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Insightful Review of SUMARI by Pachi Tapiz on Tomajazz

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Matt Lavelle / Jack DeSalvo / Tom Cabrera: Sumari (Unseen Rain. 2015. CD)

Matt Lavelle, Jack DeSalvo, Tom Cabrera_Sumari_Unseen Rain_2015

The trio formed by Matt Lavelle (trumpet, pocket trumpet, alto clarinet, cornet, flugelhorn), Jack DeSalvo (cello, guitar and mandola), and Tom Cabrera (various percussion), offers in Sumari a proposal of free improvisation that invites the listener to succumb to this music. When the label “free improvisation” appears in the description of an artistic proposal, in many cases we react with a litany of preconceptions (which I will not repeat here). This time the ensemble shows one of the multiple faces that are present in a genre so polyhedral.

On Sumari melodies dominate throughout the entire recording. This is coupled with the wide variety of timbres emanating from the vast number of  instruments employed by the three musicians; more than one dozen according to the list that is included in the folder of the CD. This include a wide variety of small ethnic percussion, both woodwind and brass instruments, in addition to the guitar, cello and the mandola. This different approach to presenting improvisation focuses on the interaction of the musicians forming an important essential element. “Reincarnational Civilizations” has an open, almost cinematic character. “Alternate Presents and Multiple Focus” has magnificent development; after a slow start in which trumpet established direction followed in his speech by his two companions, the piece increases tempo getting the twelve-minute elapsed in a jiffy.

The last two parts provide a new dimension to the music of the trio: “The Gates Of Horn” brings back to memory issues of traditional music, while the short “The Nature of Mass Events” refers to their roots,  African-American jazz, and is a great paradigm of how free improvisation can be just the opposite to what sometimes is it supposed to be. All this takes place after the magnificent beginning with “Seth Dance”, “Counterparts Are Comparetively Encountered” and “Scientific Cults and Private Paranoia” both allow the listener to focus on the ability of the trio to create instant melodies.

© Pachi Tapiz, 2015
Matt Lavelle / Jack DeSalvo / Tom Cabrera: Sumari Matt Lavelle (trumpet, Cornet, flugelhorn, Pocket trumpet, clarinet), Jack DeSalvo (cello, guitar, mandola), Tom Cabrera (percussion, dumbeq, rik, tambourine, bass drum) “Seth Dance”, “Counterparts Are Comparitively Encountered”, “Scientific Cults and Private paranoia”, “Reincarnation Civilizations”, “Alternate Presents and Multiple Focus”, “The Gates of Horn”, “The Nature of Mass Events” all music by Matt Lavelle , Jack DeSalvo, Tom Cabrera Recorded in Beanstudio, Wayne, New Jersey. Released in 2015 by Unseen Rain Records unseenrainrecords.com

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