Jazz Articles about Andrea Centazzo

Ictus Festival 2022

by Luciano Rossetti
August 30, 2022

Andrea Centazzo: Guitars

by Elliott Simon
March 3, 2010

Live improvisation is ephemeral yet creative, a fleeting sonic moment in time that is lost as quickly as sound dissipates through space. Paradoxically, a recording of that same performance is eternally uninspired, each playing being identical to the one before it. For three decades, percussionist/electronicist Andrea Centazzo has been among the most successful at blurring that dialectic. Centazzo blurs lots of things though and in the process he has amassed a daunting archive of releases, many on ...

DEPARTED ANGELS

by Jerry D'Souza
August 7, 2009

Intuition plays the dominant role in the interaction between percussionist Andrea Centazzo and seven guitar improvisers on this set of collaborations recorded over a wide span of time. Centazzo plays in duo and trio settings, occasionally adding another voice. What transpires is an explosion of processes that take the art of invention to a new high. Centazzo has been an active musician and composer for over 25 years, covering a wide and impressive range of styles including opera, ...

Andrea Centazzo: West Coast Trio

by Jerry D'Souza
June 21, 2008

A man of many talents, Andrea Centazzo is a composer at home with classical, jazz and experimental music. As a musician, he plays percussion and keyboards, and is not immune to sampling to add to the impact.

Centazzo's music breathes and reverberates from the input of his band. He calls for an intuitive response to develop the theme and both Kai Kurosawa (guitar) and Motoka Honda (piano) help realize the depth and tangibility of his compositions. ...

ROVA Saxophone Quartet and Andrea Centazzo: The Bay

by Jerry D'Souza
August 24, 2007

Ictus Records was co-founded by percussionist Andrea Centazzo with Carla Lugli in the late 1970s. The focus was on improvised music, contemporary styling and avant-garde jazz. Centazzo and Lugli ran the label until 1984 when the financial burden became too heavy to carry on. During that time, Ictus had a strong catalog with recordings of Centazzo, Steve Lacy, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Gianluigi Trovesi and ROVA. Saxophone Quartet among others.

Ictus was resurrected after a hiatus of thirty years. Several ...

Andrea Centazzo: The Heart of Wax

by John Barron
August 22, 2007

In 2001, Italian composer/percussionist Andrea Centazzo assembled a first-rate ensemble of strings, winds, keyboards and percussion to record his adventurous ballet suite, The Heart of Wax. The music, commissioned by the arts council of the municipality of Cento, was written for a forgotten libretto by Italian artist Alberto Martini (1876-1954). Newly edited and re-mastered for Centazzo's own Ictus Records, The Heart of Wax casts the Italian free-jazz pioneer in the role of composer/conductor, demonstrating superlative mastery of orchestration. ...

Andrea Centazzo, Perry Robinson, Nobu Stowe: The Soul in the Mist

by John Barron
August 17, 2007

On The Soul in the Mist, legendary composer/percussionist Andrea Centazzo leads a dazzling set of introspective, communal improvisation with the help of renowned clarinetist Perry Robinson and pianist Nobu Stowe. The musical explorations on this live recording, taken from two east coast concerts in November of 2006, have a meditative, trance-like quality, spacious and hauntingly patient.

For the most part, Centazzo defines the mood of each selection with definitive percussion introductions. However, the minimalist nature to his compositions allows each ...