Giovanni Maier | Emanuele Parrini | Luca Calabrese | Scott Amendola | The Talking Bass | Long Song Records

Giovanni Maier (Double Bass) | Emanuele Parrini (Violin & Viola) | Luca Calabrese (Trumpet & Flugelhorn) | Scott Amendola (Drums)

Tracklist: 1. The Talking Bass 2. Disk Dosk 3. Crayon Rouge 4. Due Cellule 5. Pampaluna 6. El Manda 7. Soft Transitions 8. Leroy Vinnegar 9. Wrong Is Right

All compositions by Giovanni Maier, Di Piu Edizioni Musicala, except “El Manda” by Amerio Stefano Edizioni Musicali. Recorded at Officine Meccaniche Recording Studios, Milano, november 16th. 2010.  Sound engineer: Maurizio Giannotti. Mixed by Maurizio Giannotti, Giovanni Maier and Fabrizio Perissinotto at New Mastering Studio, october 9th and october 10th. 2010. Mastered by Maurizio Giannotti at New Mastering Studio, october 10th. 2010. Produced by Giovanni Maier and Fabrizio Perissinotto. Thanks to Fabrizio, Luca, Emanuele and Scott. Booking: mosaic@libero.it | Artwork by Elena Raffa

Simply the most personal and ultimate statement from one the best bass players around. And please take notice: all tracks are first takes, this music is fresh and vital as ever.

TALKINSIDE

Giovanni Maier

is an architect. No, not the traditional brick and mortar sense but a true architect of sound. With his latest CD “The talking bass” he is building musical bridges all over the map. The quartet he has assembled for the recording doesn’t just glow, they shine! Crossing and blurring the boundaries of music are what these guys do best and together they seem unstoppable. There is a deep beauty and rawness in the sound of Giovanni’s compositions. The bass gives us the illusion of being all places at once. Giovanni designs these musical structures but also puts the hammer to the nail himself, lays it down like a Ferrari on the autobahn and always has time to take us on a road untraveled. The quartet including Emanuele Parrini on violin and viola, Luca Calabrese on trumpet and flugelhorn and Scott Amendola on drums plays out a ghostly game of cat and mouse that Giovanni lets unfold before out very ears. The group constructs things that are not just ahead of the times, but seem to encompass all times. The ensemble allows us to become dreamers side by side with them. We get to wander hand and hand with these musical Griots and feel Giovanni’s bass not only talk, but sing. — Craig Green

giovanni maier | emanuele parrini | luca calabrese | scott amendola | the talking bass | long song records

Giovanni Maier

born on august 26, 1965, he graduated at the Conservatory “G. Tartini” of Trieste in 1988. In 1991 he attended the summer courses at Siena Jazz and in 1993 he took part in a workshop with Roscoe Mitchell and Muhal Richards Abrams. In 1995 he took part in realization of the sound track (music by T. Tononi) of the film “Ketchup”, which was awarded the first prize at “Festival of Venice”, in the section concerning short films. On September 1996 he took part in a “Conduction” by Butch Morris at Podewil Theatre of Berlin. He also cooperated with the orchestra of Theatre “G. Verdi” of Trieste and Lyric Workshop of Alessandria (the first performance in Italy of a work of the german composer S. Matthus); he was also selected for the international Orchestra of Alpe Adria. On december 1996 he collaborated at the realization of the show “Ragazzi Selvaggi”, ballet on music by E. Rava, coreographer R. North, which was fist performed in Italy in the theatres of Rovigo and Treviso, with the participation of Tony Scott and of the Symphony Orchestra of “Teatro Sociale of Rovigo”.

He played with world-wide renown musicians: Enrico Rava, Gianluigi Trovesi, Cecil Taylor, Han Bennink, Franco D’Andrea, Tim Berne, Ernst Reijseger, Willem Breuker, Tristan Honsinger, Wolter Wierbos, Massimo Urbani, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Carlo Actis Dato, Antonello Salis, Maria Pia De Vito, Daniele Cavallanti, Tiziano Tononi, Claudio Roditi, Naco, Richard Galliano, Ellen Christi, Laura Culver, Sean Bergin, Tone Jansa, Roberto Gatto, Herb Robertson, Piero Leveratto, Renato Geremia, Guido Mazzon, Tony Scott, Lauro Rossi, Umberto Petrin, Stjepko Gut, Sandro Satta, Roberto Ottaviano, Yves Robert, Paolo Damiani, David Shea, Michele Rabbia. He has played in many festivals and reviews in all Europe (Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Finland, Spain, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Greece, Czech Republic) in Africa (Tunisia) and Canada/U.S.A. He is permanent member of the following groups: Rava Electric Five (E.Rava, R.Cecchetto, D.Caliri, U.T.Ghandi), Nexus, Jazz Cromatic Ensemble, Quatuor (G.Trovesi, M.De Mattia, G.Pacorig, E.M.Ghirardini), Claudio Lodati Trio, Claudio Lodati “Vocal Desires” (C.Lodati, E.Christi, A.Rolle, U.T.Ghandi), Daniele Cavallanti Quartet, Saverio Tasca Trio, Lauro Rossi Quartet, Umberto Petrin Trio, Ettore Fioravanti “Belcanto”, Open Sound Ensemble. He also plays occasionally with the “Italian Instabile Orchestra”. At the present he is also working at a project for solo contrabass. On 1996 he was elected one of the best ten talents for year 1996, by critics of the magazine “Musica Jazz”.

giovanni maier | emanuele parrini | luca calabrese | scott amendola | the talking bass | long song records
Giovanni Maier | Photo by Joze Pozrl

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6 thoughts on “Giovanni Maier | Emanuele Parrini | Luca Calabrese | Scott Amendola | The Talking Bass | Long Song Records

  1. On the nature of deception : you can be deceived by others, and by yourself. You can be deceived in the positive sense, and in the negative sense. Luckily here, it’s in the positive sense.

    When I opened this CD package, the cheap look of the cover and the title made me think this was yet another album by an instrumentalist for fellow instrumentalists, with the screaming yellow begging for attention like a big “Buy Now!” sticker on as yet unpurchased and possibly unmarketable commodities.

    I had heard Giovanni Maier’s previous CD on Long Song, an electric fusion affair with Marc Ribot on guitar – and honestly this was not my style or genre at all, not by a long stretch, and hence not wetting my appetite for further listening.

    But then you listen to the music on this album, and the preconceptions are shattered: it is rich, deep, thorough, with great melodies, excellent musicianship and great interaction. The band is Giovanni Maier on bass, Emanuele Parrini on violin and viola, Luca Calabrese on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Scott Amendola on drums.

    Starting with a bass intro, it moves organically into “Disk Dosk” a long suit-like piece with composed parts and wonderful free moments, and especially the latter are staggering, with Calabrese’s trumpet and Maier’s bass achieving great heights. The next piece, “Crayon Rouge”, is even better, starting freely, with a great bass vamp emerging out of the freedom, leading into a sweet and compelling theme, with Parrini’s raw viola sounds freely improvising over the hypnotic rhythm, followed by an incredibly bluesy solo by Calabrese.

    This is followed by “Due Cellule”, which sounds totally free and is – believe it or not – still better than the previous tracks, slow and adventurous. This sense of adventure is even more accentuated on the following track, full of unexpected twists and turns, like the sudden wild outburst by Amendola, or the arco by Maier. “El Manda”, led by Calabrese’s trumpet is a sad and melancholy piece, with some Latin influences, moving into the open-ended “Soft Transitions”, with Maier’s gut-wrenching arco flageolets touching some deep emotional layers.The music offers a great texture of sounds, often gloomy, moving, compelling.

    Then, and unfortunately, after the band has sucked you into a dark universe all their own, with great stylistic unity, you get two more tracks who belong elsewhere : “Leroy Vinnegar”, clearly an ode to Leroy Jenkins, is an upbeat thing, and “Wrong Is Right”, a more joyful boppish track that again is not in line with the atmosphere created previously. The last two tracks are not bad by themselves, if listened to in another context.

    In all, let my subjective appreciation of the last two tracks not deter you from checking this album out. All the previous tracks are of a really high level with a grand musical vision that’s unfortunately not maintained till the end.

  2. Featuring Giovanni Maier on double bass & compositions, Emanuele Parrini on violin & viola, Luca Calabrese on trumpet & flugelhorn and Scott Amendola on drums. When we received this disc a few weeks back, I was surprised about how amazing it was. I shouldn’t have been since the Long Song label has released a dozen great discs so far and Giovanni Maier has worked a with a number of other great musicians like Cavallanti & Tononi, Stefano Battaglia, Umberto Petrin and Zeno De Rossi. Mr. Parrini and Mr. Calabrese have also worked with the great Cavallanti & Tononi (a/k/a Nexus) bands as well. No doubt you know drum wiz Scott Amendola from his work with Nels Cline, Ben Goldberg and Larry Ochs.

    Giovanni Maier’s fabulous acoustic bass is at the center of these pieces and it is extremely well recorded. The title tune is first it features what sounds like layers of contrabass lines swirling around one another magnificently. “Disk Dosk” kicks in hard with powerful drums and massive bass. The viola and trumpet ride the colossal waves below with an incredibly intense solo from Emanuele’s burnin’ viola. About half way through Giovanni’s bass hits this dynamite throbbing groove with some amazing trumpet and viola soaring together above.

    This is one outstanding quartet with each member an integral part of the great, tight group sound. One of the things that makes this disc so great is he way Giovanni has written these pieces with the specfic musicians in mind, accentuating exactly what they do so well. The haunting harmonies of the flugel & violin on “Due Cellule” are exquisite with Maier’s sublime bass and Amendola’s subtle brushes supporting sublimely. This disc is filled to the brim (78+ minutes) with consistently splendid creative, crafty and intriguing music. Twice this week, I had this disc on and two different customers were knocked out and had to have a copy of their own. You will no doubt feel the same way once you dig in.

  3. Students of jazz have long known that the bassist can be the hippest musician on the bandstand, constantly listening, and rarely featured. That’s why, when a first class bassist like Giovanni Maier gets a chance to lead and present his compositions, it should be a special event. That is just whatThe Talking Bass is: a vehicle to feature not only his playing, but his writing as well.

    Maier is a constant sideman to the likes of Stefano Battaglia, Daniele Cavallanti, and Enrico Rava, and is a member of the Italian Instabile Orchestra. Where his previous recording with featured guitarist Marc Ribot,Technicolor (Long Sound, 2008), was a detonation of electricity, this session creates its sparks acoustically.

    Naturally, the recording features Maier’s colossal sound both plucked and bowed. Opening the disc in a multitracked duet with himself, Maier extends his energies as an umbrella over the session. On the next eight tracks he is joined by violinist Emanuele Parrini and trumpeter Luca Calabrese, plus Los Angeles band leader/drummer/Nels Cline sideman, Scott Amendola. The quartet presents a mix of energized compositions and attention grabbing free jazz, all regulated by Maier’s touch.

    Maier writes lengthy pieces that reshape themselves organically. The fury of “Disk Dosk” finds Maier and Amendola churning white water under the applied soloing of Parrini’s violin, then Calabrese’s agreeable trumpet steps away from Maier’s bowed solo into the restyled and agreeable atmosphere, playing with businesslike precision with Parrini. These sliding and shifting themes should be familiar to fans of bassist Mario Pavone, and Maier makes great use of his penchant for adjustment.

    He also writes bebop phrases, as in the swinging “Leroy Vinegar,” with a sometime scampish swagger, or “Wrong Is Right, where Amendola is given leave for an outlandish drum solo. The band plays a bit open and free on “Due Cellule” and adds some effects (via Amendola) with “Pampaluna.”
    A solid session, made all the better knowing it was all recorded as first takes. Impressive.

    Students of jazz have long known that the bassist can be the hippest musician on the bandstand, constantly listening, and rarely featured. That’s why, when a first class bassist like Giovanni Maier gets a chance to lead and present his compositions, it should be a special event. That is just whatThe Talking Bass is: a vehicle to feature not only his playing, but his writing as well.

    Maier is a constant sideman to the likes of Stefano Battaglia, Daniele Cavallanti, and Enrico Rava, and is a member of the Italian Instabile Orchestra. Where his previous recording with featured guitarist Marc Ribot,Technicolor (Long Sound, 2008), was a detonation of electricity, this session creates its sparks acoustically.

    Naturally, the recording features Maier’s colossal sound both plucked and bowed. Opening the disc in a multitracked duet with himself, Maier extends his energies as an umbrella over the session. On the next eight tracks he is joined by violinist Emanuele Parrini and trumpeter Luca Calabrese, plus Los Angeles band leader/drummer/Nels Cline sideman, Scott Amendola. The quartet presents a mix of energized compositions and attention grabbing free jazz, all regulated by Maier’s touch.

    Maier writes lengthy pieces that reshape themselves organically. The fury of “Disk Dosk” finds Maier and Amendola churning white water under the applied soloing of Parrini’s violin, then Calabrese’s agreeable trumpet steps away from Maier’s bowed solo into the restyled and agreeable atmosphere, playing with businesslike precision with Parrini. These sliding and shifting themes should be familiar to fans of bassist Mario Pavone, and Maier makes great use of his penchant for adjustment.He also writes bebop phrases, as in the swinging “Leroy Vinegar,” with a sometime scampish swagger, or “Wrong Is Right, where Amendola is given leave for an outlandish drum solo. The band plays a bit open and free on “Due Cellule” and adds some effects (via Amendola) with “Pampaluna.”
    A solid session, made all the better knowing it was all recorded as first takes. Impressive.

  4. Raduna attorno a sé un quartetto essenziale e efficacissimo, il contrabbassista Giovanni Maier, per questo “The Talking Bass”: Emanule Parrini a violino e viola, Luca Calabrese alla tromba, Scott Amendola alla batteria. È un narrare spiraleggiante, che guarda sia alla creatività del jazz afroamericano degli anni Settanta che alla instabilità urbana di molto jazz contemporaneo, ma che vibra di una sensibilità tutta originale, ben assecondata da tutti, sia nei collettivi che nei momenti solisti. Bello.

  5. Hot tension and competition is indeed suggested on Reciprocal Uncles. The competition is recreational, as it were, and pianist Gianni Lenoci and saxist Gianni Mimmo never come to blows. Rather, they are as sporting as two fencing partners. What it lacks for in grand, communal emotion it makes up for in percussive and lyrical invention. In the earlier numbers the tensions are often resolved by one player allowing the other to dominate or, sometimes, in standoffs, where one will drop out entirely as the other solos. The dynamics throughout are fun and swinging.

    It is the later numbers that offer resolutions – and revolutions – turning the tensions into forays of breathtaking complexity. “Sparse Lyrics” begins with a plaintive but swinging soprano over a lean, abstracted piano. The two come together then drift apart, repeatedly. As they compete for the lead, one circles the other as in an electron orbit. Then, the piano starts pumping out separate melodies in both bass and treble, dividing the soprano’s attention, now following one and then the other. In “News from the Distance” beginning with hard percussion from both instruments, the piano sometimes thwarts and sometimes follows the soprano. Ultimately it takes the lead and runs with it to an entirely other place, mostly inthebass-butsofar,asina360turn,itstartsto follow again.

  6. Giovanni Maier, classe 1965, è un contrabbassista coi fiocchi, uno che ha suonato con gente del calibro di Rava e Trovesi, ma anche con un chitarrista come Marc Ribot. Insomma, credenziali di tutto rispetto, tanto che sul suo nuovo cd pubblicato da Long Song Records si poteva giustamente riporre qualche lecita aspettativa. Assieme a lui, ecco Luca Calabrese alla tromba, Emanuele Parrini al violino e alla viola e Scott Amendola alla batteria, per un classico quartetto. Il disco non delude affatto e risulta un perfetto esempio di jazz libero e scapestrato, messo in piedi da musicisti molto bravi ciascuno nel proprio strumento, ma soprattutto capaci di un dialogo avvincente. Tutte le composizioni sono di Maier, canovacci sui quali ciascuno ha saputo dare il meglio di sé. Come scritto a chiare lettere nelle note d’accompagnamento, tutte le tracce sono “first take”, ossia “buona la prima”, a soddisfare un’urgenza espressiva che diventa il fuoco ardente di queste nove tracce. Scelta da condividere, visti i risultati, che non tradiscono affatto le intenzioni di partenza.

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