Dino Saluzzi

There have been two times when I have been driving and heard music on the radio that was so engaging that I had to just pull over and listen. The second time was late at night. I was driving home from the music building where I had been practicing the harpsichord for several hours. I had the classical radio station on and heard this piano music that was otherworldly.

Now, I was probably in the throes of my most vehement anti-piano period. I switched from piano to harpsichord after my teacher had been unfairly fired by the university (also, I was getting more and more into the baroque, which I could never really love on the piano), and was living with a bunch of Romantics (a string quartet that played way too much Brahms). My tolerance for nineteenth century bluster was low, and the piano epitomized nineteenth century bluster, particularly the overheated flash and dazzle from Franz Liszt.

But this music on the radio station was something else. It was spare and subtle, with hints of Wagnerian harmony, yet without Wagner's overblown Teutonicism. I pulled the car over and just listened.

After the piece was over they announced it as a late Franz Liszt piece. I had known from music history classes, that Liszt had become quite religious and contemplative in his old age, but I had never heard this.

I excitedly drove home and saw the cellist in the dining room.

"I just heard this amazing late Franz Liszt music," I stammered out, "it was the most amazing piano music I had ever heard!"

"Ah," he replied, "that was probably 'The Lugubrious Gondola.' Yeah, that stuff is beautiful."

"You mean you knew about this stuff and didn't tell me about it?"

"Why would I? You hate Liszt."

"But if I had heard this, there is no way I could have hated it."

The other time I had to pull over just to listen to a piece of music was in Sacramento, on a summer evening. I was driving downtown and KXJZ played something unlike anything I had ever heard. I could recognize the bandoneon because I had just been turned on to Astor Piazzola, and definitely got the Argentinian vibe from it.

It turned out to be Dino Saluzzi's Mojotoro, which I bought immediately. I have listened to that album many times, in fact if pressed I could probably sit down with some manuscript paper and write it down from memory. Yet I am nowhere near tired of that album.

For the last couple of days I have been loading music into the iTunes and realized, with shock and horror, that I had not put any Dino Saluzzi into it. So, I walked over to the ECM section of my library (with few exceptions, I can't come up with any category beyond ECM for this stuff) and grabbed Mojotoro as well as Responsorium, the former for obvious reasons, and the latter because I was working on building playlists that feature free reed instruments, and Responsorium features Saluzzi accompanied only by bassist Palle Danielsson and his sone Jose Maria Saluzzi on guitar.

While loading the two discs into iTunes, I gave Responsorium a listen, which I had not done that often because it is a disc that requires engaged, active listening. You cannot drive or read or have a conversation with this in the background. You either totally miss the music or you end up driving into a building.

Listening to Responsorium made me realize that this is just as good a record as Mojotoro, in fact, it might be better. Looking on Amazon.com I see that there are a few Dino Saluzzi discs out there that I don't have, a situation that might have to be corrected somewhat soon.

Anyway, with the weather turning cold, sitting and following richly expressive and inventive melodic lines on a bandoneon sounds pretty good, and I can think of no better bandoneon player to listen to than Saluzzi.

Posted by erik at November 5, 2006 6:28 PM