Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Alessandro Bosetti: Her Name

172

Alessandro Bosetti: Her Name

By

View read count
Alessandro Bosetti: Her Name
Multi-instrumentalist Alessandro Bosetti's latest recording might be better-covered in the books section, because he is definitely a story teller. Her Name is presented more as a series of short stories than an improvisation.

The saxophonist, who has gained deserved attention on two Potlatch releases Places dans l'air (2003) and Phosphor (2001), moves away from his horn and into his computer. He sampled different conversations in his world travels and these "field recordings were transcribed and orchestrated for performance. Much like pianist Jason Moran's answering machine based improvisations, Bosetti takes the tone and pace of spoken and sung words (sometimes nonsense) and builds a musical short story.

The Berlin-based, Milan-born, artist prepares each piece and presents it with accompanying ensembles and instrumentation. Many might call this experimental music, but these pieces (or stories) are quite pleasant. The title track has Bosetti replaying a spoken recording, while speaking the words in tandem in English. Elsewhere he repeats the words, although he is unsure of the language and meaning. The direction, as on the wordless "Her Face, is the retelling and re-contextualizing.

When he does pick up a saxophone on "Ivory Coast, he is accompanying a narrator, electric guitar, percussion, and some eerie electric manipulations. The "conversation, foreign-accented English, is quite silly, but musical too.

The experiment comes to full realization with "Idiot. Bosetti transcribes the nonsense of a distorted short-wave radio broadcast and repeats it, as faithfully as he can, over the sample. The voice is orchestrated by both electric piano and soprano saxophone. The scratchy broadcast then extends into a group dynamic with live bass and backing singers. If this weren't experimental music, I'd say it was a brilliant piece of pop music.

Her Face is a work of genius.

Track Listing

Her Name; Her FaceMask; Ivory Coast; Idiot; It

Personnel

Alessandro Bosetti
composer / conductor

Alessandro Bosetti: voice, soprano saxophone, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, electric piano, cello, piano, harmonium, electric organ, electronics, short-wave radio, conversations; Koen Nutters: double bass; Ernst Karel: trumpet; Morten J. Olsen: drums.

Album information

Title: Her Name | Year Released: 2007 | Record Label: Crouton Music

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.