Nola Nights #1-#3, Various Artists (Ictus Records)
Nola, for those who don’t know, is the latest in a line of nicknames for New Orleans. Past monikers include Crescent City (an allusion to the way the Mississippi turns as it passes through the city) and The Big Easy – the latter, it’s said, on account of how easy it used to be for musicians to find work there. Well, if free improvisation’s your thing, it probably still applies. The city boasts a thriving community of free improv musicians, several of whom feature on these albums. And then there’s the Happyland Theatre. Situated in the Byland neighbourhood, it started life as a cinema, but has been stripped down, turned into an arts space and is now well-known as a venue for free improv.
In December last year, California-based percussionist and improviser Andrea Centazzo took up a three-day residency at Happyland, during which he recorded sessions with a number of local musicians. Ictus Records (founded by Centazzo) have just brought out three three albums, Nola Nights #1-3, which bring together a selection of these. Centazzo, for those who haven’t come across him, has had a creative career spanning over fifty years, involving improvisation, composition and film-making.
The first album has Centazzo playing with cellist Helen Gillet. Belgian-born, a singer-songwriter as well as a cellist, she describes herself as ‘a sound archaeologist’. She’s a musician with a broad range of interests (if you want to know just how broad, check out her Bandcamp page). Classically trained, she developed an interest in improvisation while studying Hindustani music with cellist Nancy Lesh Kulkarni. The first track here begins with short, busy sounds (cello, percussion, electronics – it’s often hard to tell which are which) overlaid with longer sounds. What it grows into is hard to describe: one of the strengths of improvised music is that, since the musicians involved think on their feet, make split second decisions and don’t have to follow instructions, they can blur the edges and create complexities and ambiguities in ways it’s difficult for a composer of written music to emulate. The second track is a slow, more spacious duet for metal percussion and (mostly) plucked cello. The third – the shortest – is a duet improvisation that grows out of a sample of sitar music.
On the second album, Centazzo is playing as part of a trio with multi-instrumentalist (here, playing the accordion) and vocalist Aurora Nealand and bassist James Singleton. Nealand, among numerous other projects, leads the ‘non-traditional Traditional Jazz band’, The Royal Roses, a project that embraces everything from early New Orleans jazz to musique concrète. Singleton plays bass with the New Orleans-based modern jazz quartet, Astral Project. The first track here has an understated simplicity about it, Nealand singing long, sustained notes over Centazzo’s glockenspiel and woodblock figures. The bass joins later. The second is more animated, the music developing over looped, improvised fragments. The third is the most frenetic, Nealand creating strong rhythmic patterns with the accordion bellows over Centazzo’s drumming. It’s enthralling in a way which makes you wish you’d been there to experience it live.
The third album brings Centazzo together with keyboardist Evan Gallagher, percussionist Bruce Golden and guitarist Chris Alford. As Centazzo points out in the album-notes, he first played with Gallagher and Golden over forty-five years ago, in 1978. There’s over fifty minutes of music here, broken into two sets. As one would expect from the instrumentation, the quartet create a rich, interesting sound-world. The music is often energetic, but never overstated, and there’s just the right balance between performers responding to each other and pursuing preoccupations of their own. It’s an absorbing listen. And if you’re on the lookout for even more music to listen to, you can check out Gallagher, Alford and Golden’s recent album, GAG (see links, below).
Taken together, these albums give those who are unfamiliar with it a taste of the thriving and adventurous musical culture that exists in and around New Orleans. I’ll definitely be goiing back to them and to the other work of the musicians who feature on them.
Dominic Rivron
LINKS
Nola Nights #1:https://ictusrecords.bandcamp.com/album/nola-nights-1
Nola Nights #2: https://ictusrecords.bandcamp.com/album/nola-nights-2
Nola Nights #3: https://ictusrecords.bandcamp.com/album/nola-nights-3
Helen Gillet: https://helengillet.bandcamp.com/music
Aurora Nealand (The Royal Roses): https://www.auroranealand.com/the-royal-roses
Andrea Centazzo: https://andreacentazzo.com/
Astral Project (James Singleton): https://www.astralproject.com/music
GAG (Gallagher, Alford and Golden): https://chrisalford.bandcamp.com/album/gag
Happyland Theatre: https://www.facebook.com/Happylandtheater/
Nancy Lesh Kulkarni: https://map.sahapedia.org/article/Nancy-Lesh%20Kulkarni/2877
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