804 - Clusone 3Trio "An Hour With"

Michael Moore, alto sax, clarinet, melodica
Ernst Reijseger, cello
Han Bennink, drums.

1. Medley 1: Pippistrello/Rollo II/Tinglit/I Am an Indian Too
2. It's You
3. Medley 2: Bella Coola/The Peacocks
4. Medley 3: Duck/O Pato/Turkey in the Straw
5. Medley 4: My Bird of Paradise/I Never Had a Chance
6. Medley 5: Le Cygne/A Velho Pedro/Marie Pompoen
7. Baltimore Oriole

'Many of Clusone 3's songs are bird songs. Bits and pieces of birds. The feather as both a symbol of the bird and a little chunk of the tweeter itself. Sonorous black magic. Here is the feather, here is the bird song, part of the bird song. Avis intertuurptus: when the song is ended, what has happened to the bird?' --John Corbett

An Hour With
Mar. 1998 / Hatology

Flip a coin between this and I Am an Indian and you’ve got Clusone’s best album. An Hour With is a live set that sums up the band in top form as they revisit some of their favored material. The bird fascination continues, not just in re-reads of a few tunes that made Rara Avis but also some tunes that didn’t, like the quiet “Peacocks” and the hoedown “Turkey in the Straw”. Apart from the cool bop of “It’s You” and the dark finale “Baltimore Oriole”, everything appears within a series of medleys - the usual C3 game of guess what we’re playing next (because we don’t know either). I’m especially fond of the suite that begins with Steve Lacy’s “Duck” (quack quack) and the grooving “O Pato”. The mood then changes drastically for Moore’s own “Duck”, where a smooth, four-note bassline underpins soft alto lyricism.

A couple of other medleys are utterly charming. “My Bird of Paradise” sings on top of a folksy, chordal cello part; Ernst then morphs into a funky vamp for Mercer’s “I Never Had a Chance”, which inspires great sax from Moore and some sing-along from Bennink. Another suite begins with “Le Cygne” and carries through the adrenalized “A Velho Pedro”. The band has wizened a bit over time, or at least they’re not as antagonistic as they once were. In any event, there’s still a bundle of surprises on this well-recorded disc.

Jazzself