Suite 10 Years Anniversary

Another RED Trio commitment is the determination to operate in a democratic fashion, avoiding the keyboard and rhythm section dynamics of your average piano trio. Pinheiro’s “Corrente” flirts with disruption of that rule by placing his piano at the music’s center. But his rumbling presence provides more sonic foundation than authoritarian direction, with subsections of horns and percussion swirling and subsiding like a ballet performed atop a mesa by a troupe of tornadoes.

Pinheiro's half-hour opening, "Corrente," presents a seamless series of instrumental combinations in quick-witted interplay. It begins with tinnitus level electronics from Carlos Santos which develop into a tangle of string plucks, sorties and taps from the threesome of Faustino, violist Ernesto Rodrigues and cellist Ricardo Jacinto. Perhaps inevitably, the brightest spots arrive when the RED Trio itself comes to the fore, at two points during the proceedings, first with Butcher and later Ståhl. The track finally builds to a seething ensemble, with Vicente's brassy shimmer a prominent texture before descending into murmurs then silence.

In February 2018, Lisbon’s RED Trio gathered friends from Portugal and beyond to record a tenth anniversary suite. Across the three parts, RED are joined by combinations of saxophone, trumpet, trombone, vibraphone, cello and electronics. Pianist Rodrigo Pinheiro’s “Corrente” has a beautiful feature for vibist Mattias Ståhl, and an animated conversation between the horns in which Luís Vicente’s spit valve trumpet takes a star turn. Featuring Miguel Abreu’s haunted vocals, drummer Gabriel Ferrandini’s “Mais Vale” is a slow crawl of piano clusters and abstracted blues, like Jandek via Morton Feldman. Bassist Hernâni Faustino’s “Ditirambo” has a similar preoccupation with space, as Pinheiro’s questioning chords give way to Ferrandini’s skittering drums. John Butcher’s saxophone heralds the introduction of the other players, but even in the more dramatic ensemble passages, there’s an eerie sense of drift.

 This is a story that, at least for me, goes back to the humble beginnings of the Jazz Composers Orchestra with Carla Bley and Michael Mantler in front, and the larger ensembles and contexts one has heard the pianist Cecil Taylor in. In particular, I think it does prevails in Pinheiro's excellent piano playing, especially on the first sequence.

Sometimes, when the music already seems to be installed and in a state of flux, a totally purposeless piano emerges (Pinheiro) that changes the chamber parameters of the music and with it come two tenor saxophones (apparently those of Rodrigo Amado and Pedro Sousa, because in the Also gathered is John Butcher, who recorded two albums with the Portuguese, “Empire” and “Summer Skyshift”), a trumpet (Luís Vicente) and a cavalcade “drive” aligned with free jazz. The piece in question, “Corrente”, does not stop there: there is a sudden pause and what follows combines computer (the aforementioned Carlos Santos) and percussion (David Maranha joins Ferrandini). What we hear in this part is an electroacoustic piece that then breaks up again with the piano, in a magnificent solo that chases the clusters of notes of a Cecil Taylor. Another solo is provided, that of the vibraphone by Mattias Stahl, guest of the Red Trio on the album “North and the Red Stream”, and yet another one, that of Butcher's soprano sax, which calms the general intensity. Arrived here, the piano (Pinheiro is the author of the piece), the vibraphone, the soprano and the double bass by Faustino are harmolodically solarized (in other words, together, without hierarchical positions). Then Vicente's trumpet returns, piercing through the mass that grows until the “grand finale” and the dissipation led by Ernesto Rodrigues. A delight.

The first track, called "Corrente" is written by Rodrigo Pinheiro, as an half hour long magnificent piece for the ensemble, and it by itself can be considered a suite, with its varying subthemes and thematic shifts, ranging from slow fragile textures to intense and dense interaction, with all restraints dropping away near the end of the improvisation.

Rodrigo Pinheiro’s work resides at the intersection of free improvisation and high modernism, with quicksilver meetings of design, impulse and chance. Along with Butcher, Ståhl and Red Trio, he draws on several musicians associated with Creative Sources Records’ large ensembles: violist Ernesto Rodrigues, electronic musician Carlos Santos and alto saxophonist Nuno Torres, along with trumpeter Luis Vicente and cellist Ricardo Jacinto. “Corrente” (chain) begins at the edge of inaudibility until Ernesto Rodrigues’ skittering, splintering viola and Ricardo Jacinto’s plucked cello emerge against the plosives of Faustino’s bass, all eventually linked by the swirl of Ståhl’s abstracted vibraphone and Pinheiro’s drum-like prepared piano. The work stretches to 33 minutes, momentarily thinning, becoming more spacious, then creating contrasting phases of dense activity.