David Maranha / Rodrigo Amado: Wrecks

There was a children's television show that aired every Saturday morning in the 1960s where the host faced the camera while holding up a looking glass. He would say something to this effect: "Hello friends, today I see Billy, Allison, Teddy, etc." Those watching thrilled to hear their name or the name of a sibling or friend. In some eerie way, viewers might have the same reaction listening to Wrecks by the Portuguese duo of saxophonist Rodrigo Amado and electric organist David Maranha. Recorded at Escola do Largo in Lisbon on June 4th, 2023, the single 44-minute track holds up that metaphorical looking glass to elicit the same kind of excitement and remembrance stirred by that children's television host.

Amado has been a major force in the Portuguese and international jazz scene for nearly three decades. He leads several bands, including The Attic and Motion Trio, and can be heard with the likes of Alexander von Schlippenbach, Evan Parker, Joe McPhee, Luís Lopes and Chris Corsano. One can theorize that this recording was predicted by his unaccompanied recording, Refraction Solo: Live At Church Of The Holy Ghost (Trost, 2022). Collaborating with Maranha is perhaps the natural evolution from Amado's solo performance. Maranha's role here as a quasi-minimalist sound generator and technician is to create a soundstage, albeit a noisy one, for Amado to solo over.

Maranha's electric organ provides a drone-like sound throughout the session; it ranges from a sizzling quiet to a sparking noise. Amado counters with waves of overblown saxophone. Your looking glass may reflect a late-John Coltrane/Pharoah Sanders atmosphere or that of Mats Gustafsson's experiments with Merzbow aka Masami Akita. As the 44-minute track advances, the vibe flows into a harmonium-sounding drone, not unlike that of Coltrane's classic composition "India." On second thought, when you hold up your personal-looking glass, you might hear something completely different.