icdisc.nl 0401
Fellini
I Compani
 €12.50 (incl. shipping + tax)
 
Bo van de Graaf - soprano, alto, and tenor-saxophone
Frank Nielander - altosax & tenorsax
Tessa Zoutendijk - violin
Simin Tander - voice
Hans Hasebos - keyboards & samples
Jeroen van Vliet - piano and Wurlitzer
Jeroen Doomernik - trumpet
Carel van Rijn - bass
Fred van Duynhoven - drums
Martin van Duynhoven - electronic drumset
Pieter Douma - bassguitar

Track Listing:
  1. Tiramisu (5:06)
  2. Dolce Vita suite (11:23)
  3. Saraghina (3:32)
  4. in A mitrailleur no. 1 (1:28)
  5. XXXXXX (5:03)
  6. Pin Penin (3:04)
  7. Fellini (1:42)
  8. Dolce Vita slow (2:07)
  9. Amore per tutti - Walzer (2:14)
  10. Il teatrino delle suore (2:24)
  11. Mia malinconia (5:15)
  12. Adioos (3:19)
  13. La Strada (6:18)
  14. Milano e Nadia (7:43)
  15. La Dolce Vita - latin party (4:00)
  16. La passarella di addio (4:30)

Recorded by Chris Weeda at the BIMhuis, Amsterdam, January 10 2004, and by Mark Peters at LUX Nijmegen, January 25 2004.

Bonustrack (16) recorded by Frank van der Weij at BIMhuis, Amsterdam, June 1993.

For more information: www.icompani.nl

 With less of an agenda than Breuker’s CD, Fellini’s sole aim is to honor van de Graaf’s influence one more time. The band has been performing a Fellini/Rota program since 1985, along with other projects that included a stint, from 1989 until 1997, accompanying the Theatre of Utrecht’s celebrated International Christmas Circus, and a 1997 multi-media production called Gluteus Maximus, whose central theme was buttocks.

Van de Graaf has also played in trombonist Chris Abelen’s 6-tet, the Bik Bent Braam big band, and in a trio with pianist Michiel Braam and i compani’s drummer Fred van Duynhoven. Van Duynhoven was part of violinist Ig Hanneman’s Tentet. Martin Van Duynhoven—relationship with Fred unknown—who plays electric drum set here, has worked with everyone from pianist Misha Mengelberg to reedist Ab Baars. Pianist and Wurlitzer organist Jeroen van Vliet plays in bassist Eric van der Westen’s band. Other band members are trumpeter Jeroen Doomernik, Frank Nielander on alto and tenor saxophones, Tessa Zoutendijk on violin, Hans Hasebos on keyboards and samples, Carel van Rijn on bass, Pieter Douma on bass guitar, and vocalist Simin Tander.

Dispensing with the latter first, boasting a delivery that moves from little girl-like warbling to lyric soprano, Tander is rather underutilized, unless you understand Italian. Mostly she functions the way Laura Biscotto did on John Zorn’s The Big Gundown, which reinterpreted Enrico Morricone movie scores incidentally. She provides breathy, kitschy “sexy Italian vocals” and recitations. Other places, the exaggerated focus of the entire group is weakened with faux swing violin parts, curt rhythms, and a Latinesque dance routine that collectively ends up sounding more like dramatic cues than composition.

To be honest, the band sounds best when it strays farthest away from Rota’s somewhat baroque and overwrought themes with its original arrangements. Case in point is the more than eleven-minute, five-part “Dolce Vita Suite”, and van der Graaf’s reworking of the main themes from “La Strada” and “Milano e Nadia”.  Drawing as much on the (Dutch) fanfare as the (Italian) banda tradition, for the first, the band blends walking bass and comping piano with long, clean staccato lines from altoist Bo vande Graaf. Along the way it moves from Rome to a “Parisian Thoroughfare” via suggestions of Charles Mingus and Max Roach, and ends with some fruity tenor sax lines, plunger brass, and rippling piano arpeggios that wouldn’t be out of place in a pre-war Berlin cabaret.

The cabaret influence is also felt on “La Strada”, as a speedy tarantella-like tune built on high-pitched clarinet and wah-wah trumpet features the rhythm section aiming for a rock’n’roll beat. Fellini’s most instrumentally impressive track, it showcases van Vliet applying darker, low frequencies with heavy pressure to the piano keys and both [?] drummers showering hard and heavy rebounds and clattering ratamacues before ending with press rolls.

Another 1960-composed artifact, “Milano e Nadia” features mocking riffs from the horns, a bluesy piano section and abstract counterlines from the trumpet that lob bent notes into the stratosphere. When the double-timed, strummed chords from the piano pair up with shimmering electric keyboard waves, the variations nearly push the theme into indolent near stasis. It’s then up to a smeared soprano saxophone to loosen up the sounds. Changing character completely, “Milano...” is taken out with some forced Bubber Miley-like bluesiness from Doomernik. Other pieces depend more on skittering piano chords, sampled accordion and electronics, brassy trumpet pops, dance rhythms, and either galloping or rubato reed vibrations.

Overall, if the vocals and some of the more frantic output are put to one side, Fellini’s almost 69 minutes provide the more consistent vista. Still, the beyond 76-minute panorama that is With Strings Attached shows that after more than 30 years on the road, Breuker and the Kollektief are still after new challenges.

Tom Sekowski