Steve Coleman & Five Elements
01-09-2006 Live @ Reggia Punico-Fenicia Monte Sirai

One of the most eagerly awaited exhibitions among the numerous and multifaceted ones scheduled on the agenda in the usually rich and musically excellent festival, which for the past twenty-one years takes shape at the decline of the scorching summer season and responds to the suffix “Ai confini tra Sardegna e Jazz”* was without a doubt that of the erudite and cultured saxophonist from the Big Apple, Monsieur Steve Coleman, and his multiethnic and multicolored ensemble composed of five extraordinarily close-knit and balanced elements.

For institutional correctness (?) or for undeniable merits achieved on the field (stage), I would gladly mention the formation that had the burden/honor to serve as an enjoyable opening act to the measured and enveloping musings of the renowned transoceanic Sextet.

Guitto Gargle, a young and promising tricolor quintet (winners of the competition concerning emerging realities in last year's edition) convinced most of the goodness of their (not a few) means in the very short half-hour available, through the expression of their performing and then musical-writing qualities by way of an interesting set composed of sometimes edgy, if not bizarre, modern miscellaneous quite-jazz-hint-funk: the request for an encore (not exactly customary for an opening act) at the end of the performance did not happen, so to speak, by chance.

His saxophon-magnificentzia Sir Stefano Coleman, an extraordinary instrumentalist also of the highest profile, considered (often rightly) one of the most brilliant and progressive minds of current modern mixed-jazz internationally, and his musically admirable, not-at-all-Bessonistic, five elements, put on one side a serious test and on the other delighted (i.e.: I glimpsed quite a few sneaky exits before the concert, so to speak, was concluded), the really anxious and considerable crowd perched within the hemicycle at the narrow arena located atop the wonderful hill hosting the archaeologically relevant and archaic Punic-Phoenician village of Monte Sirai.

Anyone who had the chance to overhear, and possibly appreciate, the latest studio realization [“Weaving Symbolics” ’06], found in its fullness, in the live context, todos the pros und the cons of the case: the perfect exegesis of the new Colemanian path. Compared to the original studio instrumentation, the total absence (on stage) of flute and piano is noticeable, but thanks to the starry sky, the various Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Tim Albright (trombone), a wildly and stunningly shorts-clad (note de-meterological: a penetrating humidity gradually enveloped those present) and flip-flop-wearing Mr. Thomas Morgan {No, chromosomal theory of inheritance relationship} on double bass, and finally a hyperbolic Dafnis Prieto (washing powder containers) managed to render such deficiencies almost imperceptible during the two sinuously elongated and (at brief intervals) steep hours of execution.

Six/seven fluid movements, almost an acoustic continuum, wisely paced, of ironclad and engaging and at times sincerely exciting progressive jazz-performance: the phonetic vocals (not particularly powerful vocals) of genetically Taiwanese and graceful Mademoiselle Shyu integrate and blend perfectly into the tangled single cauldron created by the sextet on stage. The only flaw, if we dare to define it so ungenerously, is a certain, episodically slight, structural monothematicity among the various compositions: this most likely caused the (practically) no Bissatorea request at the end of the still commendable performance (we were also dangerously approaching the extremely late hour): this may have influenced a certain hurried/coldness in abandoning the freezing positions.

Well then, in leaving you almost in the dark about the de-narrated (extremely confusingly) musical event, I announce to you with some utmost+joy that just a few hours ago I glimpsed the sensational ‘World Saxophone Quartet’ in action: thus, in the future reading event, I would support an irreverent “Cavoli Vobis”.

* curated by the admirable association Sant’Anna Arresi Jazz: an event which on this occasion did not take place, as usual, in the small homonymous reference municipality (also known to many for being crossed by the crystalline and fresh waters surrounding the southwest of the Insula Sarda), forcibly [?] itinerant and currently taking place among various localities constituting the recently established Province of Sulcis Iglesiente {closed megalithic geo-parenthesis}