I was ransacking my mind earlier. Without going back to listen again instinctively I visit the memory of albums of Saluzzi’s that leap out most.
Few of these old flames can hold a candle to what’s new today given how special this proves but I suppose one is From the Green Hill with Tomasz Stańko and Ojos Negros with Anja Lechner – the cellist who to my ears is on the best track of the year so far – that’s Anouar Brahem’s ‘After the Last Sky.’
El Viejo Caminante opens with a tune of José María’s paying tribute to Buenos Aires and then there’s a version of Norwegian singer Karin Krog’s ‘Northern Sun’ which was on the Sweet Talker best-of two decades ago. (Krog and Young had collaborated together on Where Flamingos Fly issued in 2002.)
It’s impossible not to think of Astor Piazzolla when you listen to Saluzzi and that is no intrusion, put down or false comparison – he is surely in the same league as the great composer who, switch on BBC Radio 3 just about any day of the week, whose work you will hear on some esoteric programme or other if a classical head that might tickle the fancy of the ever cosseted well catered for bourgeoisie among the station’s listenership. Saluzzi’s work that has an earthier proletarian feel on a certain passionate level deserves to be played just as often but his sound is far less understood given its spread and extensive borrowings from all sorts of areas including jazz, classical music and South American folk traditions.
But the most weighty piece is ‘Buenos Aires 1950’ written by Dino Saluzzi himself. It has a scale that transcends the small instrumentation and a way of painting, flickering, dimly lit, interiors that is uncanny. It contains such a quality of ever darkening dance punctuated by interludes of hope.
Also moving is the co-penned father and son song ‘Mi hijo y yo,’ “my son and me” which is simply beautiful.
A lot of this album is 5 star (second thoughts: it’s all 5-star) and it is beyond any one genre of course perfectly jazz aligned but also redolent of chamber music moods and rituals but also soaked in song and the traditions of the Great American Songbook. But nobody needs to be a stickler about the shelves this fine music belongs on, so choose randomly where you want to squirrel it away in your listening den.
The main jazz content is in the treatment of the Guy B. Wood, Robert Mellin standard ‘My One and Only Love’ and better still Frank Churchill & Larry Morey piece ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’ when inevitably you think of Miles Davis which is arranged in a very open way leaning into the chords and sneaking the melody in without even being too artful. Young and old, yin and yang – one to own, to hold in your hands.
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