The Toronto-based guitarist and composer David Occhipinti navigates effortlessly between jazz and contemporary written music. Looking Glass, for those who would like to taste the artist’s delicious hybrid creations, is probably an excellent starting point. The format chosen by Occhipinti is that of a string trio (violin-viola-cello) and guitar (Occhipinti himself).
Despite some modernist harmonic explorations, Occhipinti’s music has a mischievous and playful quality. This is the case with the Six Bagatelles that open the program, as well as with Frumious Bandersnatch, a reference to Alice in Wonderland. In both cases, the music seems to emanate from various whimsical, surreal characters. A teasing side is especially evident in Frumious Bandersnatch, the most substantial piece on the album, at about 13 minutes. In this piece, Occhipinti also uses a specially modified guitar that allows him to generate truly surprising sounds, but above all perfectly in sync with the absurdity that can be inferred in parallel with the source material.
The last four pieces feature special guests: Beverley Johnston, sparkling on vibraphone and crotales in Sonyshnyky (Sunflowers); mezzo Alex Hetherington, with beautiful tenderness in Sotto le Stelle (the most conventionally lyrical piece of the program) and appropriately impassive in the raucous You Stepped Out, while her companions frequently generate all sorts of disruptive noises; and finally soprano Charlotte Mundy, bouncing like the Swingle Singers in Who’s Your Dada?
The dream of Gunther Schuller (20th-century composer) of a “Third Stream” between jazz and contemporary classical music is realised here with a very natural spontaneity, which its creator never ceased to defend, despite the many doubts that existed at the time. Where the American musical activist sometimes forced the two genres to marry too violently (and too cerebrally), a new generation has instinctively integrated the beginnings and managed to externalise all its creative potential in a frankly inspiring way, I would even say more authentically. We have come a long way since the experiments of the 1960s, and the result is, my faith, quite happy.
Looking Glass will please all those who love creative music without it necessarily being experimental, without being limited by stylistic labels.
David Occhipinti – guitar
Aline Homzy – violin
Steven Dann – viola
Maria Zachariadou – cello
Invités :
Beverley Johnston – vibraphone, crotales (08)
Alex Hetherington – mezzo-soprano (09, 11)
Charlotte Mundy – soprano (10)
