The Field by Rodrigo Amado Motion Trio & Alexander von Schlippenbach

The Field - Liner Notes by Stuart Broomer

A mundane question, a philosophical question: what field are we in? Force field, farmer’s field, magnetic field, field of endeavour, field of dreams? The field here is all those fields, field coming into being, field in motion, field at once of reflection and activity, turbulent field, field gone to (the most positive kind of) seed. It’s a field with not just history but histories, some still unknown.

When Rodrigo Amado formed Motion Trio in 2009, it was an important moment in both his own creative development and the burgeoning world of Lisbon free jazz, a time to develop a long-term form as well as long-term associations. In the decade between its founding and this recording, the trio has recorded both independently and with guests, horn players Jeb Bishop and Peter Evans. There have been recordings with first-rank pianists along the way, but events intervened to prevent their release. That history conspires to emphasize the singularity of this hour-long piece with Alexander von Schlippenbach, a founder of European free jazz.

Amado recalls, “We were finding ourselves collaborating with one of our all-time idols. We had been, for years, regularly listening to Alex's trios and quartets and felt he had this rare quality of transducing elements of the tradition, of roots music, into a new language, simultaneously organic and extremely modern. This was exactly what we were looking for, for our own music. On the other hand, this meeting, in October 2019, also represented a strong celebration of Motion Trio's music. We weren't as active, by then, as we had been in previous years. Gabriel was going strong with his own solo projects and I had started to collaborate intensely with other musicians. So, when we found ourselves in Vilnius, getting ready to share the stage with Alex, we were ecstatic. There was this amazing, intense energy in the air.”

The value of this work is at once general and highly specific; its significance as musical expression cannot be exaggerated. It may be that the greatest achievement of European classical music is the continuous formal development of a piece of music, just as the achievement of jazz is the intimacy of spontaneous creation. Each moves the attendant social collective, a body greater than mere audience, to another plane.

Alex von Schlippenbach was among the first musicians to create this musical fission, integrating these hierarchies, creating Globe Unity, an improvising orchestra in the late ’60s, exploring extended small-group free improvisation in Schlippenbach Trio and emphasizing the canonical character of Thelonious Monk, a master of formal architecture, by recording his complete works (Monk’s Casino), as if he were, well, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven or Liszt, or some other giant from the Central European tradition of improvising piano player/composers.

Amado recalls, “Playing with a pianist is, for me, an added challenge, mostly because of the harmony. I need to play with pianists that are bold, open minded, and don't get distracted, surprised or scared by my note choices. I'm always moving in and out of the perceived harmony and many of my ‘movements’ are led by ‘alien’ notes. Sometimes, as it happens with Alex in the Vilnius concert, we're moving in ‘parallel’ harmonies, creating tension without slowing the pace. These have more power than consonant ones and help me shape the real time structure of the music. It worked really well with Alex.”

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A sense of different worlds engaging is evident in the opening moments, the stark precision and insistence of the piano’s chords, the meandering of the tenor, engaging the vibratory roots of pitch and time, no easy relationship or synchrony. These musicians enact curves in the space/time continuum, always alert to the irresolvable dreams of the fractal, the pull of time on the imagination of space, a bending of pitch towards a liberating chaos and a warm entropy, where sounds at rest are first implied then pulled into the world in an act of liberation. What is most striking about this first encounter is the extent to which the musicians find a common ground, like the early piano trio formation with the apt punctuation of Ferrandini’s drums and the parallel line of Mira’s cello, a continuous source of distinct light.

A long free ballad that ensues suggests a fresh encounter with some of the fundamental materials of modern jazz—pitch, line, harmony, time—the almost ancient construct of Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins, the fully absorbed starting points for Schlippenbach and Amado. It’s rooted in a distinguishing quality of all concerned—an almost ceremonial precision applied to an act without a script, ritual reconstituted as a necessary series of gestures that are somehow variable. There’s a sense of almost perfect invention, fresh form pouring into the developing dialogue of tenor and piano. The crabbed time and specific clashes of intervals later light up in a piano interlude in which free time is so tight that Ferrandini’s light percussion sounds like reactive materials on the strings of the piano.

True to the scale of the work, this field, there is something of everything here that might be engaged, cries worthy of Ayler or fado, snatches of lieder, chromatics and quarter tones, patterns formed and disintegrated.
The hour-long work accomplished here ‒ that continuous unfolding, at once unified, coherent and spontaneous, a wonder of passions, instants, exchanges and uncanny convergences, force field, field of dreams, magnetic field ‒ is a special achievement of our time and a message to it, a music fully alive in all its contours, a gift and a wonder made all the more remarkable as an account of a first encounter of Amado, Mira, Ferrandini and Schlippenbach, to be savoured and celebrated.

Stuart Broomer
April 2021

Recently voted as #1 Tenor Saxophonist on El Intruso International Critics Poll, as stated by a poll of 50 critics and writers from 18 countries, Rodrigo Amado frequently tours Europe and North America with his own groups. Stuart Broomer wrote: "Amado is an emerging master of a great tradition, more apparent with each new recording or performance."

rodrigoamado.com