What is jazz? The immeasurable pianist Bill Evans used to say: “Jazz is a How, not a What”. What does that mean? Apparently, a simple concept. Actually, it has a deeper meaning. Evans meant to say that defining jazz as a “what” would have given it a static nature not fitted to this kind of music. Jazz is a meaningful and dynamic language. It is inextricably linked to the individual who makes a cultural interpretation of it within his community. This evolutionary energy rages and becomes unstoppable when meets people coming from different cultural environments. Jazz music hails from a relationship between the Afro and European culture that melts in the North America, a foreign country for both. It is difficult to define the nature of jazz because when it runs into a stranger culture it transforms itself. Just think to the growing number of new instruments like kora, oud, tambora and sitar or the electric and electronic solutions – like in Bitches Brew – which have overturned the composition patterns.
This long premise helps us to make an idea on what jazz is. In my personal opinion is the most important form of art of the ‘900s. We know what/how it is, but we do not know where it goes. Some clues tell us where it halts. Friuli Venezia Giulia is a regular stop-over for jazz, actually here it put down its roots. Just read the reviews of the book Diario di un autodidatta by U.T. Gandhi here, or of the records by Daniele D’Agaro and Mauro Ottolini here and here. And do not forget that in this reserved region – which I hope to visit soon again – came and will come talented musicians both Italian and foreigners. Maybe for the places, the good food, the wines, the seasonal festivals, but the truth is that the pole of attraction of this artistic ferment are the Artesuono studies in Cavalicco, Udine, Italy. They are a recording centre, events and awarded record production, landmark of prestigious labels, first of all ECM, and participations in worldwide works, among which the recent I/O by Peter Gabriel. We can therefore understand what happens when the owner, the engineer Stefano Amerio offers to a musician his expertise and the technical and instrumental equipment of his studios. More complicated is imagining what happens when a longstanding audiophile wants to record a musical project. This is because an experienced audio and music lover, listening after listening, has developed a pathologic relationship between hearing and psyche and will never accept a good normal recording. He can never be moderate because he knows the aspects of recording on which to act obsessively so as to obtain a musical event as faithful as possible into the domestic environment. In the meantime, a Hi-End system will reproduce the relationship between time and space, the dimension of the scene, the micro and macrodynamics, the details, the tone colour and, as leading role, the naturalness. The audiophile whom I am talking about is Roberto Rocchi. He is a prestigious journalistic signature in specialized magazines, among them ReMusic. He is also a friend of mine and I miss him since he moved some time ago from Rome to Friuli Venezia Giulia. Roberto created with Antonio Sarcinelli Postiglione the label Enotorre Records. The first release, in limited edition - 501 copies – is the CD Live at enotecalatorre by Massimo Chiarella Quartet, Jazz Series, happening live recorded by Ristorante/Enoteca La Torre in Spilimbergo, north of Italy. I am very honoured to review this record while copy n. 51 is playing as I write.
Members of the group are Massimo Chiarella on drums, Danilo Memoli on piano, David Boato on trumpet and Riccardo Di Vinci on double bass. I omit the personal histories of these musicians since you can read them in the press release that ReMusic has issued in the section News and Events here. I want to linger instead on the artistic and sound contents. In jazz history, every label has a peculiar character. The music lover knows how to deal with an artist if he buys a Blue Note or a Contemporary or a SteepleChase record. Moreover, he knows the typical recording style of each label. Enotorre Records is obviously a newborn one, but who made it are people with past history even if they call it a “brave project, almost a dream”. The path of this artistic proposal reveals itself in these statements: “Enotorre Records even if is a recording label dedicated to the audiophile lovers it winks to the artistic quality and sheds light on the wide stage of jazz musicians of North-east Italy”. Of course, we do not want to bias the so-called niche, but we will be happy if the majority would “listen” to the music and the minority keeps on just “hearing” it.
If you ask what High Fidelity is, one of the possible answers will be “the practice to recreate/reproduce a musical event at home as if it were a live event, captured and fixed on an adequate support right at the moment when it happens”. In the CD that we are reviewing, first of all there is a jazz quartet of very high level. He performs live in a club dimension and as a start this is not bad. What follows is the artistic choice, but we will talk about it later. Then there is the technological option. If you are a demanding audiophile/music lover, you want an audiophile recording. Most outcomes of the current releases are a post-production made of mixing, overdubbing and sound treatments that are laborious, asynchronous and delocalized so that the musicians could never meet in the same studio. In our live record, on the contrary, there is extreme attention at the pre-production phase. That is the positioning of the microphones, fine-tuning of the ideal recording level so that the dynamics, the sound pressure, the details and the harmonic range of the instruments are realistic and natural and so they remain in the final phase of mixing and mastering. The technological instrumentation is really impressive. The system used is the couple Merging Technology Horus + Anubis, 24bit/96kHz, probably the top authority in digital technology applied to music. The quality of the level obtained has been verified by Omega Audio Concepts and Da Pieve Hi-Fi through their audio systems. The first microphone is a Neumann USM69 in X-Y configuration, that is a cardioid polar diagram with an angulation between 90° and 110° with coincident capsules so to optimize the stereo take. The second is a Shoeps MTSC64 in ORTF (Organization Radio Television Francaise) configuration. This is a technical solution on French patent that sees the placement of two microphones whose capsules are about 17 cm one from the other, coherently to the distance that separate the human ears, this time inclined between 90° and 110°, exactly like the average of the auricles. Let’s talk about the instruments. To trumpet has been coupled a AKG The Tube with 6072 RCA valve. To piano a match couple Shoeps CMC6/MK4. The doublebass is served by a main microphone Neumann U87AI and, at the bridge, a Shoeps CMC6/MK2. Drums are helped by a court of microphones. CAD E100 MK4 for bass drum. AKG C451 vintage for the batter head and Shure SM98D for the bottom head. Audio Technica AE3000 for the toms. We end with a panoramic couple of Shoeps CMC6/MK21 in A-B configuration, two omnidirectional microphones put at a variable distance with the source dimension in 3:1 ratio, and a Shoeps CMC6/MK4 for hi-hat or charleston.
We do not always know when a live recording, in terms of quality, is directly proportional to the level of technological equipment in use. There are variables that are less controllable if you are not in a studio. Just think to the human presence or to the shape of the room. Here, however, you have to consider that who participates are the trio Amerio-Rocchi-Postiglione. Whit their expertise, competence, technical ability and audiophile sensitivity they could not fail. The record, from the very first superficial listening, shows some sound peculiarities. The sound is smooth, silky and, harmonically, a delight. You are tempted to listen to it several times because it infuses a message of calm and pure amusement. There is no harshness in the playing time, even in the most dynamically complicated steps, thanks to a mellow tonal balance. There is no prevarication among the instrument, the stereo image is perfect, and the stage is definitely airy. The clapping and the buzz of the room are discreet even if participatory. The musicians identify themselves in the general project with an acoustic and artistic sensitivity that is far to be expected when you make a recording.
Let’s get to know these instruments. Massimo Chiarella plays a Gretsch Vintage drum set, Danilo Memoli a Yamaha Upright U3 piano, David Boato a Savut DB Jazz trumpet and Riccardo Di Vinci a Romanian Lutherie double bass. Not properly common instruments. The Savut trumpet is handmade. The accurate studying of the forms and the materials gives unique tone-expressive qualities. Also, the Gretsch drum set has a distinguish sound and it is Phil Collins’ favourite. All this to reiterate that the slightest logistical, technological, acoustic or instrumental detail has not been neglected.
Under the artistic aspect, we cannot say that this recording is a milestone that writes the history of jazz. In part it tells it. Through the seven tracks travels an historical, better legendary musical path. We start with Jerome Kern, one of the greatest American composers. He lived between ‘800s and ‘900s and composed most of all for theatre, musicals and cinema. His Nobody Else but Me is a sort of “relaxing jazz for adult”, wrote in 1946 and performed by many groups and singers, among which stands out Tony Bennett. The version here is less crooner style. On the basis of an instrumental arrangement, it overturns a little the rules of the sections. Piano, double bass and drum set take turns in the roles of rhythmic and solo with freedom of interpretation, although the piano gives and supports the melodic line. Then they return to support the rhythmic. With respect to the original track, here the result is more vivacious. It is delightful hearing Chiarella playing the drums with very fast hits although gently.
Next track is Webb City by Bud Powell. The first recording is from1946. Powell is a pioneer of be-bop but he extends his influence on the modern piano playing. His dark and problematic personality reflects itself in his music. The bop rules impose to burn all the aesthetical and styling solutions inside fast time pauses. A potential distension of a solo will automatically put a composition outside the movement. Our quartet knows this and the music becomes agitated and nervous: I would say instruments in storm. More than four instruments it seems to listen to four people talking animatedly about on issue and trying to have right. Listen carefully to the trumpet. Apart from the extraordinary tone colour, sometimes it seems to speak since it has the same inflections of the voice. The piano tries to answer, and the trumpet raises the tone and creaks intentionally on the high notes. The double bass comments discretely all the phrasing and seems say “I listen to you, but I do not move”. At a certain point the drums silence everyone and the very articulate monologue begins. They use all the means at disposal in a whirlwind of drum-steaks that fly between tom, snare drum and plates with an atomic clock precision. This is one of the steps in which the Gretsch tone emerges in all its nuances in addition to be a flash on the exceptional quality of the recording.
Duke Ellington is a couple of generation older than Powell. Oclupaca, the next track on our CD, was recorded in the first version in 1968, completed in 1970 and then included in 1972 in the Latin American Suite studio album. The work was quite underestimated while it is the testimony of how Afro-Cuban contaminations were dear to Ellington and housed the depth of his language. The writing is modelled for orchestra, but being the architecture in blues key, it opens up a wide possibility of interpretations or reductions. The tonality is in A♯/B♭and minor mode, while the time is of 137 BPM. In the original versions or in the reinterpretations the wind section always plays protagonist so much so that even in video reproductions the brass are always placed in the centre of the line-up. A certain winking at the danceable peeks out especially in some passages that brush again the swing, but it is not an unleashed composition. Rewriting it for a quartet might seem prohibitive, but Massimo, Danilo, David and Riccardo can do it great. The initial pathos, slightly jungle style, is recreated by making the E string of the double bass vibrate in continuity with the bow. On this incessant and solid background, to feed the climate of waiting, are grafted flashes of piano and small but incisive drum rolls. Then slowly the music relaxes. The trumpet enters and starts the blues: reflexive and interrupted by small stop and go. After that a different arrangement untangles, with the piano that takes over the trumpet in tracing the less syncopated theme, almost liquid, sometimes percussive. The drums keep the time with discretion in a sort of polyrhythm. Towards three quarters of the song finally a solo passage of the double bass that precedes the percussive apotheosis. A scratch of hits in “rolling stone” style. Not the group, I mean. In the end the instruments go out as if they were deflated. They fade in the end dissolving among the applause of the audience. With a time jump, also stylistic, we proceed with Waltz for Ruth, composed in 1997 by Charlie Haden with Pat Metheny. The song is dedicated to Haden’s wife. It is performed in three quarters, as it suits the waltz, on a starter in Gm7. Finally, a track in which the double bass becomes the centre of the composition. It express itself with an almost dancing course, forcing the other instruments to carve out spaces in the meanders of its movement on condition, however, of keeping a low profile. The tonal quality of the Liuteria Romanian explodes in all its wood and chordophone naturalness. The double bass is voluminous, and its strong presence inhibits any exuberance of the other instruments. These are participatory and dialoguing, but always measured, except for a couple of breaks tempted by trumpet and drums in the final part, but always functional to the romantic calmness of the song.
The quotes end with Dan Kinzelman, a forty-year-old American saxophonist resident in Italy since 2005, known for a particular skill in the use of breathing techniques that allow him to hold a note in suspension and several seconds up to the limit of physical resistance. The composition chosen is Visitor and listening to it seems to witness a performance in a more European style, almost Scandinavian, made of evocation of large spaces, visions and horizons. Emulating the author, the expressive style is slowed down and the notes are pulled to the maximum as if they had to overcome all the prospective physical limits to get as far as possible. The touch of the keys, of the drumheads, of the strings is more heavy and the recording manages to accommodate this three-dimensional extension of every single chord or phrasing.
There are still two tracks on the list, the only ones whose authors are part of the group. Vuelta Carnero has been composed by David Boato. It starts with a hypnotic tribal cadence and then grows in intensity making deflagrate all the sound nuances deriving from the infinite musical influences absorbed during collaborations with musicians such as Ares Tavolazzi, Franco D’Andrea, Giorgio Gaslini, Enrico Rava and Terence Blanchard. His trumpet takes on a very lyrical expression, in a sort of temporal conflict with the rest of the group that maintains an insistent and whirling rhythm, so as to force the Savut to raise the frequency of the notes up to the mistreat. A powerful double-bass solo pilots the end of the piece towards a soft and delicate acoustic splashdown.
The seventh and last track, Ode to Elvin, which is also the first of the tracking list, is a local composition. It was written by Danilo Memoli to honour the great Elvin Jones on the day of his death. A pianist who venerates a drummer is quite singular, but when the drummer is Elvin Jones everything is explained. The drama of the event influences the tone of the piece that is austere and melancholic as only a blues in minor can be. However, it tends to squirm from the shape of the 12-bar verse typical of the blues and you can perceive a consolatory chorus that strives to trigger flashes of vitality in honour of an artist that time will proclaim immortal. The composition has a classic style, where the interplay is at highest levels and where a solo space is reserved to each musician. The recording does not have flaws, with an eloquent clarity that lift it up to a standard status.
After endless and careful listening, I can conclude that Live at enotecalatorre is an excellent recording work based on a very effective and stimulating background idea.
The set objectives seem to me fully achieved and the orientation towards the audiophile is anything but a wink. I will hold on my copy n. 51 of the CD with the wish that the label will continue with good merit its activity of supporting musicians and truly talented groups like Massimo Chiarella Quartet. It would take one Enoteca La Torre every ten kilometres...
Photo gallery by Gianni Cesare Borghesan
Massimo Chiarella Quartet
Live at enotecalatorre
CD Enotorre Records
