MJ Magazine – Martux_m

MILES DAVIS, TODAY … IN AN ITALIAN WAY

Let’s start from the outside, from that ebony-black face that pierces and illuminates the darkness on the cover of “In A Silent Way.” In what direction would Miles’ fiery eyes look today? The magnificent shot by Lee Freedlander immortalizes Miles’ gaze in an almost transcendental fixity, but the object of his contemplation is off-camera, invisible, and therefore unintelligible. Another relevant and symptomatic detail of the image is the outline of the ear, which stands out in contrast to the dense volume of the surrounding darkness. So, let’s engage in an intriguing and tantalizing little game. If Miles were still among us, in these ambiguous, fertile, and exciting musical times, what sounds would catch his ear, and especially towards which artists and musicians would he direct his attention the most? What personalities and musical expressions could constitute the subject off-camera contemplated by those eyes, so hungry and mental? Before attempting to answer and make hypotheses, let’s move inside now.

In addition to the electric palingenesis of Davisian sound, “In A Silent Way” triggered and introduced a much more important and heretical revolution into the world of jazz: the post-production process, namely, the massive use of studio editing, remixing, and editing. Miles had an electric style in mind when he entered the studio for the sessions of “In A Silent Way,” but beyond Zawinul’s key melodic motif and some fragmentary ideas developed and improvised with the band, the psychedelic-ambient mood and the electro-funk signature of the work became essentially a matter to be dealt with in a subsequent phase, with the help of Teo Macero and his mixing desk. As Macero reported in several interviews, the realization of that album coincided with one of the very rare times when Miles showed up in his studio actively participating in the editing of the numerous parts derived from the two recording sessions. After the initial editing phase, carried out on just two tracks, Macero found himself with about forty mixed tapes. In a provocative manner, Miles had them cut, assembled, and poured onto two reels, an extreme synthesis from which emerged two tracks each lasting about nine minutes. Just as he always knew how to extract the maximum and the best from his musicians, often leading them down difficult and unusual paths, Davis stimulated and pushed Teo Macero’s technical competence and creativity to the maximum, leaving him at that moment astonished and stupefied, with less than twenty minutes of music in his hands and the even more astounded and perplexed faces of Columbia executives in mind. As Teo Macero ingeniously stretched things out a couple of days later, getting himself and Miles out of trouble, is a well-known story (recapitulated with a wealth of details by the excellent Comandini in the previous pages). What matters to emphasize instead is the role of the producer and sound engineer, who, thanks to Miles and the experience of “In A Silent Way,” from that moment on, was invested with a central and determining manipulative role, a role that, as had previously happened in the field of avant-garde, rock, and pop, also assumed in the context of jazz a creative and compositional aspect equal to that of the musician. Hence the plausible thesis that the pioneering productive and technological dynamics – as well as the fusion, crossover, and tribal-techno instances – of Davis’s electric records were seen as seminal and germinal influences of acid jazz, drum’n’bass, house, and techno currents between the late eighties and the early nineties, scenes in which the contribution of the manipulator-sampler of musical bases and rhythms, and therefore of the DJ and sound producer technician, is fundamental, roles that then as now are often performed by the same person, often also skilled in playing one or more musical instruments.

So, attempting finally to provide answers to the questions posed at the beginning, we could well associate the hypothesis of a Miles Davis still alive and kicking, already satisfied and satiated after dozens of imaginative and controversial records, for having prolifically delved into the realms of dub, rap, and hip-hop or for having finally realized the dream of an album with Prince, to now turn his attention to the black-Hispanic revolution of techno and house music expressed along the Detroit-Chicago-New York axis by its most important representatives of the first and second generation (Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills, Robert Hood, Carl Craig, Tod Terry, Masters At Work, David Morales, Roy Davis, Felix da Housecat, etc.), as well as to the digital culture of DJ Spooky, the house-dancefloor electronics of Coldcut and Daft Punk, and, why not, even to the most innovative and/or minimal-radical digital aesthetics developed by names like Matmos, Carsten Nicolai, Ryoji Ikeda, and Stephan Mathieu. Hence, today’s Miles Davis could be more crudely electronic than electric, involved in a highly technological philosophy and practice of sound rhythm, psychologically accommodating to a large global youth audience that now finds in the internet, blogs, discos, raves, and major DJ set gatherings virtual and real places to share sounds, trends, and information, to shape and be shaped, to refute ethics or innovate social arts and customs. In short, if before it was Jimi Hendrix’s electric guitar causing creative epiphanies in Miles’ mind, today the spark could come from the sounds of a laptop or a turntable equipped with a mixer and samplers, grasping that techno, house, or any electronic trend, are today what rock and traditional pop once were. Forty years exactly after the publication of “In A Silent Way,” many of the hypotheses just advanced now find a practical translation and a consonance of views right here in Italy, in a personal and aesthetically multidirectional Davisian discographic project, “About A Silent Way,” which Musica Jazz thought well to promote and offer to the listening and attention of its readers on the occasion of the third and final tribute dedicated to Miles Davis and his revolutionary path developed with those lineups in quintet and sextet now divided between history and legend. A project largely born from the mind of Maurizio Martusciello, aka Martux_m (percussionist, composer, producer but above all electronic musician and electroacoustic alchemist among the most renowned and active in Italy and abroad in the field of experimental arts that combine sound and image with sophisticated tactile-sensory and space-time dynamics), immediately received and produced by Itinera (a record label from Campania linked to the Pomigliano Jazz festival, founded and directed by Onofrio Piccolo) in collaboration with the Milanese Verdearanciomusica of Giovanna Mascetti. The architect of the work is a quintet of exceptional interpreters and soloists among the most representative on the national (besides Martux_m, also trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso, saxophonist Francesco Bearzatti, and bassist Aldo Vigorito) and international scene (Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset, mainstay of Nils Petter Molvaer’s projects), who with “About A Silent Way,” have given life to a possible Davisian discourse in line with the current trends of rhythm and electronics, however, distancing themselves from paths previously marked and explored by the leading names of international “Nu Jazz,” as well as from mannered revisitations and more orthodox interpretations (albeit splendid and enjoyable) of the great trumpeter’s electric season. In practice, an Italian way, labelable as jazztronic, to rethink Miles’ lesson in the present, keeping only the structural principles and methodological guidelines characteristic of the incredible experience of “In A Silent Way,” namely the mood, expressive spontaneity (improvisation, intuition, mutual listening) in the execution, and the reinterpretation, the remodeling (in terms almost identical to those of a compositional process) of what was created spontaneously and improvised during post-production. Perceiving the underlying depth, as well as the balance and originality of the language expressed by a record like “About A Silent Way,” we thought to extract from a double conversation with Maurizio Martusciello and Onofrio Piccolo (respectively artistic producer and executive producer of “About A Silent Way”) further details, purposes, and points of view regarding this operation.

AN INTERVIEW WITH MAURIZIO MARTUSCIELLO

The project “About A Silent Way” comes after many years spent experimenting in the field of electronics and sound design, both as a founder and member of workgroups like Ossatura, MetaXu, Zelle, Dogon, and Meta-Zu, and through encounters and collaborations with artists such as M.E.V., Damo Suzuki, Tim Hodgkinson, Michiko Hirayama, Alva Noto, and Carl Craig. How did the idea for the album about Miles Davis come about, and above all, what sparked your renewed interest in jazz?

It’s all part of a long personal artistic process. I started as a jazz drummer and then became fascinated by electronic music and the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Schaeffer. Then came the experiences you mentioned, which tied me to the electronic dimension and involved me in electroacoustic, installation, and video art projects for over a decade. However, starting from around 2002, I began to feel a sense of disorientation, the need for a return to my roots, a path that would bring me back home, and therefore also to jazz. The first steps in this direction were represented by the “Soundscape” project, together with Markus Stockhausen, and later by “Gazelab,” a live production realized with Roberto Masotti, which included a section paying tribute to ECM’s Works and

collections, highly important listening materials for my training. During these recent experiences, including collaboration as a duo with Danilo Rea for the album “Reminiscence,” I was mainly interested in the idea of ​​an author from whom I could restart and obtain a creative input to get back into the game. I must say that at the time, a fundamental reading was Nicolas Bourriaud’s book “Postproduction,” according to which new and original concepts are impossible to pursue today in the creation of works of art, and the only path is reworking, leading to a cultural landscape dominated by new figures like the DJ and the programmer, both capable of selecting cultural objects and including them in new contexts. Based on this thesis, my thinking suddenly jumped to Miles Davis and “In A Silent Way,” the album that opened up completely new contexts for the period. So, I began to work and focus throughout 2008 on these ideas, conducting intense research, readings, and various types of listening, all centered around “In A Silent Way” and Miles’ world, until I found myself reflecting on the fact that the following year would mark the 40th anniversary of the album, a coincidence I took as a comforting sign and a sort of epiphany.

From what theoretical and aesthetic premises do the basic characteristics of the album and the methods of its realization emerge?

The main idea was not to carry out any revision or cover of the original tracks of “In A Silent Way,” but only to take its mood and rework it according to today’s standards of post-production. I then asked myself what kind of album and aesthetic discourse Miles would make today if he were still among us and, above all, with what sounds and artists he would intend to work and engage. So, not a Miles Davis just before, during, or after “In A Silent Way,” but rather a Miles Davis recording a new album in the present and deciding to title it “About A Silent Way.” In this sense, therefore, Miles’ album becomes the frame destined to welcome a new picture, where the frame can also be understood as what circumscribes and contains a new place of action, a process that is no longer about commemorating Miles but taking inspiration from his personality, from his conscious curse of not being able to avoid changing musically and breaking down barriers. Following these coordinates, also widely shared by all the other musicians, “About A Silent Way” thus preserves a jazz-electroacoustic sound while simultaneously opening up to electronics and the groove of machines, to killer-trance rhythms, and the foundational moods of house and techno, the only authentic innovations in the panorama of commercial and experimental music over the last twenty years.

What times, passages, and difficulties did such an album entail?

The album took shape in three phases. The first, essentially engineering and electronic, and therefore also the slowest and aesthetically research-intensive, was the construction, together with Dario Colozza, my production assistant, of sound bases and rhythmic structures on which the other musicians could be free to move; the second, which took three days, was the meeting with the musicians in the studio for the recording of the material; the third, finally, was genuinely post-production, which saw me engaged for about a month. The risk factor is always just around the corner when traditional, electric, or acoustic instruments improvise interacting with electronics. This is due to the slow response of a digitally processed, programmed, or real-time sound compared to the harmonic, timbral, and tonal variations that a trumpeter, guitarist, or saxophonist can make with their instrument in a nanosecond. A paradoxical limitation of electronic and digital sound, however, offset by the merit of being able to express an almost infinite timbral-dynamic range.

What can you tell me about the other musicians in the project? How did they interpret the conceptual spirit and overall sound of “About A Silent Way”?

They are artists who fully confirmed the excellent reputation that the public and critics recognize them. Naturally, the group’s harmony manifested itself gradually over the three days available. Each one then entered the fundamental aesthetic dimension and the mood I expected in a very proactive and creative way, introducing lines of color and shaping details according to a more experimental, peculiar approach, for example, by Francesco Bearzatti and Eivind Aarset, the other two electric and technological souls of the album. Others, like Fabrizio Bosso and Aldo Vigorito, instilled that refined intoxication and visceral nature of the African American tradition with a magnificent sense of rhythm and melody. Given the results, I sincerely hope that the group will consolidate and continue with this energy and imagination to define the contours of the aesthetic discourse started with “About A Silent Way.”

An aesthetic and language discourse that I suppose you also want to create a bridge that better connects the audience of electronics to that of jazz.

Exactly. Being in the privileged position of having musician friends in both contexts, and above all attending festivals or events promoted in their respective areas, I notice with dismay sterile preconceived attitudes, almost niche, when instead a transfusion of greater attention from both sides could only benefit a more dynamic and complete musical expression.

One last question. In your opinion, who would be Miles Davis’ ideal interlocutor today?

Jeff Mills, without a doubt.

 

 

“ABOUT A SILENT WAY”

This month’s CD is an original production, a brand-new album that Musica Jazz proposes and promotes to celebrate the forty years since Miles Davis’s first electric dream called “In A Silent Way.” However, the title of the album, “About A Silent Way,” as well as the titles of the four tracks that compose it, immediately make it clear that what happens here is by no means a mere revisitation of Miles Davis’s masterpiece. Indeed, “About A Silent Way” represents a broad aesthetic and methodological endeavor, drawing from Miles Davis and his lesson of continuous and unrestrained innovation an inspiriting and sincerely constructive contemporary creative impulse, aiming to merge and interact, in a complementary manner, the electroacoustic language of jazz with the most advanced analog-digital syntaxes of electronics. “About A Silent Way” is also the debut of an unheard-of quintet, composed of soloists and artists of outstanding value and originality in their instrumental roles, widely recognized and appreciated both in Italy and abroad: Maurizio Martusciello alias Martux_m (electronics), Fabrizio Bosso (trumpet, flugelhorn), Francesco Bearzatti (tenor, electric sax), Eivind Aarset (electric guitar, electronics), and Aldo Vigorito (double bass). The umbilical cord between Davis’s seminal work and “About A Silent Way” is uniquely represented by the mood, by that atmospheric and enveloping sound climate that floats on feverish rhythmic textures and electroacoustic forays imbued with liquid tension. However, the CD included represents a fertile and neutral musical space, where the body of jazz and that of electronics (in its multiple techno, house, glitch, ambient, and microwave forms) incestuously unite, shedding every code and sense of belonging. Four compositions express as many different colors and sonic landscapes.

The opening track, “About A Silent Way,” is introduced by a calm yet visceral dialogue (improvised yet splendidly dialectical) between Bearzatti’s tenor and Bosso’s trumpet. Beneath them, Vigorito’s double bass pulsates weakly but continuously, alongside the first sharp and hissing effects of Martux_m’s electronic textures. These textures progressively assert themselves in their dual rhythmic function (adding striking techno lines and brooding dub sub-basses) and chromatic function (ambient interludes, metronomic tolls, and watery fusion sensations). Meanwhile, Bosso and Bearzatti’s solos multiply and intertwine seamlessly, elegantly but increasingly vivacious, imbuing the rest of the track with acoustic bluesy depth and cool fragrances. Aarset’s electric guitar sound is delicately subtle and impalpable, while Bearzatti’s electrified reed outings are more vivid, imparting a funky-rock edge to an atmospherically nocturnal and bluish piece.

Next is the acid and visionary lyricism of “Hush/Quiet,” propelled into orbit by the almost Hassellian timbre of Bearzatti’s electrified saxophone and Bosso’s limpid, sparkling phrasing. Vigorito’s double bass entwines with the electronics and its subtle, fragmented beating (always bright and sharp) like ivy. The overall atmosphere is sidereal, extremely suspended and filigreed in every instrumental detail, be it acoustic, electric, or electronic.

“On the other hand, “Around This Thime” is a dazzling plunge into the frothy and rapacious techno of Millsian imprint, a danceable time of flaming red color, where trumpet and saxophone intersect at supersonic speed, with a poignant metropolitan breath, overshadowed by orchestral passages oozing soul and acid jazz from every pore. Note, just halfway through the track, the ostinato of the electronic instrumental base, almost a raga-like quotation of Joe Zawinul’s famous motif in “It’s About This Time.” In the second half of the piece, funky-dub and tribal-house bursts emerge from a double lane of acoustic and analog-digital basses (provided by a stratospheric Vigorito).

Finally, the album concludes with “About A Silent Way II,” an exclusive trio affair for electronics, double bass, and electric guitar. A piece that fully embodies the experimental anxiety of rock, free improvisation, and electronic matrix. In this context, Eivind Aarset’s six-string and electronic manipulations are significant, authoring an ecstatic and corrosive solo, which Martux_m fades and saturates into a phenomenal noisy tail, almost evoking an intense wind current destined to sweep everything away…

OLINDO FORTINO