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Clusone 3 (Moore / Reijseger / Bennink): Rara Avis (Hatology)


 

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Personnel:



Michael Moore-alto saxophone, clarinet, melodica

Ernst Reijseger-cello

Han Bennink-drums


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UPC: 752156052326

Label: Hatology
Catalog ID: 523
Squidco Product Code: 8600

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 1999
Country: Switzerland
Packaging: Cardstock foldover
Recorded at Kulak, in Berikon, Switzerland, on December 13th, 1997, by Peter Pfister.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"We all know how 20th century composers from Messiaen to Ellington to Dolphy cribbed melodies" from birds, says Kevin Whitehead in the liner notes to this collection of fourteen bird songs by the celebrated Clusone 3: Michael Moore (alto sax, clarinet, melodica), Ernst Reijseger (cello), and Han Bennink (drums). None of those three are represented on this broadly-ranging program, but it does include tunes by Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Hoagy Carmichael alongside Peruvian folk music, Saint-Saens "Le Cygne," and duck calls by Steve Lacy and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Plus "When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along," "Tico-Tico No Fuba," and more.

As fascinating as the choice of melodies is the trio's approach to performing them. Every track, even the hoariest old chestnut, is given a fresh coat of paint, as all three musicians consciously incorporate birdlike melodies - and rhythms - into their interpretations. This is done conspicuously on tracks like Moore's original "Avocet," which is built upon twitters and flutters from both Moore and Reijseger. Lacy's "Duck" is also an exercise in melodic onomatopoeia. But it also crops up here and there on other tracks throughout the disc, as conventional swing rhythms rub elbows with rubato chirrups and peeps, breaking into, commenting upon, and augmenting the overall thrust of the tunes.

Bennink, who came up with the idea of this disc, shows his characteristic puckishness on tracks like "Tico Tico," "Yellow Bird," "El Condor Pasa," and "When the Red Red Robin." All of these and the rest of the numbers, however, are played with respect, albeit with an imaginativeness of interpretation that is continually attention-grabbing. Moore's condor passes with a wild flutter, and his Baltimore oriole is, if this is possible, even more anguished than the original. But he brings out the easy loveliness of "Nightingales Sang in Berkeley Square," "My Bird of Paradise" and "Le Cygne," and of the melodic statements of "The Buzzard Song." Bennink is, as always, a masterful colorist, and Reijseger has tremendous ingenuity (he even sounds like a guitar or banjo on the loose-limbed "Red Red Robin").

In lesser hands a selection of songs like this one might be merely gimmicky or sneeringly ironic. But these are three masterful musicians, and this is marvelously compelling music. Recommended."-Robert Spencer, All About Jazz


Get additional information at All About Jazz

Artist Biographies

"Michael Moore was born (1954) and raised in Arcata, California, USA. After absorbing music at home, playing locally and attending The College of the Redwoods and Humboldt State University, he moved to Boston to study with Jaki Byard, Gunther Schuller, Ran Blake, Joe Allard, George Russell and Joe Maneri at the New England Conservatory of Music, graduating in 1977. After a year in New York City he travelled to Europe for the first time in the summer of 1978 to play with Available Jelly, the musical accompaniment to the Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe. Since 1982 he has made his home in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The early '80's found him working in the theater (Baal, Dogtroep, De Voorziening, Teo Joling, Mug met de Gouden Tand) and dance (Pauline De Groot, Katie Duck, Allessandro Certini, Shusaku Takeuchi and Virgilio Sieni) as well as various musical contexts such as Gijs Hendricks' Octet, Franky Douglas' Sunchild, Guus Janssen's Septet and Maarten Altena's Quartet and Octet. Later he played and recorded with the groups of Mark Helias, Gerry Hemingway, Sean Bergin, Maurice Horsthuis, Georg Graewe, Klaus Konig, Burton Greene (Klezmokum), Simon Nabatov, Dave Douglas, Myra Melford, Mark Dresser, Ig Henneman and others.

In 1986 he received the Dutch jazz award, the Boy Edgar Prijs. In '97 Trio Clusone was voted #1 acoustic group (Talent Deserving Wider Recognition) in Down Beat's Critics Poll; in 2000 - 2002 Moore was voted #1 clarinetist in the same poll. He was also voted winner of the Bird Award from the Northsea Jazz Fest in 2000.

Since '91 his activities as composer and performer have been documented both on his own recording label, Ramboy, and others including hatART, Palmetto, Gramavision, Between the Lines and Red Toucan. His playing and writing are to be heard on more than 80 CDs.

His activities as a concert designer came to the fore in '93 with a commission for YoYo Ma's Carte Blanche at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; a three day festival (Moore & more) in Bremen, Germany; Clusone & friends concerts in Italy and Holland, and a three-day Available Jelly Festival at the Felix Meritus concert hall in Amsterdam. In '94 he organized three evenings at De Singel in Antwerpen with Lee Konitz, Misha Mengelberg, Joey Baron, Marilyn Crispell, Gerry Hemingway, Kenny Wheeler, Mark Feldman and others.

His more recent activities include performances with his 'Fragile' Quartet, Michael Moore Quintet, Jewels & Binoculars - play the music of Bob Dylan, Misha Mengelberg's Instant Composers Pool Orchestra, the Magpie dance and music performance group, the Achim Kaufmann Trio, Benoit Delbecq, Oskar Aichinger (music of Carla Bley and Annette Peacock) and the Paul Berner band.

Michael Moore has a deep understanding of both the American jazz and the Dutch improvised music traditions, but his writing and playing are also influenced by music from other cultures. He has played Turkish music with Ogüz Büyükberber and Hüsnü Senlendirici, Malinese with Toumani Diabate, Keletigui Diabate and Habib Koite, Portuguese with Fernando Lameirinhas and Cristina Branco, and Brazilian with Rogerio Bicudo, Banda Mantiqueira and Paulo Moura. The musics of Sicily, Madagascar, Istria and Indonesia have also been particularly influential. He has collaborated with and been influenced by poets and poetry, dancers and other visual artists. Michael continues to write, improvise, play and prepare new releases for Ramboy and other labels."

-Ramboy (http://www.ramboyrecordings.com/mm.htm)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Dutch Cellist & composer Ernst Reijseger (born 13 November 1954) is creative partner of poets, dancers, actors, painters, sculptors, photographers and film makers.

His live performances challenge expectations and are build on daring and essential communication.

Reijseger recently scored films for Werner Herzog, Alex and Andrew Smith.

Summer 2017 he scored and performed his music to Shakespeare's Hamlet (with a.o. Oscar Isaac, Keegan Michael Key and Gayle Rankin, directed by Sam Gold) at The Public Theatre in New York City.

Reijseger's musical collaborations included improvised and jazz music (Harmen Fraanje, Han Bennink, Misha Mengelberg, Steve Lacy, Uri Caine), classical and baroque music (Yo Yo Ma, Giovanni Sollima, Erik Bosgraaf, Dutch Wind Ensemble, Forma Antiqua), traditional music (Trilok Gurtu, Tenore e Concordu de Orosei, Groove Lélé, Nana Vasconcelos, A Filetta).

Reijseger's solo concerts consist of his personal compositions and improvisations.

For over ten years, Reijseger is dedicated to trio Reijseger Fraanje Sylla."

-Ernst Reijseger Website (http://ernstreijseger.com/is/)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Drummer and multi-instrumentalist Han Bennink was born in Zaandam near Amsterdam in 1942. His first percussion instrument was a kitchen chair. Later his father, an orchestra percussionist, supplied him with a more conventional outfit, but Han never lost his taste for coaxing sounds from unlikely objects he finds backstage at concerts. He is still very fond of playing chairs.

In Holland in the 1960s, Bennink was quickly recognized as an uncommonly versatile drummer. As a hard swinger in the tradition of his hero Kenny Clarke, he accompanied touring American jazz stars, including Sonny Rollins, Ben Webster, Wes Montgomery, Johnny Griffin, Eric Dolphy and Dexter Gordon. He is heard with Gordon on the 1969 album "Live at Amsterdam Paradiso" (on the Affinity label) and with Dolphy on 1964s "Last Date" (PolyGram). At the same time, Bennink participated in the creation of a European improvised music which began to evolve a new identity, apart from its jazz roots. With fellow Dutch pioneers, pianist Misha Mengelberg and saxophonist Willem Breuker, he founded the musicians collective Instant Composers Pool in 1967. Bennink anchored various bands led by Mengelberg or Breuker, and appeared in their comic music-theater productions.

Bennink attended art school in the 1960s, and is also a successful visual artist in several media, often constructing sculpture from found objects, which may include broken drum heads and sticks. He has designed the covers for many LPs and CDs on which he appears. Bennink is represented by Amsterdam's Galerie Espace, and has been the subject of several one-man shows, including one at the Gemeente Museum in the Hague in 1995.

In 1966, Bennink played the US's Newport Jazz Festival with the Mengelberg quartet. From the late 1960s through the '70s Bennink collaborated frequently with Danish, German, English and Belgian musicians, notably saxophonists John Tchicai and Peter Broetzmann, guitarist Derek Bailey and pianist Fred van Hove. Bennink, Broetzmann and van Hove had a longstanding trio well documented on FMP Records. There Bennink also showcased his talents on clarinet, trombone, soprano saxophone and many other instruments, also featured in a series of solo albums he began in 1971.

Bennink's many recordings from the 1980s include sessions with Mengelberg's ICP Orchestra (where he remains), South African bassist Harry Miller, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, trombonists Roswell Rudd and George Lewis, and big-bandleaders Sean Bergin and Andy Sheppard.

From 1988 to'98 Bennink's main vehicle was Clusone 3, with saxophonist and clarinetist Michael Moore and cellist Ernst Reijseger, a band noted for its free-wheeling mix of swinging jazz standards, wide-open improvising, and tender ballads. Clusone played Europe and North America, West Africa, China, Vietnam and Australia, and recorded five CDs for Gramavision, hat Art and Ramboy.

Nowadays he is frequently heard with tenor saxophonist Tobias Delius's quartet and in a trio with pianist/keyboardist Cor Fuhler and bassist Wilbert de Joode, and he still collaborates occasionally with jazz luminaries such as Johnny Griffin, Von Freeman and Ray Anderson.

A conspicuous feature of Bennink's musical life since the 1960s is the spontaneous duo concert with musicians of many nationalities and musical inclinations; in the '90s he recorded in duo with among others pianists Mengelberg, Irene Schweizer and Myra Melford, guitarist Eugene Chadbourne, trumpeter Dave Douglas and tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin.

Since 2008 Han Bennink has his own Han Bennink Trio consisting of Han Bennink, Joachim Badenhorst on clarinet and Simon Toldam on piano."

-Han Bennink Website, Kevin Whitehead (http://www.hanbennink.com/music/biography/biography.php)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. The Buzzard Song

2. Avocet

3. Yellow Bird

4. El Condor Pasa

5. Secretary Bird

6. When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin' Along

7. Nightingales Sang in Berkeley Square

8. Baltimore Oriole

9. Skylark

10. Duck

11. O Pato

12. Le Cygne

13. Tico-Tico No Fuba

14. My Bird of Paradise

Related Categories of Interest:

Hat Art
Improvised Music
Jazz
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
August 2007

Search for other titles on the label:
Hatology.


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