Jazz in Città

Of the many musicians that the German ECM label, for which he has been recording since 2006, has helped to make internationally known, Nik Bärtsch from Switzerland is certainly one of the most original interpreters of current European jazz. His music, which he calls ‘Ritual Groove Music’, shows a strong affinity with organised spatial architectures and the principles of repetition and reduction as well as with complex rhythms. It is a concentrate of the universal sound and not of a single national or stylistic tradition, and changes continuously through superimpositions, directing the listener’s attention to minimal variations and phrasing.

Bergamo Jazz remembers, together with his brother Franco, musicologist, and the journalist Carlo Maria Cella, one of the photographers who most contributed to documenting the festival and making its name known internationally. The photographs of Keith Jarrett, taken in the Città Alta in 1973, and of the Art Ensemble of Chicago the following year are just two examples. Photographs, which soon became iconic, literally flew around the world, appearing in magazines, books and record covers.

Oliphantre is an explosion of sounds, both provocative and romantic. Hints of hip hop, mordant lines of rock and punk, grooves and melodic lyricisms are mixed with spontaneity and improvisation. Texts and music merge to give life to an inner quest for that sound imagery, those invisible movements that overpower attempts at rational explanation. With Oliphantre, Francesco Diodati, Leïla Martial and Stefano Tamborrino move smoothly within the world of jazz and its most unpredictable contaminations.