"What is the form of coincidence? That is to say, that which provides an identity, a perceptible realization of meaning, to an experience which is neither planned nor an accident, but a co-incident, a correspondence of simultaneous events that may seem unrelated on the surface but result in substance and coherency. Do independent circumstances that inhabit a shared space and time naturally reveal an inherent systematic relationship, or do we impose our own desire for sense and significance on experiences beyond our control? (My dictionary submits the word "harmonious," but didn't John Cage assume that even an unexpected, disorienting construct can manifest harmony, like beauty, in the mind of the beholder?)

After concluding a solo recital in Lisbon in 2012, the inquisitive, risk-taking American cellist Daniel Levin was introduced to Sei Miguel. Miguel, though born in Paris, from the 1980s on became one of Portugal's most exploratory and unique instrumentalists, arrangers, and sound artists. Some ten years later, Levin was once again in Lisbon to perform, and having some free time, went to an art gallery with a friend, this time to hear Miguel perform. Miguel was surprised to recognize Levin, and following their subsequent discussion they decided to further investigate their idiosyncratic improvisational interests. An initial performance, without rehearsal or predetermined details, and recorded in the same venue at which they had first met, established their creative compatibility, and a few months later a second performance and a studio session were arranged, the latter including Miguel's long-time collaborator, trombonist Fala Mariam, who is also an established abstractionist visual artist with multiple exhibitions and awards over the past 40 years.

Given their distinct backgrounds and individualistic sense of creative process, it's not surprising to discover that in each other's company the sounds they generate do not fall into common improv tactics, stylistic clichés, or the isolation of chance. Despite the sense of commitment audible throughout, I hesitate to call their venture a trio, if only because they largely avoid an obvious display of recognizable structure - the responsive give-and-take and/or supportive maneuvers - that typically defines an ensemble. Rather, they exist as discrete agents in the moment of production, yet confirming what Daniel Levin described to me as acknowledging "the integrity of their contributions" in a context of "trust and intimacy" relative to the moment, absolving the consequences of control in favor of the immediacy of human variables, and, coincidently perhaps, emphasizing the physical and personal space in which their sounds resonate, overlap, alternate.

Such spatial considerations are a primary factor in identifying how the situational sounds energize and articulate each moment, in the manner in which Impressionist painter Henri Matisse was given to confess, "I don't paint things. I paint the relation between things." In much the same way - alluded to in Sei Miguel's dedication - the few surviving pieces by Chinese landscape artist Fan Kuan (c. 960 - c. 1030) reflect an awareness of space as the energizing principle in which objects and images (or in this case, sounds) discover their significance within an environment of possibilities - an implied relationship of details that coexist independently throughout the perspectives of foreground, background, and beyond. The next step is merely the abstraction of space and imagery (or the predetermination of song form) into its essential qualities, akin to Kandinsky's improvised "Compositions" or the "push/pull" reciprocity of Hans Hofmann's abstracts.

That said, there are individual characteristics that affect our perception of the flow, cessation, and singularity of events heard here, and serve to identify and intensify the moment - acute spontaneous gestures of tone, timing, phrasing, rhythmic placement, and silence. Sei Miguel's pocket trumpet conveys equal measures of narrative weight and cautious restraint, sharp accents and breath-contoured colors, melodic fragments and wistful, detached asides. Fala Mariam's trombone offers wry commentary, echoes clouds of opaque breath, grasps the shadows between the notes. Daniel Levin's cello slides in and out of areas of mysterious pitch, plucks subtle percussives, illuminates the contrast of brass and string textures, injects clues to a dramatic subtext.

Out of the ritualistic creative impulse that provokes such inspired activities, personal feeling generates form, just as form acknowledges the complexity of multiple viewpoints coexisting as an exacting fullness of their function. In this light, as Yogi Berra once reasoned, "That's too coincidental to be a coincidence." "-Art Lange, Chicago, December 2023

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The Squid's Ear!