Featuring Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Steve Lacy, Gato Barbieri & Gianni Bedori on saxes, Enrico Rava on trumpet, Gaslini on piano, Kent Carter & J.F. Jenny-Clark on basses and Aldo Romano & Franco Tonani on drums. This features four different groups/sessions from 1964-1968 with varying personnel, the above all-star unit is only one from '66-'68.
The thirty minute "New Feelings Suite" features the above mentioned 11 piece all-star international (US/Italian/Brazilian) ensemble and is an engaging work. The writing and playing move through a maze of shifting sections, with great solos from each horn and Giorgio's occasionally Monk-like piano playing. Giorgio's composing is intriguing throughout and from leading an Italian 11 piece ensemble in 1964 & '65 through his fine Italian quartet in 1965 & '68, the playing and composing remain excellent throughout.
(Excerpted from Notes of Giorgio Gaslini)
With the Suite "NUOVI SENTIMENTI" (1966) a new decade began for me, full of intense musical events and participation in the great themes of civil commitment that emerged from Italian society. This was a decade (1966-1976) of intense production. A lot of my new works, precisely fifteen, were created (up to "MURALES*' of 1976) now reproposed in this and in the following Volumes of this Collection. The present Volume opens with the Suite "NUOVI SENTIMENTI" ("NEW FEELINGS") of 1966 and finishes with the Suite "LA STAGIONE INCANTATA" (1968). These two works mark the end of my collaboration with the label "LA VOCE DEL PADRONE" (1948-1968). In 1965 DON CHERRY, after having read an article about me which appeared in "MELODY MAKER", called me from London and then came to see me in Milan. It was an unforgettable meeting for both of us. A few months later Don arrived at my house with an extraordinary group of people: Steve Lacy, Gato Barbieri, Ken Carter, Daniel Humair and J. F. Jenny Clark. They wanted to hear my recordings and for a few hours they remained silent listening to them. At the beginning of February 1966 Don Cherry phoned me again and suggested that I immediately make a record together with his group. There were only 48 hours until the appointment arranged for 4 February 1966, 2.00 p.m., at the Studio della Basilica (Milan), with the precise order, given by the record company, for it to be finished by midnight. I wrote this suite the night before, and in the ten hours of recording with ten of the most important Jazzmen of the intemational "Nouvelle Vogue" of that time, I gave life to this suite on record. This was a great event of international importance, and the record had the best review on the American magazine "Down Beat" for being a "five star piece", the best Italian work. Nevertheless, in Italy it passed nearly unnoticed, and rapidly disappeared. Arrigo Polillo concluded his presentation, which appeared on the record at that time, as follows: "This is a most advanced jazz experience, but with something special in it, because here, for the first time, Gaslini's Europeanism (with its tendency towards a serial composition technique) and the Americanism of the others (both Americans and non-Americans) meet. Thus, at the same time, there is music culture and natural talent, discipline and the uninhibited impetus typical of *'FREE JAZZ". And everyone, though remaining faithful to his own very personal language, clearly shows the appreciation for that of his colleagues, from whom he is stimulated and even provoked. This is what happens in jazz, when the musicians collaborating in the production of a work have all come to the understanding of the same truth, despite their coming from the most varied countries, as in the case of these ten people. |