THE SPACE WITHIN
Federico Ughi drums duets with
Steve Buckley alto sax tracks 1,2; bass clarinet track 3.
Rachel Musson Ten. sax. on 4, 5, 6,
Matthew F. Morris bar. sax. on 7, 8, 9.
Recorded at Premises Studio London Oct/Nov 1998.
SLAMCD 236
Bar code 5 028386 023623
TRACKS:
1 Ballance Slight 4m 20
2 In fading light 7 47
3 Django part one 7 14
4 Remember 3 13
5 Django part two 2 31
6 Two whistlers 8 58
7 Stranger 1 59
8 Talk 4 04
Jazz Journal
Drum and saxophone duets can often be self-indulgent by performers and tortuous for listeners, but this set is a delight. Ughi is a sensitive drummer responsive to his partners. They in turn make full use of the space available to improvise in depth. The duos with Buckley on both Slight and In Fading Light are a true dialogue, although Ballance is actually out of balance, with Buckley's deep-voiced alto overwhelming the drums. The two parts of John Lewis's Django are fascinating both for the comprehensive reworking of the theme and the way Rachel Musson deploys the higher register of the tenor to haunting effect. Best of all to my ears, are the three baritone-drum duos that end the set, with both Ughi and Morris exploiting the full sonic possibilities of their instruments. As ever, a high-class set from SLAM. Simon Adams
CD of the week Sisifo, All About Jazz, 29 January 2001
It seems easy to associate the reeds-drums duet formula with free jazz (as in the famous duets of John Coltrane and Rashied Ali) and with radical improvised music. Here, the choice of limiting the comping solely to drums directs the reed instrument towards a dry and sharp language, with a strong expressionistic mark, often pushed to the paroxysm of a shout by the storming polyrhythmical fury of the drums. It happens more rarely that a drummer, often attracted by the opportunity of directing a larger band, would choose a saxophonist as the only interlocutor, giving up the rhythmical and dynamic tyranny of his instrument to put himself discretely at the melody's service, and if necessary, have no hesitation to consider silence. This is exactly Federico Ughi's case, a young drummer born in Rome, active since 1994 on the jazz scene in London, from where he has recently moved to New York. In this CD "The Space Within", his debut album as a leader recorded for the English label Slam Records, Ughi plays duets with three different saxophonists, giving birth to vibrant music, where the severe essentiality of the setting is efficiently married to a genuine melodic tension. The way the nine pieces on the CD are arranged, with the stream of the different voices of Ughi's partners, makes you think of a kind of suite. Opposed to the bright and Rollins-like ease of the duets with alto saxophonist Steve Buckley, which remind us of the sound of the famous couple Coleman Hawkins-Shelly Manne (Me and Some Drums, 1962), stands the darker and sharper atmosphere that dominates the tunes recorded with Matthew F Morris in dialogues that clearly demonstrate their improvised origin. In between there are two episodes - in our opinion the most successful in the album - where Rachel Musson's tenor saxophones raises her heartfelt chant on John Lewis wonderful melody "Django"; in "Remember" Ughi stands aside and Musson has the chance to create a solo of sore formal poise. Ughi's drums, which escape any tendency toward blatant self-advertisement, lend constancy and cohesion to the entire project. Powerful and steady with his phrasing, meticulous with timbre and dynamics, precise and relentless when necessary to the explicit rhythmic scansion, it seems that Ughi is inspired by the expressive neatness of Max Roach, an unbeaten example of a drummer aware of the melody, an authentic and equal interlocutor with the soloist .