UNDERCURRENT TRIO & SUZAN VENEMAN
Cloud Song
Zennez Records
"During the recent Duketown Jazz Festival, the Undercurrent Trio with guest trumpeter Suzan Veneman gave a special performance. This performance was actually programmed at the wrong place. Not in a perfect listening room like the Toonzaal, but on a square where mainly lovers of hard funky rock jazz would come. Yet hardly anyone walked away during the concert and everyone listened breathlessly.
That was apparently due to the sincere, straight from the heart music, which was not really easy and yet turned out to be accessible. This is no different on the CD ‘Cloud Song’ that was recorded six months later. In ten new songs, all written by Iman Spaargaren, his concept of the Undercurrent Trio is shown in all its versatility.
The title track summarizes that method well. After a melodious collective beginning, Argentinean guitarist Celano slowly but surely gets loose, drummer Baggiani - also from Argentina - sets a different tempo, and Spaargaren seeks freedom on the tenor sax. With a dragging rhythm, this continues in a dreamy way in the next song ‘Buenos Aires Revisited’. Spaargaren on bass clarinet reminds us of Jimmy Giuffre, Veneman on trumpet colours the melody lines with subtle pastel shades and the dreamy atmosphere comes to life. Veneman plays the flugelhorn more often than the trumpet later on and floats freely over the chords, with an Ellington-like counter-voice from Spaargaren. The compositions have an unobtrusive beauty, unobtrusive in their apparent simplicity, and intriguing because of their hidden complexity. The musical atmosphere meanders subtly through the songs, which together form a perfect combination. The colours are bright, fade slowly and thus change colour and character. The compositions are like chapters of a larger story that belong together and in which the fiercer parts increasingly find peace in beauty. The music regularly refers to the rich history of jazz and the music is ultimately best enjoyed in the order in which it is served. The CD ends with the encore ‘Kattenbel’. Am I hearing that right? It doesn’t say so on the cover, but isn’t that an alto saxophone or is it Paul Desmond himself? Either way, ‘Cloud Song’ is pure beauty compressed onto a small silver disc" (Jazzflits, Tom Beetz).
Undercurrent Trio line-up: Suzan Veneman (trumpet, flugelhorn), Iman Spaargaren (tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet), Guillermo Celano (guitar), Marcos Baggiani (drums).
