What’s Up
Iman Spaargaren
“Doing nothing is no option”
The versatile reed player Iman Spaargaren touches gold with his Undercurrent Trio. Spaargaren op tenorsaxophone and (bass)clarinet, and the Argentinians Guillermo Celano (guitar) and Marcos Baggiani (drums) make a perfect match. Recently their beautiful album ‘High Tide Low Tide’ was released.
‘High Tide Low Tide’ moves from freejazz and acrobat (‘Africanea’) to tango (‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’), pop and classical music. But all music is played with a same sense of lightness and elegance. Is this eclecticism of musical styles a well-thought choice?
Soundscapes
Iman Spaargaren: “Not specifically, the compositions have been created on different moments and in different situations. ‘Africanea’ came with a melody line, Marcos started to improvise around it using African rhythms. That sounded great, so Guillermo and me went along and eventually we kicked out the melody all together! ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’, the only standard on the album, turned into a kind of tango. I tried to create a overall atmosphere. This record brings something new: I started working with soundscapes. At first I found that fooling around with electronic effects was not for me; I didn’t have the feeling it added up to my music. But after seeing John Scofield playing at the BIMhuis, I changed my mind. He knows exactly which specific sound he likes to hear at the right moment”.
“We are successful with storytelling”
It is striking that all compositions are telling a story. Spaargaren: “I just came back from Oerol Festival where I worked together with Guillermo Celano. We created a musical backdrop for the performance called ‘My Father Held A Gun’ of Sahand Sahebdivani and Raphael Rodan, a guy from Iran and a Jew. They are well-skilled storytellers and founded the Mezrab Storytelling School in Amsterdam. Together we have been touring successfully with this performance for a couple of years already. The performance is about cultural differences, father-sun relations, heroic acts and the First World War. In 2017 we won the Amsterdam Fringe Festival Gold Award. This gave us the opportunity to perform at the Brighton Fringe Festival and at the end of February we will be playing a series of shows in Brussels. This project gave us inspiration to tell stories with music on ’High Tide Low Tide’”.
The title ‘Evocation (Of Tolerance And Happiness In The Lowlands)’ hints at social involvement. “I understand of course that you can’t change the world by making one little CD, but to stay passive is no option. I’m surprised that it seems that so little musicians speak out about the situation in the world. I’m not going to run for president or join a Greenpeace team, I am a musician, so I’ll try to make my music tell something”.
Marie-Claire Melzer
