Label: Clean Feed Records
Release year: 2018
Production: Samo Šalamon
Album length: 58:29
Rating: 9.0 / 10
So what’s our Samo Šalamon up to these days? Revelling in fresh musical challenges, one after another. The man, regarded as one of the most esteemed jazz guitar heroes of the new generation, who racks up glowing reviews around the world and gets praise left and right, just keeps grinding. Creating, crafting. And he’s inspired. The inspiration isn’t letting up. He recently put out a new album with the renowned harmonica player Howard Levy, and here’s yet another one, forged in his own trademark playful musical vision. Samo is once again the commander-in-chief.
This time he’s put together a jazz trio with no bass guitar, built on a (tenor and alto) saxophone, guitar and drums axis. And he’s invited along his old buddies and familiar faces! That’s saxophonist Tony Malaby and drummer Roberto Dani. The guys have crossed paths a few times before, recorded a bunch of good jazz together, and so know each other really well. On stage, when it comes to chemistry, a glance is all it takes, a small hint of a tiny gesture, that’s how tuned in to each other these three musicians are. Heads up! It was April 2017. The trio’s gig in Ravne na Koroškem. There was only one single shot at it, and what you hear on this album was played live on stage. In one take, as part of an unrepeatable concert performance.
Interestingly, even though the conductor’s baton is once again held by chief visionary Samo Šalamon, the guitarist isn’t even front and center on this record; instead it’s saxophonist Tony Malaby who keeps (at least gently) taking the initiative throughout the album. Samo mostly paints in the background. Often with an extreme hailstorm of rapid-fire bursts of note sequences, and his painting is constantly active and vivid, since he uses both the clean sound of the guitar and a distorted one. That kind of effected sound also comes in handy when he fills the part of the sonic landscape where the low tones rule. The guitar can also completely smear the space of the sonic landscape in the background with a thick wall of distortion; the guitar is then pushed back and colors the drums. In Grey Matter, in a calmer passage, the group serves up unbelievable finesse, playful softness, and the sensuality of the trio’s communication gets even more intense, with all three instruments speaking so gently at the same time. Malaby is out front here, sure, but Dani and Samo remain very much noticeable, creating a contrasting rhythmic and musical platform with an exceptionally interesting development. Any saxophonist can only wish for that kind of instrumental support in improvisation passages.
The band revels in boundless freedom. There are no limits. Not even the sky sets limits for Samo. We’ve gotten quietly used to this kind of musical authenticity from Samo. That each of his musical stories is a chapter of its own and a blank sheet of paper, and that the music and idea of each album will take you who knows where, sweetly shock you and pleasantly surprise you. At every step. “Traveling Moving Breathing” leaves the same impression. Samo’s guitar and Malaby’s sax-playing often join up in criss-crossing dialogues, weaving sequences of tonal progressions one after another, while Roberto Dani, in such passages, of course goes all out on his drum kit. The two musicians can also be united in splicing together simultaneously played lines that each of them picks freely, sensually and intuitively (Moving Target). The situation flips suddenly and Samo then “sneaks up” beside Dani and with low tones follows the drummer’s temptation to improvise, while Malaby in these parts steps into the center of the story, where he blows things up all on his own in acrobatics of improvisation. The album ranges from solid, that is, tangible stretches of motivic structure, to moments that smell of free jazz, of course, but the band doesn’t overdo it and doesn’t veer into excessive loosening, which means it keeps hold of the red thread throughout.
This album is a shade lighter and more accessible than, say, last year’s “The Colour Suite” by the Samo Šalamon Sextet, which has more polish, but let’s be honest. There you’ve got one more musician. Here we have a jazz conglomerate of just three instruments, who in a huge space feelingly open up room for solos for one another. And that space, even though only three instruments create it, they use satisfyingly well. What emerges is that sweetly adventurous spatial boundlessness the three of them keep creating as they play. With every burst of full-blooded inspiration, as they (almost instinctively) step onto new and newer fields of improvisational temptation. The reactivity is outstanding. The responsiveness. The moment one of the trio drifts away motivically, the other two deftly “catch” him, “reach” him, and the track “sails off” toward a new (undiscovered) sphere, so the way things unfold on the album is constantly totally unexpected and gives a feeling of spontaneity. So this wide space that opens up means the trio could easily integrate another instrument or two.
But the point of the record lies precisely in the “bassless trio” format, in old acquaintances getting together and wholeheartedly enjoying the fusion of three musical worlds, which, through the activity of these three musicians, co-create and build the image of modern jazz. The result is a one-of-a-kind conglomerate, one more exceptionally beautiful work and achievement of Samo’s genius and musical openness. It rests on a triangle of extremely effective chemistry between interactions, big moves in the playing that speak in an unpretentious, completely relaxed way. The result is an album that will thrill all fans of Samo’s exploits so far, and demanding music gourmets in general, you who look for the unusual, and in that unusualness, generated by exceptional ease, sensitivity, intuitive perception and most often sheer instinct, a constant musical provocation. A new achievement of great merits, which first and foremost thrills and entertains, and that’s the very essence of its point. And the best part is the realization that Samo won’t stop here and probably already has a pile of ideas for new and newer musical collaborations in his head. Samo is thus not only one of the most interesting guitar heroes on the jazz scene right now, but also one of the most active, who in his generation actually drive the world jazz machinery forward and upward with a clearly visible and striking intensity.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Dephony (06:02)
2. Moving Target (06:04)
3. Breathing (06:34)
4. Grey Matter (09:12)
5. Traveling Without Motion (06:14)
6. Too Much (04:02)
7. Kei’s Dream (07:42)
8. Arnold (08:04)
9. Pedro Is Clean (04:26)
Lineup:
Tony Malaby – alto and tenor saxophone
Samo Šalamon – guitar
Roberto Dani – drums
