There are two musical instruments that most fascinate me, the trumpet and the vibraphone, especially in jazz improvisation and even the flugelhorn, a kind of trumpet used at a band level, with a softer sound. The result is a sweet and dreamy sonority, very suitable for giving intimacy and passion and also a truly splendid, warm, rich in harmonics bass register. Wheeler Canadian trumpeter, Friedman American vibraphonist, Van't Hof Dutch pianist are three great virtuosos of their instruments, already composers of remarkable works before meeting in this CD, they are perfectly at ease, their instruments come together in a single wonderful song poetic, quiet and meditative, where the notes are those that are enough to transport the listener to another pitch, the notes seem to stretch towards the sky, in the stellar trajectories. The low zones of the piano contrast without jolts with the treble of the trumpet and flugelhorn, creating an important and smooth sound carpet. In the first piece a distant and tenuous tuning of the piano creates a soft base on which the vibraphone is embroidered in ostinato and then a distant, slightly reverberated trumpet is added, which with extreme delicacy introduces us into this new world, then slowly everything accelerates and it increases in volume with the peroration of the trumpet, an instrument that in the hands of wheeler sometimes even seems to speak, grunt, chirp. At a certain point the flugelhorn takes the reins of the game together with the piano and the duo catches fire and flames, rushes towards a marching and confirming finale, with the piano punctuating the crescendo with full chords in fortissimo! The second track was born as a dream with a happy ending, in the final wheeler goes wild, gives us a wonderful solo, lyrical to tears. The third track is a mild starry night, a myriad of dewdrops on the grass. The fourth piece is pure ice, the piano in the very high register lashes out gracefully, teases our chilled cheeks, a game of stalactites and stalagmites and the wind instrument creates a luminous and dreamy ending, like a serene dawn. The fifth begins with the vibraphone that shifts accents and silences ... hints, stumbles, then the discreet dialogue with the piano, up to a vibrant, perhaps funky duo game ... here silence has the same importance as music, the unspoken is the soul of the piece. The final piece allows the solar reunion of the three soloists who here can also give a little display of technical skills ... but note that in the whole work there is never a hint of cloying self-referential virtuosity, there is only poetry, skill in dialogue with the other musicians ... about halfway through an unforgettable piano moment, a radiant ride, which always touches the high registers of the keyboard, almost silencing the intrusiveness of the vibraphone ... then the trumpet reappears and the whole world is at its feet. The quality of the recording is remarkable, every detail is present, without a radiographic excess ... the high register of the piano is marble and also liquid ... the trumpet and the flugelhorn are very delicate in the flat passages and impetuous, wild, in the fortissimi and in the different points in which their sound is deformed, shaped directly by the breath, by the voice of wheeler ... the vibraphone is fat, rich, enveloping, often creates thick carpets of harmonic reverberations ... a remarkable job. ~ Extract by yoklux, Senzalamusica.Wordpress.com. [Translated from Italian]
Sentemo Records, SNT 31091, 1992
Recorded and Mixed at Farm,
Italy
Musicians:
Kenny Wheeler - Trumpet,
Flugelhorn
David Friedman - Vibraphone
Jasper Van't Hof - Piano
Tracks:
1. Zambon {Jasper Van't Hof}
(11:44)
2. Everybody's Song But My
Own {Kenny Wheeler} (9:58)
3, Truvib {David Friedman,
Kenny Wheeler} (3:12)
4. Greenhouse Fables {David
Friedman} (6:54)
5. Farm {David Friedman,
Jasper Van't Hof} (7:28)
6. Salina Street {Kenny
Wheeler} (7:13)
Total Time: 46:31
Credits:
Executive-Producer - Diego
Sandrin, Paolo Boarato
Recording & Mixing -
Maurizio Soranzo
Project Coordinator - Claudia
Minotto
Cover Drawing - Loredana
Spimpolo, Roberto Scarpa
Cover Art - Mac Art
