Stefano Bollani & Hamilton de Holanda - O Que Será (2013)

Dedicado a Anita y Eugenia, dos cabezonas por las que conocí a Hamilton de Holanda, y ya habiendo publicado su homenaje a Hermeto y Gismonti, ahora traemos un disco donde el bondolinista brasilero toca con el tano de Stefano en el piano, en otro discazo del sello ECM.

Artista: Stefano Bollani & Hamilton de Holanda

Álbum: O Que Sera
Año: 2013
Género: Jazz / Latin jazz
Duración: 54:04
Nacionalidad: Italia / Brasil

Lista de Temas:
1. Beatriz
2. Il Barbone di Seviglia
3. Caprichos de Espanha
4. Guarda Che Luna
5. Luiza
6. O Que Será
7. Rosa
8. Canto de Ossanha
9. Oblivión
9. Apanhei-te Cavaquinho

Alineación:
- Stefano Bollani / piano
- Hamilton de Holanda / bandolim.

Un dúo virtuoso que se entiende a las mil maravillas y que complementa una mandolina con un piano en casi una hora de comunión en cada nota, en un estilo frenético y alocado, además de fantástico, registrado en Antwerp, Bélgica enel 2012.

La reunión de estos dos portentos musicales, dúo de piano y mandolina, compartiendo escenario en el Festival Middelheim en Amberes, tuvo lugar el pasado verano de 2012, per ahora la podemos disfrutar en cualquier lugar gracias a esta edición discográfica donde se conservan afortunadamente los enfebrecidos aplausos del público asistente al concierto. Stefano Bollani forma parte de la selecta nómina del jazz contemporáneo con una merecida reputación y con discos grandiosos – Piano Solo (2007) y Stone in the Water (2009) en formato de trío son los más recientes- que le han granjeado merecidos aplausos y reverencias del periodismo especializado. Pero también Hamilton de Holanda posee una notable reputación que ha encontrado reconocimiento en colaboraciones como la que ha facturado junto a dos genios como Richard Galliano a Bela Fleck. Las notas que escuchamos surgen solo de las teclas blancas y negras del piano y se conjugan magníficamente con las diez cuerdas que tañe el Hamilton de Halanda en su mandolina, un diálgo que en algún instante se torna en persecución vertiginosa. Un duelo creativo, intercambios – por momentos rápidas, desafiantes y prodigiosas ráfagas sonoras pero en otros baladas deliciosas y cadenciosas- con las que construyen diálogos musicales maravillosos tanto en el repertorio conocido de America del sur – piezas populares de A. C, Jobim, A. Piazzolla, Chico Buarque, Baden Powell, Ernesto Nazareth,… pero también piezas propias de ambos músicos. Un gran trabajo musical instrumental muy creativo que funde una manera propia de hacer música contemporánea, con miradas puestas en un horizonte sonoro que alcanza la brillantez, los ecos de la intemporalidad y el disfrute por la mejor música que se traduce en la sonriga de dos artistas que aman la música.

Los Sonidos del Planeta Azul

 

Y le toca el turno a los comentarios en inglés porque no tengo mucho más para decir ni agregar que lo que se dice aquí. Imagino que ya todos saben dónde conseguirlo, y si no es así, por favor pregunten que su consulta no molesta.

Recorded live just a year before its release, O Que Será pairs Italian postmodernist jazz pianist Stefano Bollani with one of Brazil's great musical innovators, Hamilton De Holanda playing bandolim (a ten-string mandolin). The pair met on-stage in 2009 and played just two numbers, but it was enough; they realized what was possible. They played a full show in 2011, and in August of 2012 they appeared together at the Jazz Middleheim Festival and made this recording. Despite the stark instrumentation, this program is lively and full of risky moves. Of the ten pieces here, seven are from the Brazilian canon. Each participant contributed one composition and there is a haunted, heartbreaking read of Astor Piazzolla's "Oblivion." The classically trained De Holanda is well known in his own country, having recorded several albums both solo and orchestral. He has also collaborated with everyone from Mike Marshall and Béla Fleck to Richard Galliano and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Bollani has, in recent years, become well known as a stylist, recording material by everyone from Prokofiev and Scott Joplin to the Beach Boys and Thelonious Monk. He has employed Brazilian music on numerous recordings, among them Orvieto with Chick Corea and on his own fine Stone in the Water. O Que Será commences with a limpid, graceful reading of Edú Lobo's "Beatriz." The duo demonstrate their intimate communication skills, moving through the melody with elegance and restraint yet chock-full of emotion. Next up is Bollani's fiery yet dryly humorous "Il Barbone Di Siviglia," which employs a brisk tempo that quotes the opera, but via the pulse of baião and his high-register arpeggios, the improvisational quotient is high. The effect is knotty and slightly dissonant, yet deeply intuitive. This contrasts beautifully with De Holanda's "Caprichos de Espanha," which weds flamenco, bolero, Middle Eastern modal music, choro, and Western classical musics in a dazzling, labyrinthine journey. The tender reading of Jobim's "Luiza" engages bossa but shifts the focus toward jazz in order to reveal another musical possibility for this simple song. "Canto de Ossanha" is a burner that weds choro, samba, and syncopated modernist jazz in a fiery display of near symbiotic interaction with electrifying solos. O Que Será is a one of a kind dialogue between two musicians who understand that music is an adventure; they submit themselves to it fully with a wealth of ideas and bring out the heat, intimacy, and humor in these tunes.

Thom Jurek

Italy’s creative piano virtuoso Stefano Bollani meets Hamilton de Holanda, Brazil’s peerless master of the bandolim, the 10-string mandolin. O que será is a summery celebration of the joy of music-making, radiating an irresistible enthusiasm, and raising the bar for trans-idiomatic instrumental interaction. Bollani, acknowledged as one of the most prodigiously-gifted soloists of jazz, is matched every step of the way here by de Holanda, and the exchanges between the musicians are frequently breathtaking. Repertoire draws upon the rich heritage of South American music – including Jobim, Piazzolla, Chico Buarque, Baden Powell, Ernesto Nazareth and more, plus original compositions by the protagonists. O que será was recorded live in Antwerp in last August before an audibly-delighted audience at the Jazz Middelheim Festival.

ECM Records

Intentional or not, ECM's simultaneously release of Iranian kamencheh master Kayhan Kalhor and Turkish baglama expert Erdal Erzincan's Kula Kulluk Yakişir Mi (2013) with O que será, which captures a positively electrifying 2012 performance by efferverscent Italian pianist Stefano Bollani and Brazilian bandolim virtuoso Hamilton de Holanda, does more than merely celebrate the intimate potential of the duo. Variants, they may be, but there are also timbral similarities between de Holanda's bandolim (mandolin) and Erzincan's baglama (saz) in their use of doubled (or, in the case of the baglama, sometimes tripled) strings.
There, however, the comparisons end. Previous ECM recordings including his aptly named Piano Solo (2007) and more recent trio date, Stone in the Water (2009), have demonstrated both Bollani's knowledge and virtuosity, transcending reductionist labels—even ones as broad-scoped as jazz—to draw upon sources ranging from classical to pop, along with his ongoing interest in Brazilian music. But it's been on duo recordings like Orvieto (2011), with one-time influence Chick Corea, and The Third Man (2008), with fellow Italian and one-time mentor Enrico Rava, that the pianist has most assuredly demonstrated a career-defining ability to imbue music with both humor and joie du vivre while being, at the same time, capable of profound depth: sometimes staggeringly complex, elsewhere unyieldingly beautiful.
With de Holanda—equally expansive in range and a star in his own right, having collaborated with everyone from Richard Galliano to Bela Fleck—Bollani has, perhaps, found the perfect partner. Not only does de Holanda possess similar instrumental mastery, but he is as capable of pushing Bollani to turn on a dime as the pianist is in driving the mandolinist to change directions at thought-speed, the pair occasionally throwing in seeming non sequiturs that invariably reveal themselves as anything but.
O que seráis like watching two hyperkinetic kids in a musical candy store, looking to sample everything they can get their hands on. On pieces like Bollani's "Il Barbone Di Siviglia, (The Tramp of Seville)" and the frenetic closer, "Apanhei-te Cavaquinho" there's an exciting sense of the two playing constant cat-and mouse, Bollani breaking away from form into a high-speed passage of unfettered freedom only to get pulled back in by de Holanda, as if to say "catch up!" The mischief is palpable; it's almost possible to see the two grinning at each other madly as they interact, sometimes at speeds that would be considered impossible were they not here to be heard.
But an overarching sense of humor and relentless synchronicity don't mean that Bollani and de Holanda aren't capable of greater sensitivity. The duo's opening look at "Beatriz" is short and sweet, while Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Luiza" and {Astor Piazzolla}}'s "Oblivion" are, if not totally serious, then at least clearly reverential, as the two instruments engage at a near-mitochondrial level.
The inclusion of audience reactions throughout the show help make O que sera a breathtaking 54-minute break from life's trials and tribulations; as close to being there as any audio recording can be, it's proof positive that serious music can be fun, too.

John Kelman

here aren't many ECM albums that mix live-audience rapture with solemnity-mocking jokes from the performers, but label boss Manfred Eicher won't feel he is risking his revered company's credibility with this delightful set. The Italian pianist Bollani and the Brazilian De Holanda, who plays the bandolim (a 10-string mandolin), have worked up a largely South American repertoire of tangos and love songs, variously treating them with dazzling virtuosity, humour and captivating tenderness. Baden Powell's Canto de Ossanha has both players pounding the woodwork like a conga section, and the ecstatic finale takes in classical restraint, feverish Latin dancing and ragtime piano. This remarkable duo's pleasure in their work is infectious.

John Fordham

Since first sharing a stage together at a 2009 music festival in northern Italy, Italian pianist Stefano Bollani and Brazilian bandolim (10-string mandolin) maestro Hamilton de Holanda have met frequently as a duo. In this, their first full live album, they expand their commitment to beauteous improvisation in an electric atmosphere bound by faith in the moment. While not such a surprise in terms of programming—Bollani has, after all, extolled his passion for Brazilian music on Orvieto, and elsewhere—the album sparkles with ingenuity.
In his pointillist fervor, Bollani has an obvious affinity for Chick Corea and Scott Joplin, while de Holanda’s playing dovetails Django Reinhardt and Egberto Gismonti at their best. These are a mere few of the many influences one might read into the notecraft of these consummate virtuosos, to say nothing of the great composers whose timeless melodies fly from their fingers. That said, the verdant, sparkling relays of Bollani’s “Il barbone di Siviglia” and the crystalline wanderings of de Holanda’s “Caprichos de Espanha” hold their own alongside classics from Astor Piazzolla (“Oblivión”), Antonio Carlos Jobim (“Luiza”), and Pixinguinha (“Rosa”). In their capable hands, such timeworns are fresh as summer while the originals feel like folk songs torn from the pages of a shared past. Across the board, de Holanda’s picking is restless but never overbearing. Bollani in the meantime emotes assuredly, caressingly, and all with a smile like the setting sun.
Two tracks of strikingly different character epitomize the duo at its most attuned. De Holanda dominates the ins and outs of “Guarda che luna” (Gualtiero Malgoni/Bruno Pallesi), in which his impassioned singing inspires cheers and laughter from the audience. A memorable relay as he switches to muted comping beneath Bollani’s flights of fancy adds oomph to their pristine musicality. Even more engaging is “Canto de Ossanha” (Baden Powell/Vinicius de Moraes), which becomes a rhythmic master class in controlled tension. The feeling of progression here is so vivid, it’s practically uncontainable. And yet, contain it the musicians do by means of their joyful, flared unity.
A smattering of lyrical tunes rounds out the set. Between the lush, balladic opener “Beatriz” (Edu Lobo, Chico Buarque) and the vivacious “Apanhei-te Cavaquinho” (Ernesto Nazareth) that closes, Bollani and de Holanda become increasingly more like each other, reflections of anticipation and follow-through. Like the title track (also by Buarque), their enchantment comes about in the exuberances for which no score has a means of notation. Rarely has a duo been this exciting, and results of this fortuitous encounter rank easily among ECM’s top 10 for the new millennium.

Tyran Grillo