Lina Allemano - Canons
The Free Jazz Collective 0
By Sammy Stein
Lina Allemano is a Canadian trumpeter, composer, improviser, and bandleader with an international career primarily in improvised, jazz, and experimental settings. She splits her time between Berlin and Toronto and is recognized as one of the leading innovative trumpeters on the scene today. As well as collaborating with important international artists, she leads five groundbreaking projects and runs her artist-run label Lumo Records. ‘Canons’ is the second 2023 release form Allemano, and follows Pipe Dream, the release by Allemano’s quartet, the Lina Allemano Four, in May.
Canons (For Trumpet and Creative Chamber Ensembles) features Allemano performing nine original pieces, both composed and improvised, with five different creative chamber ensembles. This special-edition release coincides with Lumo Records' 20 th anniversary.
Of the recording, Allemano says, “I started writing canons as a fun and challenging compositional game of sorts. Five of the pieces here (tracks 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8) are written for trumpet and various unusual chamber ensembles in either 2, 3, or 4-part canon, all incorporating improvised sections alongside composed material. Each piece employs aspects of the canon form as a common thread, including the improvised pieces by trumpet/electronics duo Bloop.”
Allemano is respected by musicians, as becomes clear whenever mention of her name occurs. From the opening track, the music is lively and powerful and the canon, in terms of counterpoint-based music-making, could hardly be more explored. Lead and follower voices/voice creating the canons intertwine and bounce off each other in tracks such as the opener ‘3 Trumpet Canon’, including some pure air column versions of the melody.
Across the tracks, there are many techniques employed, including flutter tongue with its wonderful, growly tones, and close harmonies, such as on ‘Shadows’ (track 3). There is a link between different styles and genres. On ‘Bobby’s Canon’ the bowed ‘cello leads the ensemble as the trumpet and clarinet repeat the time patterns and phrases. By the end of this track, there is a certain glorious disassembly of cohesion as the individual musicians take their own diverse pathways – something that makes it at once glorious and beautiful - before the repeated harmonic descents restore order and a different kind of beauty.
There is much to recommend to the listener on this album, from the effects and coalescence of sound on ‘Shadows’ to the playful light-hearted steps of ‘Butterscones’ sandwiching an ethereal middle section, with the guitar and double bass adding their plucked tones, or the round-like canons of ‘Wilds’.
‘Twinkle Toes’ is the freely improvised track of the album and captures the outstanding contributions of the ensemble of double bass, trumpet, synth, and guitar as they improvise and then come together in a classically arranged section, the switch heralded by trumpet melody, which the others chime and echo.
The recording is a deep exploration of canons in many forms and formats but remains true to the concept of a melody, and imitations of that melody forming the essence of each piece. The musicians transform the melodies sometimes – and in some places, the original is apparently ‘lost’ briefly, before being retrieved by a musical diversion, having been never really lost to the player, but they know what they are doing and have the wherewithal to achieve their aims.
This is a glorious album, well crafted, and exploring one essence of music-making proves an intriguing and expansive concept.
Canons by Lina Allemano
Personnel:
Lina Allemano, trumpet
Peggy Lee, cello (track 2)
Brodie West, clarinet (track 2)
Mike Smith, live-processing / effects (tracks 3, 5, 7, 9)
Rob Clutton, double bass (tracks 4, 6)
Ryan Driver, analog synth (tracks 4, 6)
Tim Posgate, guitar (tracks 4, 6)
Matthias Müller, trombone (track 8)
The Free Jazz Collective 0
By Stef Gijssels
At first listen, the listener will be surprised by the form of the music, namely the use of the medieval "canon", a compositional technique that uses counterpoint and thematic repetition with a specified time delay, resulting in superimposing different voices creating a kind of sonic fabric of interweaving phrases.
We have reviewed the influence of medieval music before in modern jazz
- "When Ancient Art Insprires Modern Sounds"
- Holland Baroque and Bastarda Trio
- Ove Volquartz, Gianni Mimmo, Peer Schlechta & John Hughes - Cadenza Del Crepuscolo (Amirani, 2023)
Several albums also were directly influenced by composers such as Josquin Deprez (1450-1525), Guillaume de Machaut (1300), and several others (check our Search function).
Already on Allemano's "Proof", the medieval influence was noticeable, but now she makes it the focus of the album.
The power of this albums is that it expands it into a kind of special level of ear candy, nothing pretentious or too ambitious, but playful, solemn, fun, surprising and interesting. More poetic than epic, with the right balance between composition and improvisation.
Here are Allemano's responses to my medieval references:
"Mostly I was just composing canons purely for fun and as a way to amuse and challenge myself - maybe other people would play Wordle or Sudoku for the same reasons…? I had no intention of them sounding like anything in particular but I think the very nature of the polyphonic compositional technique lends itself to sound a certain way, and of course that will reflect historical polyphonic music. I haven’t studied the music formally but I do spend a fair amount of time listening to contrapuntal and polyphonic music (mostly Bach piano works)".
"The Canon form is of course not new, but it is fairly new for me as a composer. I’ve always admired canons for the musical workmanship required to write one, but rarely tried to create my own as it's not a traditional form commonly used in my area of work. With my canons, I will not try to recreate the methods, goals or musical effects of traditional canons, but rather use the form in my own artistic context to create something new - for example: atonal canons, canons that reflect my own aesthetics of 'melody', canons that incorporate improvisation, etc. My prior compositional approach was to conceive of melodies and whole pieces in their entirety, making small adjustments only afterwards and then making further adjustments during collaborative development with my bands. With canons however, one must take an entirely different approach as a composer, as the ‘melody’ or line is the entire piece in itself and it must weave together with itself, displaced 2, 3, or 4 times, in some sort of logical/interesting way. I find this compositional approach to be fascinating and almost like some sort of musical chess game that develops slowly and incrementally as it goes, note by note. Each next note chosen in turn creates new meaning as it is stacked upon itself, displaced in the different voices. My aim with these canons is to essentially create through-composed pieces that also contain improvisation. The improvisations weave in with the canon to create an interesting effect: composed & improvised worlds meet & meld together. The listener at times detects the symmetry of the canon, perhaps only subconsciously, but it inherently creates a strong musical form. This is a departure for me as a composer, as I normally attempt to blur the line between composition and improvisation based on a compositional approach from the ‘song form’ tradition: short melodies with harmony and repeating form, along with collaborative input from band members."