The Life of a Trio: Saturday and Sunday

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Life of a Trio: Saturday and Sunday
Studio album by Paul Bley , Jimmy Giuffre , Steve Swallow

Publication
(s)

1990

Label (s) Owl Records ; Sunnyside Records

Format (s)

2 CD

Genre (s)

jazz

running time

45:59 (CD1), 66:49 (CD2)

occupation

production

François Lemaire

Studio (s)

Sound On Sound Studios, New York City

chronology
Free Fall
(1963) 		The Life of a Trio: Saturday and Sunday Fly Away, Little Bird
(1992)

The Life of a Trio: Saturday and Sunday is a jazz album by the trio Paul Bley , Jimmy Giuffre and Steve Swallow , recorded on December 16-17, 1989 in New York City. The album was released in 1990 as two single CDs on the French label Owl under the titles The Life of a Trio: Saturday and The Life of a Trio: Sunday ; In 2001 the album was released on Sunnyside Records in the USA as a CD box.

The album

The Jimmy Giuffre Trio with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow was sporadically reunited around 1990 for appearances and recordings, alongside The Life of a Trio (1989) the albums Fly Away Little Bird (Owl, 1992) and Conversations with a Goose ( Soul Note , 1993).

When clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre went back to the studio with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow in December 1989, the first notes he improvised on were identical to a character who had played when they last met almost thirty years earlier. “Whether consciously or not, this gesture helped not only to emphasize the period in question, which (by Giuffre) was relatively neglected, but also to highlight the great mutual understanding that developed in the trio with the production of Free Fall , Fusion and Thesis , ”wrote Richard Cook and Brian Morton . The day after the last trio session, Bley recorded the duo album Partners with Gary Peacock in the same location for Owl .

List of titles

The Life of a Trio: Saturday

Paul Bley, Jimmy Giuffre, Steve Swallow: The Life of a Trio: Saturday (Owl OWL059CD; Universal France / OWL 014 731 2, Sunnyside)

  1. Clarinet Zone (Giuffre), clarinet: Jimmy Giuffre -1: 22
  2. Black Ivory (Bley / Giuffre), clarinet: Jimmy Giuffre, piano: Paul Bley -4: 27
  3. Owl Eyes (Bley), Piano: Paul Bley -5: 28
  4. Endless Melody (Swallow / Bley), E-Bass: Steve Swallow, Piano: Paul Bley -3: 05
  5. Turns (Giuffre), electric bass: Steve Swallow, piano: Paul Bley, soprano saxophone, clarinet: Jimmy Giuffre -5: 22
  6. Foreplay (Bley), Piano: Paul Bley -3: 05
  7. We Agree (Swallow / Giuffre), electric bass: Steve Swallow, soprano saxophone: Jimmy Giuffre -2: 04
  8. Clusters (Giuffre), electric bass: Steve Swallow, piano: Paul Bley, soprano saxophone, clarinet: Jimmy Giuffre - 7:02
  9. December (Swallow), electric bass: Steve Swallow -1: 25
  10. Someone (Giuffre), soprano saxophone: Jimmy Giuffre -2: 13
  11. Even Steven (Bley), piano: Paul Bley -3: 51
  12. By the Way (Swallow), electric bass: Steve Swallow, piano: Paul Bley, soprano saxophone, clarinet: Jimmy Giuffre -6: 13

The Life of a Trio: Sunday

Paul Bley, Jimmy Giuffre, Steve Swallow: The Life of a Trio: Sunday (Owl OWL060CD, Owl 014 735-2, Universal Music Jazz France 014 735-2)

  1. Sensing (Guiffre) Trio -4: 11
  2. Monique (Bley), piano: Paul Bley 3:12
  3. The Giant Guitar and the Black Stick (Giuffre / Swallow), Steve Swallow: E-Bass, Jimmy Giuffre: Clarinet -5: 56
  4. Industrial Suite (Bley, Giuffre, Swallow), Trio -3: 11
  5. Sanctuary Much (Bley, Swallow), piano: Paul Bley, electric bass: Steve Swallow -3: 46
  6. Tango Del Mar (Bley, Giuffre, Swallow), Trio -5: 32
  7. The Hidden Voice (Giuffre), clarinet: Jimmy Giuffre -3: 05
  8. Mephisto (Bley), piano: Paul Bley -4:04
  9. Where Were We? ( Carla Bley ), Trio -4: 49
  10. Sweet Song (Paul Bley, Jimmy Giuffre), piano: Paul Bley, soprano saxophone: Jimmy Giuffre -3: 23
  11. Scrambled Legs (Bley, Swallow), Piano: Paul Bley, E-Bass: Steve Swallow -2:01
  12. Play Ball (Swallow), Trio -7: 43
  13. Fallen statue (Paul Bley, Jimmy Giuffre), piano: Paul Bley, soprano saxophone: Jimmy Giuffre -1: 25
  14. Things (Bley, Swallow), piano: Paul Bley, electric bass: Steve Swallow -3: 33
  15. Two Singers (Giuffre / Swallow), Steve Swallow: electric bass, Jimmy Giuffre: clarinet -3: 50
  16. The Life of a Trio (Bley, Giuffre, Swallow), Trio -6: 25

The recordings were also released as a 2-CD set as Owl (F) 059 [CD], also by Owl (France) under R2-79230 [CD], (Japan) NACJ-3014 [CD].

Reception of the album

Thom Jurek rated the two albums in Allmusic each with four stars and wrote:

"The way the trio plays together here - with Swallow on his electric bass in turns - the time is gone and the microtonal and pointillist explorations in collective improvisation made almost thirty years ago are as present as the next breath." Sound research from within, in terms of content, tonal , spatial . Out of the ordinary."

Jurek wrote the second album Sunday , the second night of the reunited Jimmy Giuffre Trios (from 1961/62)

“In some ways surpasses the first. In fact, there is overall more interdependence among the trio members than on the first evening, which was certainly the starting point. The sensing at the beginning - with Giuffre on soprano [saxophone] and Bley playing bass notes in the lowest registers until Swallow enters and takes over this role and Bley moves into the middle register - is a stunner, even if only 4: 13 long. The range of players seems to have come back as one unit with these lively performances without second takes. "

Of the six long performances, Jurek ("strangely enough," as he himself emphasizes) considers the only piece with a fully composed structure to be the most satisfactory, Carla Bleys Where Were We? . Giuffre feels really comfortable here on the soprano saxophone. In the other duos and solos, the joy of making music and the lyricism inherent in these pieces not only reflect the feeling of familiarity with the dialogues and the improvisational feeling of each player, but also the real desire to communicate from within the sound [...].

"There may have been some equally intuitively exciting performances by avant-garde jazz trios in 1989, but only a few showed - through this art of restraint - what tonality, dissonance and harmony can achieve when the music is explored for its own sake."

Richard Cook and Brian Morton award the album in The Penguin Guide to Jazz with the highest rating of four stars (" most hightly recommended ") and mainly address the differences to the previous sessions of Jimmy Giuffre 3 1961/62. The two albums are "an amazing achievement, whatever the chronological order." The series of solos, duoas and trios have "considerable spontaneity and freedom." While double bassist Swallow has switched to electric bass and is now a leading improvisation musician This instrument applies, Bley left his electronics phase behind and concentrated on playing the acoustic piano. Jimmy Giuffre, on the other hand, has expanded his repertoire with the soprano saxophone, "enjoying his directness and indomitable ferocity". Last but not least, the new recordings differ in their willingness to play standards, which they do with the characteristic weird touch.

Matthew Miller wrote in All About Jazz , in The Life of a Trio: Saturday & Sunday the trio is “older, wiser and simply breathtakingly in harmony with one another.” Giuffre is playful in Black Ivory , but also contemplative, the tones of his clarinet give it Resonance space over Bey's sweeping chords and rattled strings. Both Bley and Swallow would make notable contributions to the two sessions, pushing Giuffre into exciting new territory before embarking on unaccompanied solos. So be December a sad vehicle for Swallows electric bass and contemplative mood with which he penetrates the following solo improvisations by Giuffre and Bley. Because his instrument sometimes sounds like a guitar, Swallow's playing is flawlessly virtuoso, but mastered. But the trio pieces stand out among all the performances. In Sensing, Giuffres soprano saxophone cuts through the dissonant cloud created by Bley and Swallow by improvising over a melodic fragment and first ascending to the upper registers before falling into step with the piano and bass. "The three make it clear that the life of a trio goes on after the initial loss of its components and that something great can arise when like-minded people come together".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ben Ratliff : Obituary for Jimmy Giuffre. In: The New York Times
  2. ^ A b Richard Cook, Brian Morton: The Penguin Guide to Jazz. 2nd Edition. London 1994, p. 502.
  3. ↑ Thom Jurek: Review of the album The Life of a Trio: Saturday at Allmusic (English). Retrieved August 31, 2013.
  4. ↑ a b Thom Jurek: Review of the album The Life of a Trio: Sunday at Allmusic (English). Retrieved September 7, 2013.
  5. ↑ In the original: “'Diary [sic] of a Trio' is an astonishing achievement, whatever the chronology. A series of solos, duos and trio pieces, it has considerable spontaneity and freedom. There are, of course, significant changes from the early records. Swallow is now wholly converted to electric bass, and is perhaps the leading bass guitarist in improvised music. Bley, though, has passed through his romance with electronics, and now concentrates almost exclusively on acoustic piano. Guiffre, who has alway a formidable tenor player as well as a clarinetist, has added soprano saxophone, relishing both its directness and its untamable 'wildness' of pitch. Not least of the differences is a willingness to play standards, which they do with a characteristically oblique touch. Most hightly recommended. "
  6. ↑ Matthew Miller: Review of the album. In: All About Jazz , 2007