Giancarlo Nino Locatelli: TILIETULUM solo version

The best poems are the ones we write for ourselves. Like poetry, the music a talented artist creates for him or herself is the deepest, most personal expression possible. Like Joe McPhee's Tenor (Hat Hut, 1977) recorded is a farmhouse in Switzerland, Giancarlo Nino Locatelli's Tilietulum recreates the countryside in his solo recording from Area Sismica, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy.

Mention of the countryside comes up because Locatelli incorporated the sounds of his familial lands in his previous solo recording Situations (Giancarlo "Nino" Locatelli Plays Steve Lacy) (We Insist!, 2018). There, recording in a house in the mountains, he opened a window to incorporate the sounds of crickets and cowbells on one track. Here, he invites the cows into the studio. Well, not actually the cows, but their bells to evoke memories of his grandparents' land in the Taleggio Valley in Lombardy. The fourteen tracks, all improvised, come from a very private and deeply personal place.

His recording setup with alto clarinet also includes multiple cowbells hanging from his two arms. The slightest movement of his body causes the bells to chime—a better description might be jangle, clank, or rattle. Locatelli is freed, not bound, by the cowbells dangling from his arms. They accentuate his gestures, both musically and physically. They draw attention to both his loud horn soundings and the dancing imaginary cows, even causing Locatlli's horn to, let's say, hoof it. More than notes, he plies us with his voice and is a master of both overblowing and breath. Locatelli hints at Thelonious Monk's "Pannonica" with "Tilietulum Decima Pars," but only hints at its melody before chasing some cows across the valley.