio Armaroli, already a regular musical partner to Giancarlo Schiaffini, invited saxophonist Harri Sjöström to join them in Italy to play and record a set of free, improvised music. Duos and Trios is the result of this event and given the combination of instruments, one has to say that the outcome is little short of magical.
The duos of Armaroli and Sjöström exhibit a highly perceptive degree of comprehension between the two musicians, in spite of the novelty of their meeting. Their interactions are confident and eloquently lucid. Schiaffini’s sonorous trombone introduces a full-bodied bass presence and a contrapuntal texture to the trios: the three voices together illustrate that the music is created by the musicians, not by their instruments unaided.
Giancarlo Schiaffini was self-taught and appeared in the first, Free-jazz concerts in Italy. He plays at concerts and multi-media events in jazz, improvisation, literature and visual arts and has collaborated with John Cage, Paul Gauguin, Henrik Ibsen and James Joyce.
Sergio Armaroli is a composer, percussionist, vibraphonist, teacher and total artist. His actions resonate through various artistic and musical fields, that of jazz being, perhaps, his most practised. He declares himself to be a painter, concrete percussionist, fragmentary poet and sound artist as well as founding his work “within the language of jazz and improvisation” as an "extension of the concept of art".
Harri Sjöström is a member of the Quintet Moderne, though perhaps the least known of the five. The group is made up of two generations of accomplished improvisers, an all-star, EU combination. Sjöström has lived in Berlin for a long time and is recognised as one of the best masters of such music in Europe, able to broaden the gamut of his instrument’s expression to the extreme. His soprano playing impresses, whether through a handsomely pitched passage of brook-like babbling or an impulsive paroxysm of staccato tonguing.
Free improvisation does not rely on the formal structures of the pieces being played – indeed there may be no structure. Expressive revelations of the music’s interior are achieved through the musicians’ empathy and so can they create such eloquent performances.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
