Sam Sadigursky, Nathan Koci: The Solomon Diaries Vols IV & V (Adhyâropa Records)
These latest volumes in what is an ongoing and intriguing series from the New York-based Sadigursky (cl) and Koci (acn) drop the fuller group approach of their previous sessions for Adhyâropa Records. The result is both paradoxical and productive: the leaner duo format (enhanced on occasion by doubled clarinet or piano and violin) casts a more revealing light on the many felicities of melody and tone, infectious rhythm and spacious yet incisive lyricism which mark music as stimulating in compositional character as it is engaging in its diversely sprung improvised élan.
Born in 1979 to Soviet classical musicians who had emigrated to America, Sadigursky took early piano lessons, his ear soon drawn to jazz. Initially, the saxophone held strong appeal but Sadigursky has long since concentrated on the clarinet. He plays it beautifully, with a full and expressive sound and a complementary sensitivity both to tonal nuance and the play of rhythmic suspense and release. Koci is no less impressive, offering an atmospheric range of sound, melody and rhythm which includes abstracted musings as well as fully fleshed, nudging figures and subtle chromatic touches. While Sadigursky contributes the majority of the compositions, Koci’s several pieces are no less impressive in their soulful impact.
To learn that Sadigursky has played in a successful Broadway show but is also a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble is to be alerted to the breadth and depth of his musical capacities. There’s plenty of jazz feeling here: sample the urgent yet flowing ostinato phrasing of Lev’s Loops, which opens Volume 4, or the radical distillation of My Favorite Things in Koci’s Favourites, the initial piece on Volume V. But the jazz is mixed in with adroitly pitched takes on Eastern European klezmer music of deep Jewish tradition, archetypal American folk strains, Middle Eastern rhythms and the reflective poise of so-called “classical music”.
Don’t miss this invigorating, push-pull blend of wide-flung yet discriminating intelligence and exploratory passion, delivered with both a deep respect for the past and a courageous capacity to move between and across genres, keeping the music alive and open to factors of transformation and development. And if you would like more information on the The Solomon Diaries, read The Beautiful Debris Of Sam Sadigursky’s The Solomon Diaries, an essay by Lawrence Peryer for The Tonearm that explores how Sadigursky and Koci “transform the ghostly silence of [Jewish] Borsch Belt ruins [in NY’s Catskill Mountains] into a meditation on memory and absence”.
Dino Saluzzi, Jacob Young, José Maria Saluzzi: El Viejo Caminante (ECM 7589798)
What more can you say about this surpassing Argentinian master of the bandoneon, who turned 90 in May this year, and whose late 1990s ECM Kultrum release with the Rosamunde String Quartet remains an absolute pearl of cross-genre collaboration?
As I remarked in my review of Saluzzi’s previous Albores release, “Anyone who has seen Encuentros: A Film For Bandoneon And Cello – the excellent study by Norbert Wiedmer and Enrique Ros of Saluzzi in the company of cellist Anja Lechner (of the Rosamunde Quartet) – will recall the striking range of Saluzzi’s musical affinities as well as the strength of his feelings for ancestral matters both personal and regional.” Recorded in 2023 at his home studio in Buenos Aires, El Viejo Caminante (The Old Wayfarer) sees those affinities expand yet further in a charming (i.e., spell-binding) album which touches on many a time and place. The programme includes Karin Krog’s Northern Sun and Norwegian guitarist Jacob Young’s simultaneously sprightly and reflective Dino Is Here, as well as refreshingly cast takes on the old chestnuts Someday My Prince Will Come and My One And Only Love.
Albores was a solo release, while here, Saluzzi offers his largely meditative bittersweet magic in the company of his son José Maria Saluzzi (classical guitar) and the aforementioned Jacob Young (acoustic steel-string guitar and electric guitar). The result is both an entrancing sound palette and a tempered, exquisite and most intimate recital. One could detail aspects of various further tracks but the chief point to make here is how organically these delicious 71 minutes of multivalent reverie unfold and flow. Absolutely unmissable music, this!
