Download - Downbeat

This is displayed on his imposition of an 11-against-16 left-hand
pulse on “Les Grelots” and the rapid, stiff-fingered jabs and sidehand
chops before and during “Take the ‘A’ Train” at a recital in
Marciac, to the eloquence he brings through right hand alone to the
theme to “Caravan” during an outdoor show in Paris.
The gem amidst these treasures, though, is Non Stop: Travels
With Michel Petrucciani, a film by Roger Willemsen that brings us
into intimate communion with its subject. This documentary brings
everything into a human context through conversation, interview
and observing the pianist in his element. He flirts playfully at a Paris
café, after instructing the crew to film “beautiful foreign women.” He
points to a commode in a hotel room to announce with wicked
solemnity, “This is where it all started … and ends!” He plays a bit of
one of his tunes, “She Did It Again,” and explains that the title refers
to the prolific farting of Charles Lloyd’s dog.
He speaks about love, silliness, God and laughter, the things that
concerned him more than the disability he had since birth, which is
evident whenever we see him and painful in his later concert videos,
where he has become portly, his breathing labored, perspiring as he
plays with undiminished inventiveness and romanticism. This tragic
disease was a defining element in Petrucciani’s life, but from this
film we learn that it also liberated him to create and live as he
pleased while he could.
Seated outdoors in Big Sur, he tells Willemsen, “I’m scared of
death. Pain I could cope with. I’m used to pain. … But we’re not
going to make people cry here. It’s not very important.”
Not, at least, until the last moment of this film, where we see
Petrucciani behind a piano on a rooftop in Manhattan, shot from a
helicopter on the rise as he plays his tune “Looking Up” against the
swirling skyline. A gust of wind blows his hat from his head. We
hear his voice overdubbed, admitting “I hate to say goodbye.”
And just like that, it’s over.
—Robert Doerschuk
Ordering info: dreyfusrecords.com
Walcott (Co), Don Cherry (Do) and Nana Vasconcelos (Na). Their
investigations into cross-pollinating the sounds and vocabularies of
“world music” idioms were important signposts for subsequent
generations of creative musicians looking to grab the “universal
one.” It’s interesting to observe their evolution. The group initially
followed Walcott’s cues. On Codona, convened by Walcott in 1978
and propelled by his sitar and tabla, they navigate three of his compositions
(including “Mumakata,” a tour de force for sanza, berimbau,
doussn’gouni and three overdubbed voices), an Ornette
Coleman–Stevie Wonder medley and a three-way improv.
Ritualistic imperatives and endless dialogue prevail on Codona 2,
which traces a narrative arc from start to finish. On the kick-off, “Que
Faser,” Cherry blows clarion trumpet rhythms over Walcott’s riffing
sitar and Vasconcelos’ overdubbed cuica and berimbau strut. Cherry
overdubs trumpet and melodica to open “Malinye,” which concludes
with a percussion jam.
Recorded in 1982, Codona 3 is the most programmatic—call it
ECM-ish—of Codona’s corpus. The references include shakuhachi
(“Goshakabuchi”); a sitar-trumpet-berimbau stomp (“Travel By
Night”); a multitracked sitar ballad (“Lullaby”); sound collage
(“Trayra Boia”); sitar blues (“Clicky Clacky”); and an ambient drone
piece (Cherry’s “Inner Organs”). Organ and sanza create a sort of
primal sonic sea in which overdubbed voices, trumpet and hand
drums burble up, gradually establishing a groove atop which Cherry
gently skitters.
—Ted Panken
Ordering info: ecmrecords.com
June 2009 DOWNBEAT 69