The blues. The fingers are getting stiff simply by writing down the word. No
way to describe it or to waste time and space talking about it: the blues
just IS. A sentence carved in our soul, that smell of blues like nothing
comparable, comes from the legendary Mezz Mezzrow, with his final will:”Just take my body and shove it in
one of them blast furnaces and when I’m melted down good, scrape out the
dust and mix it up with some shellac and press it into a record with a King
Jazz label on and then take it up to Harlem and give it to some raggedy kid
on The Corner who hasn’t got the price of admission to see the stage show at
the Apollo or a deuce of blips to buy himself a glass of foam, until he gets
tired of it, and then let him throw it away and that’s that. Just do that
and you know I’ll be happy.” Mezzrow, besides a chill down the spine,
provides the programmatic title of the record and subject matter of this
review. Italian musician Alberto Popolla, a clarinetist, arranger and
composer, has explored the different sounds and the infinite
resources of timbre of his clarinets, crossing experimentation and
improvisation, writing and conductions, Balkan music and klezmer. He has
promoted several Italian and European ensembles and collaborated with
musicians from all around the globe such as, among others, John Tchichai,
Don Byron, Steve Beresford, Lol Coxhill, Simon Allen, Chris Cutler, London
Improvisers Orchestra, Mamadou Diabate, Elliot Sharp, Mike Cooper, Lisa
Mezzacappa.
In recent years, with the group Roots Magic, Popolla has dedicated
himself passionately to the arrangement and composition, taking inspiration
from the great blues heritage and the fascinating sounds of the Canterbury
prog music scene. His mission statement is to juxtapose tradition and
innovation, blurring the boundaries through an ongoing tension between
composed form and free approach: “The development isn’t always linear and
progressive but circular and spiral. The closed template is a step forward,
it could be a comfort spot to some extent but this doesn’t mean that things
are easier”, he clarifies. In this free-solo attempt on the blues wall,
Alberto’s purpose is to draw a direct line, in the full respect of the
Afrocentric elements of that rural sound, taking into account that, up to
the ‘50s and ‘60s, jazz dealt with an unreal, never seen, postcard-like
Africa, even when the artistic outcome was outstanding, like the legendary
“jungle sound” of Duke Ellington, whose Africanism was merely aesthetic
actually. Only from the late ‘60s, the most committed Black jazz musicians
tried a daring “back to Africa”, discovering that a three centuries cultural
divide was almost impossible to be bridged. Along with the clarinet, the
foot tapping and the beating on an array of objects, here we find a
heartfelt, spiritual, intimate, aware, homage to a music that for Popolla is
definitely not only a genre but a true language. The choice of the covers
deployed a Masterclass of Heroes: Mezz Mezzrow (Really the Blues); John
Carter (Karen on Monday); Randy Weston (Anu Anu); Jelly Roll Morton (Winin’
Boy Blues); Blind Willie Johnson (Dark was the night, cold was the ground);
Eric Dolphy (Serene); Jimmy Giuffre (Cry want, Pickin’em up and layin’em
down); Louis Armstrong (Lonesome Blues); Milt Jackson (Bag’s Groove). A
self-penned song (Golden Tooth Blues), plus the contribution of his partners
in crime Gianfranco Tedeschi (Pop’s Blues) and Errico De Fabritiis (Blues
for Amin B.) crown it all.
As per the sandpaper nuances that often come out
of his clarinet, it’s really interesting to listen to what Popolla has to
say about: “The clarinet in jazz is still affected by the imprint of the
great band leaders like Goodman, Shaw and Herman. Its sonorities and
aesthetic are often associated with swing, virtuoso, smooth and gentle
sounds, casting a shadow over the crucial role the clarinet had at the
beginning of jazz and blues history when it was played in an edgy, dark and
scratchy way. An epitome of this is The Sunday Afternoon Jazz Blues
Society by John Carter, one of the very few to play clarinet outside the
box”. Really the blues is a sparkle pebble amidst the roaring waters we are
used to move into and such a “modicum of blues” (to quote Ivo Perelman)
could really be the perfect spot to find some solace and remember where
everything comes from.