Giorgio Gaslini: Don Cherry

http://jazzfromitaly.blogspot.com/2010/07/giorgio-gaslini-ensemble-new-feelings.html
[consultado el 23/07/2018]

In 1965 DON CHERRY, after having read an article about me which appeared in "MELODY
MAKER", called me from London and then came to see me in Milan. It was an unforgettable
meeting for both of us.
A few months later Don arrived at my house with an extraordinary group of people: Steve
Lacy, Gato Barbieri, Ken Carter, Daniel Humair and J. F. Jenny Clark. They wanted to hear
my recordings and for a few hours they remained silent listening to them.
At the beginning of February 1966 Don Cherry phoned me again and suggested that I
immediately make a record together with his group. There were only 48 hours until the
appointment arranged for 4 February 1966, 2.00 p.m., at the Studio della Basilica (Milan),
with the precise order, given by the record company, for it to be finished by midnight. I wrote
this suite the night before, and in the ten hours of recording with ten of the most important
Jazzmen of the international "Nouvelle Vogue" of that time, I gave life to this suite on record.
This was a great event of international importance, and the record had the best review on the
American magazine "Down Beat" for being a "five star piece", the best Italian work.
Nevertheless, in Italy it passed nearly unnoticed, and rapidly disappeared.
Arrigo Polillo concluded his presentation, which appeared on the record at that time, as
follows: "This is a most advanced jazz experience, but with something special in it, because
here, for the first time, Gaslini's Europeanism (with its tendency towards a serial composition
technique) and the Americanism of the others (both Americans and non-Americans) meet.
Thus, at the same time, there is music culture and natural talent, discipline and the
uninhibited impetus typical of "FREE JAZZ". And everyone, though remaining faithful to his
own very personal language, clearly shows the appreciation for that of his colleagues, from
whom he is stimulated and even provoked. This is what happens in jazz, when the musicians
collaborating in the production of a work have all come to the understanding of the same
truth, despite their coming from the most varied countries, as in the case of these ten people."
On the record of 1966 there is also my personal note in which I point out the distinctive
stylistic choice operated here in the direction of "Total Music": "I think that in the close
future there will only be one music. No specific kind of music will predominate the others.
There will be a synthesis of authentic values belonging to each musical style forming a
"UNUM" corresponding to human tension towards a unity of man's multiple powers of
communication...."