East meets West again. The first
wailings of the encounter between jazz and Indian classical music
were in 1963, the year Impulse! issued “Impressions”, a record by
John Coltrane featuring Eric Dolphy with the beautiful piece “India”,
in which drums and bass were imitating tabla and tempoura while the
saxophonist was pushing at the boundaries his concept of modality.
Then, it was the time for Mr Anthony
Braxton and his 'pulse tracks' to realize a music that was compelled
in blurring the boundaries between African American music and Indian
music avoiding every possible 'fusion' as it happened in the 1970s,
giving life to a structure that remains between the most innovative
and aesthetically accomplished.
The reason why Indian music was so
interesting for innovative improvisers was well explained in a
chapter of Derek Bailey's “Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice
in Music” (Da Capo Press, 1993): in facts, Indian classical music
features a huge amount of improvisation. Ravi Shankar is an
improviser as much as a composer, and this is the same tradition of
people as Coltrane and Braxton.
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| Umberto Tricca |
Now, is the time for the young Italian
guitarist Umberto Tricca to provide the world of improvised music
with a new melting of jazz and Indian music. Tricca studied guitar at
CEMM in Milano, then at the Berklee School of Boston. Then, he
followed the lessons of arrangement with bassist Giovanni Tommaso and
other courses, such as modern harmony and jazz harmony.
Umberto Tricca collaborated with
musicians coming from Florence (Italy) such as Giancarlo Boselli and
Masabo Trio, deepening his own studies on harmony and rhythmic
conduction of musicians as Dave Holland and Steve Coleman. While
experimenting with italian music revised in jazz, bossa nova and
samba and contemporary jazz repertoire, he starts studying Indian
music with tabla player Francesco Gherardi.
The result of these different
experiences are available in his new record “Moksha Pulse”
(Working Label, 2016) featuring Achille Succi (alto sax, bass
clarinet), Giacomo Petrucci (baritone sax), Nazareno Caputo
(vibraphone), Gabriele Rampi Ungar (bass) and Bernardo Guerra
(drums). As happened with Braxton and Coltrane, you will not find any
ethnic inclination in this record.
The tracks of the album show the love
Umberto Tricca has for Indian music, the counterpoints of Afro Cuban
rhumbas, and contemporary music – you will hear in 'Prelude' an
influence by some Iannis Xenakis compositions. The name of the
project comes from the Sanskrit word 'Moksha', that means
'emancipation' underlying the choice of leaving every predetermined
structure, developing the possible interactions between those
traditions and musical languages.
