Dino Saluzzi

Argentinean Dino Saluzzi manages to be a great bandeonist and sound different from great Astor Piazzolla. His music is much closer to new age than to "nuevo tango" invented by Piazzolla and Co, his approach is more "down-to-earth" and "minimalistic" yet still bears an influence on Argentinean music . That's what makes him interesting for me and I love this album in particular because of "chamber sound" if you know what I mean. Like you seat in a big dark room next to a fireplace and the guys are playing for you.

Dino Saluzzi as a solo performer is one of the more remarkable musicians in contemporary music, in that he plays several instruments, including his beloved bandoneon with such precision, balance and subtle power. Kultrum is indeed a multi-cultural project that taps into the folkloric, ancestral, and traditional sounds of Native American Indians and his South American roots, enhanced by producer Manfred Eicher's Eurocentric notions. The blending of deep drums, rattling percussion, and chanted vocals with the bandoneon or wood flutes creates a vista of deeply spiritual and ancient ritualistic music.

This recording, from 1985, presents bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi in a small-group setting, accompanied by some of the finest musicians in the ECM roster: Palle Mikkelborg (trumpet and flugelhorn), Charlie Haden (bass) and Pierre Favre (percussion). As usual with ECM releases, the recording is crystalline - their audio standards have always set the highest standards for sound reproduction, clear and pristine. It puts the listener right into the room with the players.

There's something very special about this world-jazz album. For one thing, it displays unique sonorities--acoustic bass, marimba, and bandoneon. For another, it's both exotic and friendly at the same time. The Argentinian Dino Saluzzi, certainly the reigning bandoneon player (also called a sanfona and in the accordian family), makes perhaps the most distinct contribution.

On Rios, Saluzzi plays with American bassist Anthony Cox and American vibist and arranger David Friedman, a musician who's run the gamut from Yoko Ono to Disney soundtracks. Together they play an assortment of tunes by members of the group, about half of them Saluzzi's, plus the one cover "My One and Only Love." The numbers are thoughtful but not flashy. Friedman's "Penta y Uno" is largely a deconstruction of bossa nova and tango, featuring percussion as well as vibes. Cox's "Jad" uses weird effects from the instruments and the occasional Arabic motif to build up to a subdued bop frenzy. Other tracks are more straight-ahead combinations of the primary instruments.

Dino Saluzzi can still surprise us. Who knew that the master of the bandoneon had, for decades, been stockpiling compositions for other instruments? This album of pieces for piano features music written between 1960 and 2002, variously conceived in Salta, Buenos Aires, Stuttgart and on the road. It is music of great diversity, both distinct from and connected to Dino’s work as storytelling, improvising bandoneonist.

Dino Saluzzi Group - Mojotoro (1992)
MP3 320 kbps | 107 MB | 43:27 | Covers
Jazz,World

With Astor Piazzolla's recent death, Dino Saluzzi inherits the mantle of tango supremacy. This '91 release has him playing with his brothers Celso (who also plays the bandoneon), Jose (a drummer and percussionist), and Felix (a saxophonist), plus vocalists, guitarists, and another percussionist. The music mixes tango with elements of Bolivian and Uruguayan music.

Jean-Luc Godard - Nouvelle Vague
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 321 MB | Full Artwork: 284 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: ECM New Series # ECM 1600/01 | Country/Year: Germany 1997
Genre: Jazz, Non-Music, Soundtrack | Style: Dialogue, Spoken Word, Contemporary

Even more extreme is the notion that an entire soundtrack ­ dialogue, music, sound effects ­ might be considered a musical event apart from the film and the venturesome German ECM label has just made this experiment with Jean Luc Godard's 1990 Film Nouvelle Vague. The French art film uses a wide variety of classical and pop music, from Hindemith to Patti Smith and the effect is that of brilliant collage. On the soundtrack disc, sound-effects intrude and modulate into music and voices, like electronic music. Music becomes part of real life, and the music invades the dialogue…