Dino Saluzzi

Two guitars gently envelop the uniquely evocative bandoneon of Dino Saluzzi on El Viejo Caminante, (‘The Old Wanderer’). Here, the Argentinean father and son team of Dino and José María Saluzzi are joined by Norway’s Jacob Young, in an album of musical depth and great charm. “It fills me with joy”, says Dino Saluzzi, delighting in this recording’s sonic blend, with José on classical guitar and Jacob on Telecaster and acoustic steel-string guitar. “Jacob and José are very good together. They have different sounds, different visions, but when it comes to the artistic output there is something beautiful happening.”

Dino Saluzzi’s new music for orchestra and soloists characteristically glides through the borders between the idioms. A Saluzzi composition can, from one minute to the next, be “serious”, “popular”, “traditional”, “experimental -, even if these style divisions barely exist for a bandoneonist who prefers to see his work as “simply an expression of innocence”. “El Encuentro” was recorded live in Amsterdam with the Metropole Orchestra in February 2009 and is issued in time for Dino’s 75th birthday in May. (Source: ecmrecords.com)

Argentinean bandoneonist-composer-improviser Dino Saluzzi returns to his roots with El Valle de la Infancia. Recorded at Saluzzi Music Studios in Buenos Aires, it’s the first of his discs to feature his “family band” since 2005’s Juan Condori. Here Dino is heard with his brother Felix on tenor sax and clarinet, his son José María on guitars, and nephew Matías on basses.

Dino Saluzzi & Anja Lechner - El Encuentro (2012) [DVD] {ECM Records}
DVD5 -> 2.63 Gb | All Regions | PAL 16:9 | ~ 52 m | Audio: Dolby AC3, 2 ch | ISO Image
Subs: Espanol, English, Deutsch | Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 21 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2012 ECM Records | ECM 5051
Jazz / World Music / Modern Jazz

“El Encuentro” follows bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi and cellist Anja Lechner to locations in Argentina, Germany, Armenia, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. “Your perception of music and your way of playing music change when you travel,” says Anja Lechner. The camera joins the journey and underlines the point, illuminating the processes of music making in very different contexts.

Argentinean composer and bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi's group includes many family members including Josй Maria Saluzzi on guitars, Felix "Cuchara" Saluzzi playing saxophones and clarinet, and Matias Saluzzi is featured on acoustic and electric bass, with the great Italian drummer U.T. Ghandi on hand for this session recorded at home in Buenos Aires. Juan Condori is Saluzzi at his most relaxed and instinctive. This music is deeply embedded in the folk traditions of the region, as well as the tango and the ballroom music of the country, both rural and urban in an era long gone. The title of the set refers to an old childhood friend from an indigenous family who Saluzzi refers to as "an almost magical figure."

This was originally planned as a solo session, but ECM head honcho Manfred Eicher made a call to drummer Jon Christensen, inviting him to sit in on a few tracks, & in the end the musicians & producer liked the results so much that most of the album is duets. Bandoneon/drums duets are unusual to say the least, & the resutls are fascinating, not least because you can hear the musicians thinking about how to respond to the situation. Saluzzi mostly favours dark, brooding, quiet textures, sometimes like a nostalgic memories of tangos & folksongs, sometimes quite dissonant, like some atonal church organ piece.