Aptly described as chiaroscuro--a veritable play of light and shadow in quick-witted--through nearly microscopic and highly interactive acoustic improvisation from the quartet of Ernesto Rodrigues on viola, Maria da Rocha on violin, Bruno Parrinha on clarinet & bass clarinet and Jose Oliveira on percussion, performing live at Galeria Monumental, in Lisbon in 2022.
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Sample The Album:
Ernesto Rodrigues-viola
Maria da Rocha-violin
Bruno Parrinha-clarinet, bass clarinet
Jose Oliveira-percussion
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UPC: 5609063407365
Label: Creative Sources
Catalog ID: cs736
Squidco Product Code: 32059
Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2022
Country: Portugal
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Live recording at Galeria Monumental, in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 19th 2022, by Carlos Santos.
"[...] with Chiaroscuro (recorded March 2022 in Lisbon), Rodrigues (viola) & Parrinha (clarinet & bass clarinet only here) turn to an ensemble formation with fewer obvious precedents, adding Maria da Rocha (violin) & José Oliveira (percussion). Rocha had appeared with Rodrigues on Iridium String Quartet (with e.g. Miguel Mira on bass, reviewed here in May 2016), but I hadn't noticed her since: Much of her work seems to involve classical music, including integrating electronics, but Chiaroscuro does appear to be an acoustic album.
And Oliveira appeared on some of the earliest CS albums, but most recently on Pentahedron (along with e.g. Carlos Zingaro), another album under half an hour in length that I reviewed here in March 2020, calling it (potentially) a crowd pleaser...! It brought more of a "traditional" free jazz vibe, while more of a 20th century rhetorical balance does also maintain on Chiaroscuro, including via some "classical" figurations. Oliveira functions as a colorist on both albums, adding (especially) various metallic tones (e.g. chimes), as well as a sort of bent metal "bass" to Chiaroscuro. (The latter can be rather subtle, although the bent metal is at its most distinctive - & higher pitched - after a slowdown in the interaction about two thirds through.... Oliveira also opens the album with a tinkling figure, soon joined by pizzicati.)
And then both the close coordination & independence of the quartet are remarkable, proceeding through a single track that (per the norms of free improv...) does have its slower moments, but sparkles with creative new textures & intriguing exchanges almost throughout: The title explicitly evokes the play of light & shadow, as well as (perhaps) a sort of 2d canvas, but Chiaroscuro has a significant "3d" aspect as well, its play of foreground-background forging a sort of equivocating texture overall, a mingling of solidity & space: The musicians forge such an impression via close interactions & attention to timbre & grain, i.e. technique beyond impressionism per se. One might even sense something of a café scene (pace Dada...) for instance, but also various skittering, an orientation on line that suddenly isn't line.... (One might even question what I call elsewhere segmentation, i.e. the "chunking" of perception into entities: The musical play of light & dark here can take on the character of illusion, but the segmentation-entities in our world are not given, i.e. are not "real" anyway. They are learned & culturally contingent.)
There's consequently a sort of clustering sound in motion, traditional counterpoint at times, but just as seamlessly becoming unwound... sometimes sunny, maybe biological (e.g. via zoo-mimesis), but always (usually tightly) shifting perspectives. There's thus various motion through different styles, but in close (nuts & bolts) correspondence, and not really in a linear-temporal format, e.g. what I've characterized previously as travelogue style, moving onward: Maybe in that sense, Chiaroscuro can be characterized as a perspecti-logue... i.e. a tangled (nonlinear, ongoing) shifting of perspectives. (And Rodrigues does rarely seem to get bogged down in linear-temporal, i.e. narrative, progressions in general....)
Such equivocation then suggests its own sort of translucency, although coloration does often appear more solid (if actually illusory) here. Yet, as the "café" remark already suggested, and the raising of "perspectives" per se only confirms, this is also human-social music: Evocations are not merely observed or narrated then, but felt & inflected. (And it's been difficult to find comparisons elsewhere, but e.g. Nauportus involves some similarly quiet & shifting counterpoint, but with more of an "anthro" feel, as well as a more soloistic horn.... And then New Dynamics, also featuring Rodrigues from 2016, suggests some vaguely reminiscent quartet counterpoint, but more in the realm of parity than spectral interpenetration....)
Chiaroscuro thus ends up being short yet engrossing: Its density isn't overwhelming, but very real (making its duration seem significant...). As is its interrogation of perception, perspective & ontology per se - as figured into chamber music. And its basic sense of refined texture-in-motion, its sort of transverse intensity..., can be understated, but also relatively immediate."-Todd McComb, Jazz Thoughts
Get additional information at Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts
Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for Ernesto Rodrigues "He has been playing the violin for 30 years and in that time has played all genres of music ranging from contemporary music to free jazz and improvised music, live and in the studio. His main interest shifted towards contemporary improvised and composed music. The relationship with his instruments is focused in sonic and textural elements. Electronic music was an early influence on his approach to violin playing, which challenges traditional romantic concepts of the violin/viola through use of preparations and micro tuning. Active in different settings on the Portuguese scene for free improvised music, both as a collaborator and in leading his own groups. Music for Dance, Cinema, Video and Performance. Has created the record label Creative Sources Recordings in 1999, which mainly concentrates on releasing experimental and electro-acoustic music." ^ Hide Bio for Ernesto Rodrigues • Show Bio for Maria da Rocha "Maria da Rocha's music has emerged from an intimate connection to the violin and from the fascination how analog synthetised noises can resemble those from everyday life: nature, machines and other sounding objects, partly with a life of their own.Maria da Rocha (Lisbon, PT) plays violin & viola, researches, teaches, creates mostly in the field of new, experimental & electroacoustic music. She played various works solo with orchestra or as tutti and collaborated with ensembles in new music festivals in Portugal, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, United Kingdom and Poland. Maria is also active in other musical styles such as barroque, classical and tango. Her multimedia compositions emerged in collaboration and have been presented in various festivals, such as the release of the album Pink: daRocha/Horn (viola and live electronics). Her solo album Beetroot&OtherStories (violin&electronics) was recorded at awarded composer residencies at EMS, Stockholm and mastered in VICC, Centre for Composers in Visby." ^ Hide Bio for Maria da Rocha • Show Bio for Bruno Parrinha "Bruno Parrinha - alto sax / soprano, Clarinet Sb / Alto, flute Around the age of 10 began playing the clarinet. At 17 he bought a flute and entered the Academy of Music where he Amateurs solfeggio and instrument with Paulo Curado for two years . Later he was always playing clarinet and tenor saxophone ( self-taught ) and at age 21 he was invited to join the band Pop Radar Gaddafi with whom he recorded . Later he was cast of musicians on the play " Vieux Carré " in teatro da Graça playing tenor sax . Spent a year on the scene . At 87 he began to attend formations of Sei Miguel resulting in vinyl LP recorded at 88 " Songs love and against terrorism ." Since then he has dedicated his commitment to free improvisation and has participated in numerous trainings and concerts with illustrious musicians including Rodrigo Amado , Rodrigo Pinheiro , Miguel Mira , João Lucas , Paulo Curado , Ernesto Rodrigues , Guilherme Rodrigues , Ulrich Mitzlaff , Manuel Guimarães Cyril Bondi , " D' Incise ," Raphael Ortiz , Nicolaus Gerwinsky , Phill Niblock , Raymond McDonald , Victor Nubla , Nuno Rebelo , Marco Franco, Gabriel Ferrandini , Hernani Faustino , Luís Lopes , José Oliveira , Carlos Santos , Carlos " Zingaro " João Pedro Viegas , Victor Rua , Abdul " moimême " , Luís Vicente , João Lancaster , Luis Gil , Paulo Pimentel , Francisco Andrade , Albert Cicera and many others. Presently a part of groups : ARGUE, IKB , VGO , Miguel Mira Quartet , Open Mind and Puma. " ^ Hide Bio for Bruno Parrinha • Show Bio for Jose Oliveira "Polivalent artist with conections to the Fluxus movement, José Oliveira is well known, besides music by his "mail art" creations, performance and poetry. As an improvisor, his aproach to percussion is similar to Paul Lovens, Roger Turner, Lê Quan Ninh and Paul Lytton. He prefers a non conventional "set", where he uses instruments and objects as raw materials to create an improvised language rich in terms of timbre and textures. To this he adds sometimes inside piano manipulations and prepared guitar, in the same way as John Cage: the objects are placed on the strings or in between them in real-time performance, and not according to a previous plan. He belonged to Sei Miguel collective between 1989 and 1996, played with Carlos Bechegas and Pedro Roxo and has a regular activity with Ernesto Rodrigues." ^ Hide Bio for Jose Oliveira
12/11/2024
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12/11/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
12/11/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
12/11/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
Track Listing:
1. I 29:21
Creative Sources
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
lowercase, reductionist, micro-improv, sound improv, onkyo sound
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Quartet Recordings
New in Improvised Music
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