The gifted but ill-fated pianist Luca Alex Flores (1956-1995) left relatively few recordings behind. Splasc(h) has done listeners a service by reviving Riddles, his 1986 duet album with baritone saxophonist/bass clarinetist Bruno Marini, originally issued on the LMJ label. The recording quality could be better: there’s some fuzz and hiss, the piano doesn’t sound great, and (for reasons best known to the original engineer) cavernous artificial reverb has been applied to the horn but not to the piano. The music itself is good enough to make light of such shortcomings, however. The pieces offer an orderly kind of free playing, situated halfway between modal jazz and more dissonantly “outside” kinds of free jazz. There are glimpses of familiar styles in Flores’ playing – the influence of Paul Bley is at times audible, and there’s even a direct homage to Tristano’s relentless left-hand bass-lines on parts 1 and 5 of “Inverse Intermission” – but Flores rarely sounds like anything but his own man. Marini’s most expressive instrument is the baritone, on which his terse, fragmentary phrasing is cushioned by the tenderness of his tone; on bass clarinet he is altogether more abrupt. Originally a pithy 31 minutes in length, Riddles has been expanded in this reissue with 26 minutes of unreleased material. The new pieces (numbered “Inverse Intermission” parts 1 through 6) are more orthodoxly jazz-based than the original album, containing some of Flores’ funkiest left-hand work, though there’s an unexpectedly forceful “outside” episode on “Inverse Intermission (part 2).” The best stuff here, though, is still the eight tracks originally released.

Carlo Actis Dato is a compulsive globetrotter, always happy to pack his horns and hop on a plane. In February 2002 he embarked on his first tour of the States and Canada; his new CD American Tour is something of a “what I did on my holidays” scrapbook, compiling portions of five different concerts. The CD’s bittiness is frustrating – most tracks are excerpted from longer performances – and these off-the-cuff collaborations between Dato and various local musicians are hit-or-miss. But Dato’s liveliness and blunt good cheer (he tootles as merrily as a kid with a kazoo) are enough to overcome any longueurs. I was present at his Valentine’s Day gig with baritone saxophonist David Mott in Toronto; though pretty darn enjoyable at the time, it emerges on disc as little more than one-dimensional riffing. Too bad. Two trios from Chicago (cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and drummer Glenn Kotche) and Vancouver (guitarist Ron Samworth and drummer Dylan van der Schyff) work rather better. “Dawn,” from the Chicago gig, is perhaps this disc’s most memorable performance: its first half is a gorgeous freeform ballad (announced by birdcalls) that makes a nice change from Dato’s usual merry-prankster routine. A duet in Boston with cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum is also excellent, characterized by close, quickwitted interplay. Interspersed among the disc’s ensemble selections are three solo pieces by Dato, a characteristic blend of pancultural dance-music and cartoonish overblowing. In truth, it’s hard to see anyone but hardcore fans of Dato’s music getting a lot out of American Tour; I’d rather hear his work in more established contexts, like his longstanding quartet with Piero Ponzo, Enrico Fazio and Fiorenzo Sordini. But for now this CD’s a decent stopgap.

The updated fusion settings of Roberto Ottaviano’s Pow Wow – complete with buzzy Fender Rhodes accompaniments – make for an unlikely context for this particularly refined saxophonist. Ottaviano’s soprano – slender, graceful and very pure in tone – is explicitly indebted to Steve Lacy, but it also has a piping country-melody turn of phrase recalling John Surman. Gianluca Petrella and Beppe Caruso alternate trombone duties across the disc; though both acquit themselves well, the disc’s strongest tracks are those featuring Caruso: a blues called “The Chromatic Spy,” the title-track, and the sprightly freebop closer “Effetti Personali.” A lone soprano-piano duet on “Young and Foolish” also works out nicely: its slow-motion dream-dissection of the tune recalls Ran Blake or a Lacy/Waldron ballad. Nothing on Pow Wow presses its claims too forcefully on the listener, but it’s nonetheless a pleasant, listenable album.

Nate Dorward

Cadence, July 2004