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File under: Free ImprovisationContemporary
Bydgoski Kolektyw Kompozytorski
Ricercar for Miles, ricercar for Elvin
LabelFundacja Sluchaj!GenreJazz & Improvisation
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Ricercar (from the Italian "ricercare"), meaning “to search” or “to seek”, is a musical form that developed and flourished in a very interesting way in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was practiced by the greatest polyphonists and improvisers of the time: Giovanni Gabrieli, Girolamo Frescobaldi, and, ultimately, Johann Sebastian Bach (the six-voice ricercar from Musikalisches Opfer). It was always about the interaction between instruments, about dialogue, and about finding a common musical path. However, the most common ricercars were imitation and free ricercars. Let the latter, most often derived from lute works, be the starting point for the seven-part suite we are listening to here.
A piece conceived for saxophones, live electronics, and percussion, where the latter instruments play the role of basso continuo. Their role is twofold: both fundamental and ornamental. A lot is happening here; the electroacoustic fabric is constantly at work, torn between aleatoricism, ad libitum, and closed form. Discipline is present in every element of the suite. Bill (Frisell), Elvin (Jones), Steve (Coleman), Gato (Barbieri), Billy (Cobham), Johns (Coltrane & McLaughlin), Miles (Davis) – none of the protagonists of our stories "exceeds" more than five minutes of the piece (except for Johns, as there are two of them!). Each of them was a giant in the world of improvised music. And each of them, one has to stress that, liked to "play" on long spaces and distances – an imitation ricercar?
There is a historic concert recording that jazz experts consider one of those breakthrough moments when an artist challenges the audience and...this changed our world a little. On March 26, 1965, in New York's sultry Half Note club, John Coltrane's golden quartet performed One Down, One Up. Elvin Jones breaks the kick drum pedal on his kit and has to play without a bass drum for several minutes. John and Elvin are left alone. And for 13 minutes of this 27-minute piece, we are dealing with a new, separate category: a duet of drums and saxophone. Trane swings above and beyond, sensing every accent Jones is playing. This was an explosion about which Dan Morgenstern – an outstanding expert on bebop and swing (far from admiring free jazz) – wrote: "The energy kept building and I thought: God Almighty, I can't bear it!"
Mikołaj (Sarad), Krzysztof (Ostrowski), and Rafał (Gorzycki) take us on a journey during which the landscape changes polyrhythmically. Their inventiveness seems to have no limits, except for one thing: it is tamed by a shortcut. This avalanche of ideas derived from ideas is presented in a nutshell. Therefore, we will bear it, as Dan Morgenstern once bore the incursion of John Coltrane and Elvin Jones.
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