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for T 02
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| Augusto Forti - clarinet,
ukulele (2) Felicity Provan - cornet, tenor ukulele (2) Paul Pallesen - banjo, el. guitar (3) Gregg Moore - banjo, tuba (3), mandolin (4) Joost Buis - lapsteel guitar, trombone (3) Mary Oliver - violin Tristan Honsinger - cello (1,3,5) Alex Waterman - cello (2,4) Meinrad Kneer - double bass (1,3,5) Wilbert de Joode - double bass (2,4) Han Bennink - drums & percussions (1,3,5) Michael Vatcher - drums & percussions(2) Track Listing: 1. gasaku
(9:04) Total
time: 43:50 Special thanks
to: Personal
thanks to: |
Reviews ++ Equally unique yet sharing a similar mix of profundity and absurdity is Italian clarinetist Augusto Forti, a musician with close ties to the New Dutch Swing scene. He’s been based in Amsterdam for the last decade or so and his band the Gravitones is made up of Holland’s best (Han Bennink, de Joode, Buis) and other expatriates who have adopted the city as their home (cornetist Felicity Provan, tubist and trombonist Gregg Moore, [and Michael] Vatcher). Live at
the Bimhuis is
this band’s second album and
it finds the group emphasizing
strings and textures over their
prime instruments. For instance
tubist Moore plays mostly banjo
and mandolin and trombonist
Joost Buis plays his secondary
instrument, lap steel guitar.
One might think the music is
leaning toward an Americana
sound but this is about as far
from that as one could get. Many
of the themes have a pentatonic
modality of an Asian dimension
but it’s not very Asian
either. It’s as if all of
these elements have been put
through a blender and it comes
out sounding very ‘Dutch’
(all the more strange since it
is filtered through an Italian).
Of course the jazz element is
always somewhere underneath in
this music, coming to the fore
on the longest track,
“Gasiform”, with the
leader’s clarinet solo
swinging lithely over Han
Bennink’s loping gait. Special
mention too must be made of the
fantastic cornet work of
Australian expatriate Provan.
Buis shows lap steel mettle (or
is it metal) with an apocalyptic
solo on “Twice Across The
Table”. As with the Corkestra
album, it’s a unique
vision and there’s little
around that sounds quite like
it. Both of these discs are well
worth hearing and show Dutch
improvising musicians still
searching for new ways to make
unique music and coming up aces.
WNUR Chicago March 2006
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