by S. Victor Aaron
As I write this, two very talented bands from Italy specializing in the jazz of the whack variety are traversing the fruited plains looking to collect fans from the USA. The trio Neo and the quartet Tribraco are criss-crossing the country from August 23 to October 6, covering 37 cities, including Chicago, Philly, New York, Houston, Phoenix and L.A. Both Neo and Tribraco are part of the avant garde scene but approach they music in different ways: Neo brings a primal punk attitude to its virtuosic jazz, while Tribraco is a self described “psycho-jazz-rock” outfit. Both are highly creative and play it in the studio much like you’d expect it to hear it live. That in itself is a good sign.
The “Music and Miles” Tour is being presented by Megasound, the Rome-based label that both acts are signed to. For more information on this tour and when these bands might be headed to your town, click here. But first, you might want to know if they are worth coming out to see. These two releases, each of them the latest by these groups, should give you a pretty good idea:
Neo
Water Resistance
There’s just three guys in Neo: drummer Antonio Zitarelli, tenor saxophonist Carlo Conti and guitarist Manilo Maresca, but they make a lot of joyful noise. Its start-stop-stumble speed jazz that calls to mind the vivid, condensed harmolodics of John Zorn’s Spy vs Spy and the raw, thrashing energy of the Scorch Trio. Atonal but highly structured, highly composed but highly improvisational, the music of Neo is a conundrum that invites listeners to solve. And I love puzzles like these. There’s no bassist, but there’s no need for one: rhythm and harmony are completed integrated, making the bass’s traditional role of bridging the two not needed in this case.
Water Resistance came out last year, distributed stateside by Cuneiform’s Wayside imprint. There’s fifteen tracks here, but nine of them run three and a half minutes or less and another four of them less than five minutes long. It’s like “ultra” laundry detergent: so intense, just a small dose handles the load. “Ooh No!” shows determined concentration for all three players to play such gnarly lines in perfect unison. Many whack jazz combos might get that hyper for a tune or two, but Neo rarely lets up on the gas pedal. “Canto Di Natale” is a twenty-six second screech fest, and “Medieval Tune” sounds much like a mutated Western swing tune. “Iperprofessional” is the closest the group come to an identifiable melody in the conventional sense, one that is constructed using Ornette’s principles.
The ballad of the bunch finally comes at track eight, “Come Trasformare Il Divertimento In Tragedia,” a song that’s played at a normal tempo, but by slowing it down, one gets to uncover the intricacies in their compositions that blow by the ears at their usual rapid pace. “Pensieri E Riflessiono Suli’Ottimismo” is a dyslectic mish mash of sounds, like a broken down hip-hop rhythm track and a sax blown as if it was from behind a fan. Occasionally, there are short individual solos like from Conti on “Silicon Valley,” but the structured or group improvisation parts are usually far more complex than the solos.
Their next album, which is being recorded at Steve Albini’s fabled Electrical Studio during their stop in Chicago, is slated to be out early next year. Check this space at that time, when we will hopefully be able to give you our rundown of it.
Tribraco Glue
Tribraco takes on the look of your standard rock band, with Lorenzo Tarducci and Dario Cesarini on guitars, loops and effects, Valerio Lucenti on electric bass and Tommaso Moretti on drums. However, they don’t play music like most rock bands; there’s a lot of jazz sensibilities in their sound and at times, they get as crazed as Neo. At the same time, the temperament changes along a wider range, and their brand of fusion crosses over into prog-rock side at times.
Glue is their second album that was made available right at the beginning of this US tour, and demonstrates a lot of what this band is capable of. As opposed to the bass-less Neo, Tribraco has put their bass player at the center of their sound; Lucenti is muscular player who defines the soul of every song. I can’t tell who out of Tadrucci and Cesarini is playing all the lead guitar parts, but one of them sounds a lot like early McLaughlin in both tone and attack. Indeed, there’s a clear Mahavishnu influence on the band, and the uncluttered way the album was recorded makes these songs road-ready.
They mix it up well with tempo and attitude, and like their tour mates, the compact running time of their songs keep their performances concise. The galloping “Fake!” and the kinetic “Blue Glue” both run only three minutes, but everyone manages to say a lot musically in both. “Samatzai” is built around a voodoo bass-drums groove, and as he does all over the record, Moretti adds nice touches to the basic rhythm but never overdoes it. “Burlesque” has the intricate group interplay that’s a hallmark of the best jam bands like Umphrey’s McGee. The “psycho” part of Tribraco’s jazz-rock comes out the most on the rolling thunder and creepy guitars of “Segente Di Ferro.”
Tribraco, like Neo, made a record that lives up to the team first principle. You can tell that the members have chops individually, but they put those chops together to mold a group sound that’s often far more interesting than listening to a parade of solos.Together, these two bands make a strong case for Yankee fans of the wilder side of jazz to come out and check out what the Italians are putting down.
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