Swans + Norman Westberg @ Conservatorio, Milano, 11/11/2023

It’s been a while since I limed the ground of Milano’s Conservatory. Ten years ago I was attending at some classical concert, and now it’s the time for Michael Gira’s legendary band Swans. On the strenght of a new album, The Beggar (Young God Records, 2023) that was acclaimed by the press as one of the most intriguing albums this year, the band is touring extensively through Europe.

In fact after the Covid pandemic and the erasing of a tour voices were circulating of a tired Michael Gira, and as it seemed to a lot of critics his last album is a reflection on the themes of becoming old and of being tired after a life spent always on the edge. Plus, I’ve read anticipations online talking about an acoustic concert, and I was very curious. But again: nothing more far from the truth. Gira and Co. played a huge electrified set yesterday night. But let’s start from the Beginning.

Norman Westberg appeared on every Swans’ album from their debut Filth until 1991’s White Light from the Mouth of Infinity. Tonight he opens with a set for electric guitars and various electronic devices. At the beginning you think this is blues for the new millennium, with Westberg as the Ry Cooder of No Wave, but after a while you find he’s unbearably near the New Age, with no attention to the dynamics of sound, a little bit flat – volume is at mid level for all of the performance – and with no will to scratch over the surface.

Things go differently, after a quick stage change, with Gira and his band. In fact I’ve been invested by one of the huge sounds I’ve ever met. Only Keiji Haino was so assertive as far as volume, many years ago in Reggio Emilia. After the concert my ears are ringing a little again this morning while writing, and this is the sign of a band who is giving itself completely: people, down from the steps of the theatre, enjoyed the night and the informality Gira invited everyone to reach.

In line with musicians / conductors such as Prince, Miles Davis or John Zorn, Gira was giving instructions to the band with his hands and his body, as to where to reach pitches and maintaining the volume high, as to intersperse the sound with meaningful silences, as to increase or decrease the sound volume. This theatrical aspect added drama to a music that is still theatrical in its being ritualistic.

If I have to move a criticism, the only thing I’d say is that, as it happened many years ago when I attended to a concert of Jarboe, Gira’s lost half of Swans, I felt that something was missing. I can’t tell exactly what, but something were lacking last night. Maybe the music was too perfect, with no other space but for a single Gira’s scream during the tour de force of an aptly stretched I’ll Forever Love You that pierced the band wall of sound.

I mourned myself so, for not having see previous live shows of the band, just to have a term of comparison. Obviously the amount of sound was a spiritual attempt to wake up people but also a protection from the outside world that incorporated its dangers in itself, but this ambiguity haven’t been managed properly, maybe. But don’t mind about me ruminating too much on what I’ve heard.

Swans are far from being historicized. They are one of the most important current bands you’ll ever come across during these years. Years in which we are standing for our necessary incomes and a little bit of love while the rest of the world is burning around us for the wars and the global warming. Music can be both a protection but, as every protection, also a container for our anguishes and fears. And this is the lesson we listeners took with us at the end of the night. 

 

Andrew Cyrille William Parker Enrico Rava @ Teatro Carcano, Milano, 11/04/2023

On a rainy night I finally encountered some of my heroes from my youth, drummer Andrew Cyrille and bassist William Parker, accompained by trumpet player Enrico Rava in an interesting concert in a full occupied theatre in my city of birth. Not their first effort together, since the three released a record in 2022 titled Too Blues for Cecil (Tum Records), an hommage to pianist Cecil Taylor with whom under different circumstances the three played together and played together in different occasions.

Andrew Cyrille, in effect, was one of the first drummers to appear near the NY born pianist in two beautiful records by Blue Note label who sanctioned the maturity for Taylor: Unit Structures and Conquistador (both released in 1966). William Parker was part of the Cecil Taylor Feel Trio along with drummer Tony Oxley – I had the opportunity to listen to that trio: everyone was playing his own thing almost separately from the other twos, but it all worked so fine together.

As far as Rava, finally, in 2022 was distributed through bandcamp a recording from 1984 originally recorded in Warsaw by an ensemble comprising the Italian trumpet player and Taylor – and William Parker – commanding one of his large ensembles he was famous for. But this is not the only occasion the two played together: it’s only a good advice for you in order to find out incredibly interesting music from the past.

A magnificent concert the one I attended yesterday night, with a couple of Monk themes – Round About Midnight and Straight No Chaser – put one in the middle, the other almost at the end of the exhibition, echoing not only the pianist from Rocky Mount but also the phantom of Miles Davis who recorded those themes, and the rest as pure improvisation. Rava in a Miles mode with short sentences to which drummer and bassist responded with their instrument.

Not a telepathic interplay as the one offered by Mingus – the only bassist I can compare Parker, not by the techniques they use but as far as feeling even if their personalities are far from each other – bands, particularly drummer Dannie Richmond, but an intriguing way to underline every phrase from one musician to another. At a certain point Rava made a gesture with his hand indicating a circle to Cyrille, if this recalls something in your mind.

Cyrille is able to create complex polyrhithms, but in this occasion he also gave a lession in swinging to younger drummers. Parker didn’t use that much his famous bow on his bass, only in few point to underline the music in some passages. One might wonder where the spiritual charisma from groups as In Order To Survive is finished – but the theme from Criminals at the White House was beckoned yesterday night at a certain point – but I believe it has been transformed into a new kindness.

Dense up to a certain point, but gentle as Cyrille’s brushes on the skin of the drums, varied as you can exspect from seasoned musicians, full of nuances and not only of thick textures, the music did not pay hommage to the letter to the music of Cecil Taylor but was nonetheless a sum of the experiences of the three musicians involved, and so an indirect hommage to the late great pianist.

If I have to find a defect to what I heard, this resides not in the music but in times. William Parker would subscribe the phrase by Coltrane “I want to be a force for the good”, but with wars all around the world these three musicians who were ‘only’ playing music were seeming to me so small in comparison to what they have around in terms of conflicts and climate change, as an example. But I believe if I had in mind more than the music itself, this has to be credited to them, since music yesterday night was still, as it has to be, more than just a sum of sounds.