Never has a title been so fitting for a
European jazz
record! Clarinet genius
Mauro Negri
put together
So Funky
, an
avant-garde jazz
/
funk
album that plays it deep, arty, down, and dirty. There are so many musics in the heart of this
Euro funk
, yet they are all held within
Negri
's taut
jazz
net. The lineup of clarinets (two on
"3 3 3"
), electric guitar and bass, drums, and trumpet is a provocative one.
Jimmy Giuffre
has done it, but no one else comes to mind, and
Giuffre
wasn't even thinking about
! But
is different. The opening modal moments of the solo clarinet on the title track give way to an in-the-gut-bucket bassline that holds the groove steady as
Enrico Rava
and
work out their
soul
demons in counterpoint to one another.
Bebo Ferra
's guitar slips itself in -- completely solo for about 12 bars -- and then takes a proper
blues
-out, greasy solo proper when the rest of the rhythm section kicks back in. Yeah, he flies all over the neck like a rocker, but never moves from the beat's pocket. On
"Tun Tun Cia,"
Fiorenzo Delega
's bass state the melody line together -- similar to the way
Jaco Pastorius
Wayne Shorter
did with
Weather Report
-- to establish it firmly before letting it give way to
Rava
's gorgeous
solo that moves from
Miles Davis
to
Nat Adderley
Donald Byrd
in its hesitant, choppy, punch-drunk way, opening up new vistas inside the rhythm for
Ferra
to explore against the melody. In this case, though syncopated in a slow,
James Brown & His Famous Flames
-style manner, the bassline is the melody, and drummer
Christian Meyer
kicks his fills with the snares and small tom-toms tuned high. When the riff cuts loose from the middle on out,
pushes himself -- and the band -- into high gear with a series of eighth and 16th notes that come rushing out of the horn like a hot spring. The dual lead runs between
are staggering in their virtuosity, and when
joins the fray, the seams on the track split and it's a free-for-all in groove land. Things come full circle by the closer, though, an intimate duet between
Fabrizio Meloni
, both playing clarinets. The rhythm partner sounds like a circusy calliope playing a sad song as the improviser holds the mood and weaves in and through it, a kaleidoscopic array of tonal variations and voice modulations before the pair switch. It's seamless and warm and tender, and sends the funkiest clarinet record Europe's ever produced off with a child's lonely whisper.
is great art. ~ Thom Jurek