Juan Hitters: In Oslo for ECM records

miércoles, 4 de diciembre de 2013

In Oslo for ECM records

Juan visited Oslo, Norway, to shoot the recording sessions of a couple of ECM albums at the legendary Rainbow Studio. Piano music by Dino Saluzzi, performed by Horacio Lavandera and a debut album on ECM by Danish guitar player/composer Jakob Bro. There was a chance of taking some photos of the Dino Saluzzi Trio (Dino Saluzzi/Anja Lechner/Felix Saluzzi) at the amazing venue of the Oslo Opera House. The beautiful weather helped achieve these stunning pictures that will be used on future projects by the trio. Please note the players are flying, condor-style, over the skyline of Oslo. Manfred spent the whole sessions kidding the Saluzzis about them being condors, referring to the previous album by the family "Juan Condori"and also to the fact that they were both born in Salta, a province in Argentina on the Andes, home of our national bird. Besides this, we must agree that Dino's improvisational style might sometimes resemble the feeling of flying, and if we are lucky, might take us on a ride.

What's on the CD player this week

New film about Architect César Pelli

What's on the CD player this week

"Sound City": real to reel. Dave Grohl has put together many wonderful musicians and directed a documentary film called Sound City. The movie is about the sheer joy of playing and recording plain (or not so plain) rock music starring Chris Goss, Joshua Homme, Rupert Neve, Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty, Trent Reznor, Rick Rubin and Paul Mc Cartney to name just a few. The soundtrack is a true marvel, similar in a way to Slash's first solo album. It has been on steady rotation since I came back from Sydney.

Keith Jarrett at Teatro Colon

Tonight Keith Jarrett is improvising on the piano at Teatro Colon. It has been nearly three decades since I listened to "The Köln Concert" for the first time. The experience was revealing. It is probably one of the albums I have enjoyed the most. I clearly remember once driving with friends along a deserted road someplace in Uruguay while listening to Keith play the old Bösendorfer in Cologne. The compact cassette sounded awful, but I could do nothing but wonder: listening to this beautiful music recorded many years ago, in a far away city, while driving through this lonely country, was magic! Well, life has been good to me, and gave me the opportunity of contributing to ECM on Keith Jarrett's "Testament" album cover, a recording of two improvised concerts in Paris and London. This was a couple of years ago. Tonight I will be listening to the man himself, no state of the art recording or crappy cassette, just an incredible musician playing the piano. You bet I am looking forward to this experience.