Stefano Pastor
Transmutations
Liner Notes
Transmutations
is my second disc and, unlike the former, which was meant as a project founded
on Italian popular song, is mainly based on writing.
Transmutation of musical
elements (melodic or other) and their decontextualization suggested to me these
six compositions which originate from very different materials to become
something else.
To transform into something
else everything it meets seems to be a peculiarity of jazz. Songs, for example,
gathered from many sources become jazz standards.
The manipulation of musical
material in composition is a very fascinating practice and an extraordinary
source of inspiration to me.
As a result these
transfigurations share the approach to modern jazz compositions, including
several experiences where Afro-American language has developed in its history. A
kind of jazz certainly transversal but, I guess, authentic.
In this recording I also to
pay homage to some giants of jazz who have deeply influenced me. The music of
Ornette Coleman undoubtedly represents a key point in my musical experience and
particularly in this work, that’s why the tale begins with Bird Food, a
starting point for most things to come out lately.
Seul B.
is the first transmutation originating from the manipulation of archaic
material. The main theme is built on a tetrachord descending from the origin of
blues. My use of this material is also a tribute to the music of Thelonious Monk
and Charles Mingus who frequently used it in a superb way.
The second transmutation
named Nel Blu Dipinto di Blues, vaguely conceived in Coleman’s
style, is a free jazz piece founded on be-bop harmonic, melodic and rhythmic
material. It’s a sort of paraphrase of the famous Domenico Modugno’s song
called Nel Blu Dipinto di Blu. I like to keep some legacy with previously
album, that’s why I choose to play again on Italian songs. The theme has a
twelve bar structure, suggesting a vague blues connection.
Don Juan
is a composition based on Mozart’s Don Giovanni fragments. The second
time “A” section theme flows on the 2nd violins “ostinato” exposed in
the Ouverture and in the 4th Act of Mozart’s masterpiece. This
melodic fragment represents the terrific apparition of the dead
“Commendatore” statue. The “B” section theme is built on that mysterious
line who gives voice to the terrible warning “Non si pasce di cibo mortale chi
si pasce di cibo celeste” (He who dines on
Two rhythmic cells and two
harmonic patterns, different and recognizable, run after each other dance
“samba” in the forty bars structure Quarenta, fourth transmutation.
Bop, post-bop and latin elements collide to create a stylistic short circuit
over a typical Brazilian backdrop.
Crescent,
by John Coltrane, is one of my favourites jazz discs ever since my adolescence.
To play this beautiful composition is an ambitious dream I always wanted. This
piece always creates great tension within me, so different from the lyricism of
Coltrane in that recording. The rest of the group abandon their typical loud
sound, however the hidden action of Elvin Jones and the explosive strength of
Rudy Van Gelder recording can communicate to me feelings of tension and anxiety
which I tried to re-propose in this session.
The double identity of blues
and free remark the fifth transmutation called Dimorfismo. Here the more
archaic meets bop and latin fragments, in a game strongly polyrhythmic and
polyharmonic. Even if the complete track highlights a big ambiguity in styles,
the historical vanguards often converging, I guess the blues side definitely
prevails.
The Jule Styne and Sammy
Cahn beautiful song named I Fall in Love Too Easily is a moment of
lyricism and relaxation in a disc full of tension elements. A tuneful interval
entrusted, in the begin, to the first-rate of Piero.
With its prolonged
polyrhythms and intense lyricisms, the sixth Transmutation Vucciria,
represents the dizzy contrasts of the historical market of Palermo, with its
frenetic life, to today’s crumbling state of this great Mediterranean city.
The melodic content is created exclusively on the natural and altered
pentatonics changing continuously during the theme.
Another element of
continuity with my first disc: a Brazilian song to close the work. Some time ago
someone asked me who were the most influencing jazz musicians to me. I think
that a question like this deserves at least one hundred names in answer. Without
thinking too much I choose three names: John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Chet
Baker. With this in mind I meant to pay homage to these great Masters and Esquecendo
Voce, by the immense Tom Jobim, is my tribute to Chet and his revolutionary
mode on singing and thinking melody. Interpreting this song I was influenced by
intimate atmosphere of Joao Gilberto, Caetano Veloso or Eliane Elias. I choose
to use seven violins for accompaniment, so to treat the harmony in a more
explicit way than a quartet devoid of harmonic instruments. In arranging I tried
to express the pain of parting by a harmonization that becomes progressively
more abstract and ethereal in an interior and deep suffering atmosphere, which
destroys and prevents any external display of such sentiments.
Stefano Pastor
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