$9.00
This reassembling of Roberto Magris’ world-class Europlane ensemble marks the 20-year reunion between the Italian-born pianist-composer-arranger and the powerhouse Hungarian tenor saxophonist Tony Lakatos. Both had appeared together on the group’s 2005 debut, Check-In, which revealed their mutual love of smoking bebop with an edge. That Soul Note outing garnered favorable response from Stateside critics for its relentlessly swinging energy and slightly left-of-center sensibilities. As Jack Bowers wrote in this All About Jazz review of Check-In: “Even though these gentlemen are virtually anonymous and reside on the far side of the Atlantic, musical talent is an equal opportunity donor that overlooks ethnic and geographic boundaries. There are 58 minutes of superlative cutting-edge jazz on this album, and they’re well worth hearing.”
But perhaps British critic Don Mather hit the nail on the head when he wrote: “This album is a must for anyone who likes modern mainstream and is a lesson to many of the contemporary groups who seem to me to have forgotten that jazz is supposed to swing!”
And swing they did. While Lakatos exchanged fire-breathing tenor licks on that intense, bop-fueled Europlane outing with Austrian tenor saxophonist Michael Erian — both spurred on by Magris’ harmonically rich, rhythmically astute and often spiky piano comping — he is joined on the front line this time out by another veteran player in Austrian alto and baritone sax ace Florian Bramböck, a longtime member of the Vienna Art Orchestra (1991-2004). “My relationship with Florian goes back the 1990s, when he often played as guest soloist with my quartet,” explained the Trieste-born pianist and Europlane leader. “We had another band together in Austria and he also played some Europlane concerts in Italy in the ‘90s. So Tony and Florian are both old friends of mine, and we had several different chances to play together and cross musical paths over the last 30 years.”
Another old friend on this session is German bassist Rudi Engel, a collaborator of Magris’ since the early ‘90s, who was also part of the Europlane ensemble on Il Bello Del Jazz (Soulnote 2006), featuring Herb Geller. Rounding out the international ensemble are Slovakian trumpeter Lukas Oravec and Slovenian drummer Gasper Bertoncelj. “Lukas, based in Southern Moravia, and Gasper, based in Ljubljana, are quite new entries into our musical lives,” said Magris. “And I’ve often called on Gasper to play drums in the last years, since I’ve been living in Slovenia (in the border town of Sežana, near his birthplace of Trieste, Italy).”
Together they romp through eight tunes (including an Andrew Hill cover and five Magris originals) in an aggressively swinging manner, recalling the urgency of the George Adams-Don Pullen Quartet of the ‘80s or even the latter day Charles Mingus bands. Magris ran down the evolution of his own idiosyncratic embrace of dissonance within the context of swinging jazz piano, heard here on tunes like “The Island of Nowhere,” “Loose Fit” and the frantic title track, which opens Freedom Is Peace on a highly-charged note:
“For the jazz pianists of my generation — those who were starting to play in the 1970’s — our grandmaster and main reference was (and still is) McCoy Tyner; not only with John Coltrane but also on his Milestone albums as a leader. As I met jazz music while trying to escape from classical music, because of its lack of rhythm and prevalence of ‘polite’ harmonies, I was attracted to McCoy, and then to players like Bobby Timmons and Horace Silver. From there I went back to discover bebop through Bud Powell, Elmo Hope and Sonny Clark. At last, in my study and research as a young jazz pianist, I focused on Thelonious Monk and his hypnotic world. Moving from Monk, I got to Mal Waldron, Randy Weston, Herbie Nichols and Andrew Hill. As a teenager fond of jazz in the 1970s, my heroes were Coltrane and Mingus, and I was especially impressed by the way Don Pullen played on Mingus’ Changes One and Changes Two albums, through harmonies with Cecil Taylor’s free jazz dissonances. So from my early times, I’ve included in my pianism the possibility to go ‘out’ with the right hand while keeping the structure and chords with the left.”
The result is a kind of a free jazz played in time — the best of both worlds, to some ears.
Recorded at the Festsaal in Bad Goisernan on April 25, 2024 in the Salzkammergut region of Austria, Freedom is Peace is a stunning document of the Europlane sextet in full stride before a live audience.
The driving title track kicks off the concert with a ferocious intensity. Magris sets the urgent tone by laying down heavy left hand statements, in classic Tyner fashion, opening the door for some blistering solos from Lakatos on tenor (catch his brief, sly quote from “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise”), Oravec on trumpet and Bramböck on baritone sax. Their surging energy sets Magris up for a magnificent McCoy-ish piano solo before the three horns engage in some conversational exchanges that culminate in some potent free jazz overblowing at the end. A powerful opener indeed.
“This new composition of mine comes from the pressing need to now stand for peace, freedom, friendship, brotherhood and positive values,” said Magris. “Since COVID, we’ve found ourselves suddenly having to live completely different lives. And then the rumors of war with new iron curtains has made for some heavy feelings as well as unsure and unsafe perspectives. Of course, jazz can be also a political vehicle, as was proven during the free jazz period of the ‘60s. So ‘Freedom is Peace’ is a call to stand for peace and beauty as a counterpart to the ugly feelings that are more and more surrounding us. Music, and especially jazz, is energy. And in this period we need positive energy.”
“The Island of Nowhere” is a more relaxed, mid tempo swinger in a Jazz Messengers vein. Oravec solos first, showcasing the clarity of his high-note fusillades. Bramböck follows by easily double-timing on alto sax before launching into the stratosphere on his solo. Lakatos then unleashes a burly tenor solo, dropping in a quote from “Summetime” along the way. Magris’ cascading piano solo deftly straddles an inside-outside aesthetic and Engel adds a deeply resonant upright bass solo before they return to the catchy melodic head.
The meditative “Malay Tone Poem” is the most mysterious track on the album. As Magris explained, “Some months ago I happened to listen by chance to a very obscure recording by South African pianist Hotep Idris Galeta, which was sent to me by a jazz friend/disc collector from Des Moines, Iowa in the States. And I was captured by the simplicity of that melody which brings in a deep African mood. I thought it would be nice to include in the concert program a song composed by an African musician because Europe has become more and more mixed, with people arriving especially from Africa. You can see this in the football players of the national teams of the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. It’s a mix of faces, colors and cultures. It’s the new face of Old Europe, where different is beautiful. It’s like jazz, with its mixed musicians, people and cultures who gave birth to a new form of music, a new form of art, based on creativity, openness and inclusiveness.”
Their rendition of Andrew Hill’s lovely ballad “Laverne,” is a relaxed, engaging number with some lyrical soprano sax playing by Lakatos. “This song is one of my favorite compositions in jazz because of the beautiful melody and intriguing harmonies,” said Magris. “I’ve been playing it at most of my concerts in the last years, especially on solo piano. And I’ve also repeatedly recorded ‘Laverne,’ as it perfectly fits in my own musical frame.” On this rendition of “Laverne,” Magris added a light horn arrangement to emphasize some emotional parts of Hill’s piece. He and bassist Engel also contribute particularly lyrical solos on this intimate gem.
“Something to Save from EU (You)” opens with a rubato piano-bass intro by Magris and Engel before segueing to a mid tempo swing groove with a kind of optimistic bounce to it. Drummer Bertoncelj solos first, demonstrating some facile brushwork on the kit against Engel’s bowed bass drone. Lakatos begins his solo with some typically jaunty tenor work before nonchalantly double-timing, gradually building to an ecstatic crescendo. Magris’ piano solo drifts back and forth from strictly straight ahead territory into the more daring Cecil Taylor-Don Pullen zone. And Oravec puts an exclamation point on the proceedings with a stellar trumpet solo.
The title, explains the composer, addresses the prevailing reality of the times. “In these days, many people in Europe are wondering if the European Union was and still is a good idea. Personally, I think it was and is, but now we need to change completely and move from financial priorities to social and cultural priorities. Apart from politics, the European culture needs to be saved. We need to save culture, we need to save art, we need to save music (classical, pop, jazz, rock, folk, etc.). And above all, we need to save melody. So this composition is intended to propose some melodic moments, on a jazz format, that are worth saving.”
“When You Touch Me” is Magris’ full-bodied arrangement of a romantic, moving number from 1997 by Israeli singer-songwriter Boaz Sharabi. Following a dramatic solo piano intro, the full sextet heads into a soothing ‘small big band’ interpretation. Everyone in the ensemble gets a solo taste on this extended number, which comes in at just under 13 minutes. Lakatos soars on soprano and Bramböck burns on bari, while Engel and Magris each offer highly expressive solo statements. “I included this as a tribute to the Jewish contribution to culture in Europe and, especially, to my vivid recent experience in Israel,” said Magris. “I played concerts in Israel last year in September, just one month before the horrible killings and kidnappings there on October 7. I met some excellent musicians there — nice jazz people who played beautiful music in a friendly, peaceful and open-minded atmosphere. They were operating for peace and collaboration in the sake of a final positive normalization in that troubled part of the world. And it was when I was in Tel Aviv that I had a chance to get introduced to this old Israeli pop song. I immediately loved it and wanted to try to bring it into a jazz frame with a slight Latin rhythm.”
The way that “Loose Fit” morphs from a funk-rock head to swinging bridge recalls the mercurial writing style of Charles Mingus. In fact, Magris’ use of dissonance and spiky accents in his renegade piano solo here, following another potent tenor solo from Lakatos, recalls the former Mingus sideman, Don Pullen. “One of my jazz heroes since my youth was Mingus,” he said. “And for sure I’ve absorbed his musical world, which sometimes appears in my writing.” Bertoncelj also delivers an impassioned drum solo on this rhythmically-shifting number.
The collection closes on a buoyant note with “Hip! For the Conference,” which opens with some catchy a cappella playing by the horns before the full sextet takes up a classic hard bop feel. “We used to play this song with the old Europlane 20 years ago,” said Magris. “I have re-arranged it and included it in the program as a link to the past.”
While Europlane was a potent force around Europe from 1998-2003, having recorded five CDs and touring under the patronage and sponsorship of the CEI (Central European Initiative), the band hadn’t operated over the last 20 years…until Magris was asked, out of nowhere, by Jazzfreunde Bad Ischl promoter Emilian Tantana to resurrect the group for a main jazz event in Austria coinciding with Bad Ischl being named the “European Capital of Culture 2024.” As he recalled, “I was asked to prepare a complete brand new musical program for this event, presented as a world premiere. So I worked for a couple of months on some new compositions and arrangements, having in mind the sound of the original Europlane, but with the experience of my last 20 years.”
That experience includes his fruitful collaboration in the States with promoter Paul Collins and his Kansas City-based JMood label. Magris’ 24th recording for JMood (and 40th album as a leader or co-leader overall) is a triumphant declaration from a crew of bona fide all-stars. — Bill Milkowski
Bill Milkowski is a longtime contributor to Downbeat magazine. He is also the author of biographies of Jaco Pastorius, Pat Martino and Michael Brecker. His blog, “The Milkman’s Musings,” can be read on his website at billmilkowski.com