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GuerzonCellos: iClown

Guerzon Cellos

C004261 CdCello

Physical and Digital Release: 11 June 2021

Guerzon Cellos presents iClown, exploring the cello ensemble's capacity for changing musical characters, contrasting textures and shared instrumental expression.

13.67€

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Digital programme · 16 tracks

  1. 01Blu Rondo a La TurkDave Brubeck · GuerzonCellos4:58
  2. 02StrangeGuerzonCellos · GuerzonCellos4:33
  3. 03Armando's RhumbaChick Corea · GuerzonCellos2:46
  4. 04InterplayBill Evans · GuerzonCellos4:05
  5. 05Taglia(n)tella BologneseGuerzonCellos · GuerzonCellos2:17
  6. 06JamesPat Metheny · GuerzonCellos3:53
  7. 07Five for TwoGuerzonCellos · GuerzonCellos5:31
  8. 08BachatoGuerzonCellos · GuerzonCellos2:04
  9. 09The BellsGuerzonCellos · GuerzonCellos4:56
  10. 10Água de beberAntônio Carlos Jobim · GuerzonCellos2:52
  11. 11PsychedelicGuerzonCellos · GuerzonCellos4:41
  12. 12In the Mood for LoveShigeru Umebayashi · GuerzonCellos2:44
  13. 13BirdlandJoe Zawinul · GuerzonCellos4:29
  14. 14The ClownGuerzonCellos · GuerzonCellos4:37
  15. 154567 Little StarsGuerzonCellos · GuerzonCellos3:35
  16. 16Fairy TaleGuerzonCellos · GuerzonCellos4:03

Track timings refer to the digital edition.

Streaming
ArtistsGuerzon CellosBiographies

Guerzon Cellos: This duo is composed by two cellists, father and son, who engage in works ranging from the Baroque era to jazz and rock, and include original works. They give life to an extraordinarily unique concert, where music has neither genre nor age, but only different colours.
The band was born at home, when a very young Tiziano asked to be presented with his first cello. Later, in 2009, he was awarded first prize at the Early Music competition in Padua (2009); in 2010 and 2011, in duo with pianist Nicolas Giacomelli, he was awarded first prize at the Pianoro competition, near Bologna. In 2016 he graduated with honours and special praise at the Conservatory of Bologna. He performed already in many concerts as the principal cello in chamber orchestras such as Arkè Orchestra, Cembal Orchestra, Orchestra Senza Spine, Dalla Classica, Leipzig Conservatory and Lorelay in Germany, frequently performing as a soloist or principal cello, and playing the solo parts of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, in Puccini’s Tosca and in Rossini’s Guglielmo Tell. His repertoire includes the solo concertos by Schumann, Dvořák, Shostakovich (no. 1) and Haydn (no. 2), which he played with orchestra. He played at the Cello Biennial in Amsterdam, and in Barcelona with Giovanni Sollima’s cello ensemble; he performed Sollima’s Violoncelles, Vibrez! as a soloist, both at the Teatro Comunale of Bologna and in the theatre of Erl (Austria). Currently he studies at the master courses at the Pôle supérieur d’enseignement artistique in Paris and at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Enrico is an eclectic cellist and composer with countless professional experiences and high-level collaborations in every musical field and genre: B. McFerrin, Teatro Comunale of Bologna, Solisti Veneti, L. Pavarotti, R. Muti, M. Nyman, Trilok Gurtu, Zucchero, Arkè String Quartet, P. Fresu, A. Ruggiero, F. Battiato, A. Bocelli, along with many other collaborations in the fields of jazz, pop, chamber music, and as a principal cello in Italy and abroad. The arrangements they play are always their own. Their repertoire may be performed acoustically with acoustic instruments, or amplified employing acoustic or electric instruments. They have played in festivals such as "Incontri Musicali Farnesiani" (Pr), "Via Julia Music" in Mauthen Austria, Klagenfurt "VolxHaus" Austria, "Note nel bosco" in Andalo (Tn), "Eco della Musica" in Bologna, "Altotasso Music" Bologna, “Musica Valpolicella” in San Giorgio Valpolicella, “Calici di Stelle" in Rimini, "IV Rassegna musicale di Palazzo Grassi" in Bologna, "Recondite Armonie" in Brisighella (RA), "I protagonisti del jazz italiano" in Lagonegro / Sant’Arsenio (SA), "Conoscere la Musica Notti magiche al castello" in Minerbio (Bo), "Musica Insieme / Borghi e Frazioni" in San Pietro in Casale (Bo), "Sere d'estate" (Sonoris Causa) in Parma, "I concerti della Cisterna” in Monghidoro (Bo), "Musica in Vetta" in Fai della Paganella (TN), "Notturni alle Conserve” in Cesenatico, "Borgo Sonoro" (FC), GuerzonCellos-Black Afrique, S. Lazzaro (Bo), Groovin Check Jazz, Castello di Spezzano (Mo). In January 2016 they have been invited by the Italian Cultural Institute of Beijing to play in China. In 2020 they gave concerts in France (Bellenaves, Lione) and in Austria (Gewerbepark Kötschach-Mauthen). In 2015 they first album, GuerzonCellos, was released; in 2021, their second album, iClown, saw the light.

ComposersAntonio Carlos Jobim, Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Dave Brubeck, Guerzon Cellos, Joe Zawinul, Pat Metheny, Shigeru UmebayashiBiographies

Antônio Carlos Jobim
(b Rio de Janeiro, 25 Jan 1927; d New York, 8 Dec 1994). Brazilian composer, pianist, guitarist and arranger. In his early teens he took piano lessons from Koellreutter and later from Branco and Tomás Terán, and also studied orchestration, harmony and composition. In the mid-1940s he began to work as a pianist in the bars and nightclubs of Rio's beach areas of Copacabana and Ipanema. In 1952 he worked as an arranger for the recording firm Continental and his first recorded pieces appeared in the following year. He became the artistic director for the Odeon label in 1956 and began a lifelong association with the poet Vinicius de Morais, composing and conducting the music for the play Orfeu da Conceição.

Bill Evans (1929-1980) was an American jazz pianist and composer whose harmonic imagination, lyrical touch and approach to ensemble interplay helped reshape modern jazz piano. He recorded with Miles Davis and developed a particularly influential trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. His later collaborations included Eddie Gomez, Jim Hall and Tony Bennett. Alongside his work as an improviser, he wrote compositions that entered the jazz repertoire, including Waltz for Debby, Peace Piece and Time Remembered.

Chick Corea was an American jazz pianist and composer. His work encompasses acoustic jazz, electric ensembles and chamber collaborations. Sonia Schiavone adds her own lyrics to his Windows on Come - Eden!.

Dave Brubeck (b Concord, CA, 6 Dec 1920; d Norwalk, 5 dec 2012). American jazz composer, pianist and bandleader. He received early training in classical music from his mother, a pianist, and by the age of 13 he was performing professionally with local jazz groups. He was a music major at the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California, studied compositon with Milhaud (1946) and, with fellow students, founded the experimental Jazz Workshop Ensemble, which recorded in 1949 as the Dave Brubeck Octet. Also in 1949, he organized the Dave Brubeck Trio. With the addition of the alto saxophonist Paul Desmond (1951), Brubeck thereafter led a quartet. In 1967 Brubeck disbanded, ostensibly to concentrate on composing, but he soon formed a new quartet that included Gerry Mulligan (until 1972).

The Brubeck quartet was immensely popular on college campuses in the 1950s; the album Jazz at Oberlin, recorded in concert at that college in 1953, contains some of Brubeck's and especially Desmond's finest improvisations. During the 1950s and 60s Brubeck began experimenting with time signatures unusual to jazz, such as 5/4, 9/8 and 11/4. By 1959 he had recorded the first jazz instrumental piece to sell a million copies – Paul Desmond's Take Five (in 5/4 metre), which was relased with his own Blue Rondo à la Turk (in 9/8, grouped 2+2+2+3).

Brubeck, who considers himself in essence ‘a composer who plays the piano’, has written and, in some instances, recorded several large-scale compositions since the 1960s, including ballets, a musical, oratorios, cantatas and works for jazz combo and orchestra. In the 1970s he organized several new quartets which at various times included one or more of his sons Darius (keyboards), Chris (bass guitar and bass trombone) and Danny (drums) and (in the 1980s and 90s) the clarinettist Bill Smith, from the 1940s octet. His many honours include the National Music Council's American Eagle Award (1988) and a Lifetime Achievement award (1996) from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Guerzon Cellos: This duo is composed by two cellists, father and son, who engage in works ranging from the Baroque era to jazz and rock, and include original works. They give life to an extraordinarily unique concert, where music has neither genre nor age, but only different colours.
The band was born at home, when a very young Tiziano asked to be presented with his first cello. Later, in 2009, he was awarded first prize at the Early Music competition in Padua (2009); in 2010 and 2011, in duo with pianist Nicolas Giacomelli, he was awarded first prize at the Pianoro competition, near Bologna. In 2016 he graduated with honours and special praise at the Conservatory of Bologna. He performed already in many concerts as the principal cello in chamber orchestras such as Arkè Orchestra, Cembal Orchestra, Orchestra Senza Spine, Dalla Classica, Leipzig Conservatory and Lorelay in Germany, frequently performing as a soloist or principal cello, and playing the solo parts of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, in Puccini’s Tosca and in Rossini’s Guglielmo Tell. His repertoire includes the solo concertos by Schumann, Dvořák, Shostakovich (no. 1) and Haydn (no. 2), which he played with orchestra. He played at the Cello Biennial in Amsterdam, and in Barcelona with Giovanni Sollima’s cello ensemble; he performed Sollima’s Violoncelles, Vibrez! as a soloist, both at the Teatro Comunale of Bologna and in the theatre of Erl (Austria). Currently he studies at the master courses at the Pôle supérieur d’enseignement artistique in Paris and at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Enrico is an eclectic cellist and composer with countless professional experiences and high-level collaborations in every musical field and genre: B. McFerrin, Teatro Comunale of Bologna, Solisti Veneti, L. Pavarotti, R. Muti, M. Nyman, Trilok Gurtu, Zucchero, Arkè String Quartet, P. Fresu, A. Ruggiero, F. Battiato, A. Bocelli, along with many other collaborations in the fields of jazz, pop, chamber music, and as a principal cello in Italy and abroad. The arrangements they play are always their own. Their repertoire may be performed acoustically with acoustic instruments, or amplified employing acoustic or electric instruments. They have played in festivals such as "Incontri Musicali Farnesiani" (Pr), "Via Julia Music" in Mauthen Austria, Klagenfurt "VolxHaus" Austria, "Note nel bosco" in Andalo (Tn), "Eco della Musica" in Bologna, "Altotasso Music" Bologna, “Musica Valpolicella” in San Giorgio Valpolicella, “Calici di Stelle" in Rimini, "IV Rassegna musicale di Palazzo Grassi" in Bologna, "Recondite Armonie" in Brisighella (RA), "I protagonisti del jazz italiano" in Lagonegro / Sant’Arsenio (SA), "Conoscere la Musica Notti magiche al castello" in Minerbio (Bo), "Musica Insieme / Borghi e Frazioni" in San Pietro in Casale (Bo), "Sere d'estate" (Sonoris Causa) in Parma, "I concerti della Cisterna” in Monghidoro (Bo), "Musica in Vetta" in Fai della Paganella (TN), "Notturni alle Conserve” in Cesenatico, "Borgo Sonoro" (FC), GuerzonCellos-Black Afrique, S. Lazzaro (Bo), Groovin Check Jazz, Castello di Spezzano (Mo). In January 2016 they have been invited by the Italian Cultural Institute of Beijing to play in China. In 2020 they gave concerts in France (Bellenaves, Lione) and in Austria (Gewerbepark Kötschach-Mauthen). In 2015 they first album, GuerzonCellos, was released; in 2021, their second album, iClown, saw the light.

Joe Zawinul (1932–2007) was an Austrian keyboard player and composer whose work helped shape jazz fusion. After moving to the United States, he worked with Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis before co-founding Weather Report with Wayne Shorter.

His music combined melodic invention, electronic keyboards and rhythmic influences from many cultures. His best-known compositions include Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, In a Silent Way and Birdland, first released on Weather Report’s Heavy Weather. He later continued his musical explorations with the Zawinul Syndicate. G B Orchestra performs Birdland on Hybrid.

Pat(rick Bruce) Metheny
(b Lee’s Summit, MO, 12 Aug 1954). American jazz-fusion guitarist, composer and bandleader. He started on the trumpet, but at the age of 14 took up the guitar. In his late teens he enrolled at the University of Miami but was so proficient that he was appointed as a guitar instructor in his second semester. In 1973 he began teaching the guitar at the Berklee College of Music and in 1974 he joined Gary Burton’s group, at which point he took up the 12-string electric guitar to differentiate his sound from that of Burton’s other guitarist, Mick Goodrick. He left Burton in 1977 and formed a quartet that included the keyboard player and composer Lyle Mays, who has remained as Metheny’s longstanding associate into the 1990s. Away from the quartet, Metheny and Mays joined Joni Mitchell (1979), and Metheny spent two months in 1980 performing with the tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman, the double bass player Charlie Haden and Paul Motian. In 1981 he established a quintet that included Michael Brecker. In these settings Metheny has toured almost unceasingly, establishing a large and wide audience for his music. In the early 1990s he also toured and recorded in a quartet with Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette, worked on other projects with Haden, Jim Hall and John Scofield, and with Holland and Roy Haynes.

Shigeru Umebayashi is a Japanese composer best known internationally for film music. His work includes the music associated with Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love and 2046, as well as collaborations with other Asian and international filmmakers. His lyrical melodies and distinctive instrumental colours have also inspired concert arrangements, including the version performed by GuerzonCellos on iClown.

Album notes

Clown symbolizes the magical balance between a classical musical rationality and a modern improvisational craze. The performing musicians are half acrobats, half clowns; they display skill, technique and feeling; at times they are melancholic, at times slightly disrespectful of classicism; they are innovators, gazing with an eye to the present and with one to the future, but never despising the past, whence the cello comes. The homage to Brubeck opens the CD and highlights the rhythmic and melodic soul that GuerzonCellos seek in their songs. In pieces such as The…

Read the complete album notesClose full notes

Clown symbolizes the magical balance between a classical musical rationality and a modern improvisational craze. The performing musicians are half acrobats, half clowns; they display skill, technique and feeling; at times they are melancholic, at times slightly disrespectful of classicism; they are innovators, gazing with an eye to the present and with one to the future, but never despising the past, whence the cello comes.
The homage to Brubeck opens the CD and highlights the rhythmic and melodic soul that GuerzonCellos seek in their songs. In pieces such as The Bells we are captured by an “Italian” melodicism. While the music maintains a constant beat, it is occasionally interrupted by themes and counterthemes, such as happens in Strange (where the discourse is suspended for a while, as in a kind of recitative) or in Psychedelic (which, instead, softens the pulsating tones of a dialogue between two voices, later to resume it in the finale). Armando’s Rhumba and the blues Interplay pay homage to two great jazz composers and pianists, demonstrating the high esteem in which we held them. Taglia(n)tella Bolognese is a wordplay, which, in Italian, unites the words tarantella and tagliatella in a kind of musico-gastronomic specialty, merging the Neapolitan and Bolognese traditions.
Pat Metheny is yet another composer who, similar to Chick Corea, was able to master many styles: James proves this, displaying an American type of lyricism which he was able to express also in his soundtracks, not only in his jazz works.
Five for two is the only piece in this album where GuerzonCellos, through overdubbing, creates a work for five cellos: once more, and along with 4567 Little Stars, it expresses how important it is for GuerzonCellos to employ unconventional rhythmic components (the so-called odd rhythms), merging them with melodic elements, as frequently happens with folk music, and recalling the traditions from the Balkans or Africa.
Bachato is a clear reference to the great J. S. Bach, once more with a little wordplay, meaning, this time, someone with “Bach-itis”.
Agua de beber embodies the essence of Bossa nova, as celebrated by the immense Jobim, whose unique style influenced thousands of musical works in the following years.
Birdland is a milestone in the Jazz-fusion genre: as a merging of styles, it could not be missing in this musical miscellany. It is similar to the dreamy, shameless and playful The clown, which lends its title to the entire album and resumes the jesting spirit of GuerzonCellos. Fairy tale closes the album, and, similar to In the mood for love, it tells us a tale: the former speaks of a magical enchanted world which we imagine and desire; the latter of the story we know from the celebrated movie.

Reviews

Selected awards, reviews and interviews. Radio broadcasts and podcasts are listed separately below.

More selected reviews

L’Isola che non c’era

Review · Alberto Bazzurro

Bazzurro finds the duo’s playing technically and interpretatively effervescent and the listening experience sparkling, while adding that it can remain somewhat on the surface.

Read the review ↗ - L’Isola che non c’era

Recording details

Publication

Format
1 Cd
Publication year
2021