Rafael Toral Space Trio
Rodrigo Amado 4tet
Other Recordings
Various - Clinical Anthology (2006 - 2009) CA200 free download
solo track [Drizzle] on cd5 http://www.clinicalarchives.spyw.com/
Nikolaus Gerszewski - Ordinary Music Vol. 3 CD
Sonic Scope 2008 - Live at Fonoteca Municipal de Lisboa
[one track with RED trio] CD
Potlatch - The Rrose Sélavy Show CD free download
http://www.insubordinations.net/releases.html
VGO - Stills CD
Insubordinations [One track with VGO] CD free download
http://www.insubordinations.net/releases.html
Johnny Guitar [one track with Cafe Bagdad] CD (not available)
100% [one track with Cafe Bagdad] CD (not available)
Feedback /K4 Quadrado Azul LP (not available)
K4 Quadrado Azul LP (not available)
A self-taught musician. Start playing electric bass in 1979 in several rock bands. With K4 Quadrado Azul (wins the national contest from Instituto Português da Juventude/New Culture Values in 1988). Work with theatre company, creating live music for the play "El - Levando-os aos Ombros em Passo de Marcha Sincopada ao Quarto Tempo" (Honor Mention from the award Maria Helena Perdigão, ACARTE, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1992). Since 1990 became concentrated in double bass, and began working in groups that improvised with free jazz framework.
As improviser, he work in numerous meetings and collaborations:Carlos Zíngaro, Rafael Toral, Rodrigo Amado, Nuno Rebelo, Ernesto Rodrigues, Vitor Rua, Anisotropus, Nobuyasu Furuya, Jon Irabagon, Neil Davidson, Heddy Boubaker, Katsura Yamauchi, Mats Gustafsson, Chris Corsano, Nobuyasu Furuya, Nikolaus Gerszewski, Robert Mazurek, Blaise Siwula, Virginia Genta, Daniel Carter, Federico Ughi, Floros Floridis, Matt Bauder, Dennis Gonzalez, and many others.
In 2008 put together the RED trio with pianist Rodrigo Pinheiro and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini.
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Records available Please send e-mail : faustinohernani@sapo.pt
Nobuyasu Furuya - tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, flute
Hernani Faustino - double bass
Gabriel Ferrandini - drums and percussion
Nobuyasu Furuya Trio - Bendowa (Clean Feed, 2009) ****½
There are albums that are gripping from the first moment that you listen to them, others have to ripen through repeated listens. "Bendowa", a title that refers to the book by the Japanese zen master Dogen, belongs to the first category. From the very first notes, the trio's approach is clear: lyrical, sensitive, free and creative improvisation. The lead voice is by Nobuyasu Furuya on tenor saxophone, bass clarinet and flute, with Hernani Faustino on double bass, and Gabriel Ferrandini on drums and percussion. The trio is based in Portugal and totally unknown to me. But I'm glad that's no longer the case. Furuya's tone is buttery and warm, even in the fiercest parts of the improvisations, and the Portuguese rhythm section is a perfect complement for the Japanese: their sense of "controlled passion" is just as great, as is their use of silence. In this silence, and in the calm elaboration and patient sense of pace, his apprenticeship as a cook in a zen monastery shows through, yet don't get me wrong, this is not music for meditation: it's as passionate and expressive as you could hope for, full of intensity. This is not the music of an enlightened soul. This is music of an authentic soul, a seeking soul, full of contradictions and tension. This is music of full of soul, full stop. Highly recommended.
Don't be misled by some of the Youtube clips of the trio: the music on the album is much more controlled and sophisticated, and of course with an excellent sound quality.
By Stef http://freejazz-stef.blogspot.com
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Lisbon-based saxophonist Nobuyasu Furuya takes a walk around with the saxophone masters of energy jazz: Peter Brotzmann, Frank Lowe and Roscoe Mitchell. Bendowa might have been mistaken for an early AACM recording. The Japanese-born reedsman and flutist plays here in a Portuguese trio with Gabriel Ferrandini (drums) and Hernani Faustino (bass). While the music pushes the outer edge, it never breaks down into a noise-fest. The steady groove of Ferrandini and Faustino allow for Furuya to apply his craft. His tenor on "Track 1" splats big strokes of paint all over the canvas, while "Track 2" finds him playing more traditional sounds (Japanese?) on his flute. The aggressive bass clarinet notes heard on "Track 5" float and dive into the rolling maelstrom of bass and drum animation. This is free jazz, coming from a classically trained reedsman. Maybe this new "new thing" music is the best thing to come from globalization.
Mark Corroto (all about jazz)
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Ernesto Rodrigues - viola
Neil Davidson - acoustic guitar
Guilherme Rodrigues - cello
Hernani Faustino - double bass
Looking back over recent posts this morning it occurred to me that it has been a good while since I wrote about any acoustic improv, and even longer since I took a Creative Sources disc from the pile to play. Tonight then I have been listening to Fower, the latest release on Creative Sources by the quartet of Neil Davidson, (acoustic guitar) Ernesto and Guilherme Rodrigues (viola and cello respectively) and Hernani Faustino (double bass). The first three names in this version on a string quartet are all favurites of these pages, the last completely new to me.
Split into three tracks, Fower is a bit of a bumpy ride, not exactly easy listening. All of the musicians seem to grind and scrape at their instruments rather than stroke and caress them. The instruments sound as if they have been recorded up close and so everything sits in the foreground of the recording, the four musicians nudging and shoving each other’s sounds around in the search for space, the music formed from this interactive game. The first piece on Fower, named Heuch, and lasting some twenty-two minutes is a gritty, dry affair with a serrated edge. While it is always clear that we are listening to four wooden boxes with strings stretched across them, it is quite difficult to pin down sounds to particular musicians. There is little silence, and what we hear is a constantly changing series of tight musical forms made up of the musicians’ muscular, jagged inputs. While it isn’t particularly loud (its certainly not quiet either) and the sounds are maybe not as harsh as can be heard elsewhere, there is a certain aridity to the music. Like a photoshopped picture with the contrast turned right up very sound is firmly stated, and the music feels like it is has been scratched directly into the surface of the CD, such is the immediacy of the music. Mostly the instruments seem to be played with bows, but they do not all sound traditionally tuned, and their body seems to be played as often as the strings, the closely miked recording amplifying the slightest scratch and scrape into something bigger. While the four musicians are very much in tune with one another, and they merge together easily into the one writhing mass of dry sound it is hard to pick out particular voices in the music, with perhaps only Davidson’s guitar easy to identify in places.
The second track named Haugh clocks in at half the length of the first, and at just over five minutes the final Hume is half as long again. This last piece is perhaps the quietest of the trio, still utilising similar sounds but with a little more air in the music and a more delicate sense of structure. While the first two tracks barge their way out of the speaker and roll about the floor fighting, Hume sounds like a more considered affair, still full of twists and turns, but with a more composed feel. Overall Fower is a tough listen, something that needs to be engaged with fully as a listener to take anything from it. Closing your eyes and really getting to grips with the music, almost literally wrestling with its sinewy vigour reaps rewards however. The interplay between the quartet is excellent, and only under close scrutiny is this completely apparent, as picking apart Fower’s vibrating, grinding structures reveals how well these four musicians are listening to, and anticipating each other’s moves. Fower takes some work, but spend time with it and it pays you back with interest. This isn’t an album that will appear in anyone’s end of year lists, and won’t get many mentions in the hip and trendy corners of the internet, but its one that fans of good, robust and detailed improvised music should pay attention to.
Richard Pinnell
http://www.thewatchfulear.com/
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Big Group in Ponta Delgada
Available on
http://www.577records.com/
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