Solo trumpet

 By Stef Gijssels

For the fans of solo trumpet albums, we have been given a treat this year. Several artists have come with their own view on music and the possibilities of personal expression without constraints. 

Thomas Heberer - The Other Side of the Spoon (Self-Released, 2023)

German trumpeter Thomas Heberer dedicates his album to Tristan Honsinger, the American cellist who passed away this summer and with whom Heberer collaborated a lot over 25 years, primarily with the ICP Orchestra. Heberer testifies: "Tristan's wit and creative spirit, combined with his consequent rejection of the status quo, are the stuff of legend. And, he was an incredible cook! Those band meals he made for us during a snow storm in 2003, when we were stuck for days in an airport hotel in Denver, Colorado, were epic."

The album presents us eight tracks, clocking between two to four minutes, so it's not very long in total time, but the quality is excellent as can be expected. Heberer leads us through various sonic environments and sentiments, sometimes gentle and sweet, at other times exploratory and rebellious, with deep growls, whispers and more unclassifiable sounds, yet always fascinating and with a great sense of purity and authenticity. 

Heberer made his archival albums available through his Bandcamp page, and that includes his early solo work from 1989, "The Heroic Millipede", "Kill Yr Darlins" from 1997, as well as "Stella" (2001), "Mouth" (2003), all albums on which he also uses keyboards, beats, and studio manipulation to achieve the final result. This album is much more direct, simple in its delivery and concept, intimate and sensitive, the kind of material that you hope to get from a stellar artist who has no longer anything to prove. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Nicole Rampersaud - Saudade (Ansible Editions, 2023)

Next to Lina Allemano and Steph Richards, Nicole Rampersaud is another excellent female trumpet player from Canada, albeit with a different style and approach. She's been a member of various Braxton ensembles and of Eucaliptus, a Canadian band that includes Brodie West and Nick Fraser, who are also member of the Lina Allemano four. It's a small world in Canada ... 

Even if her instrument is trumpet, Rampersaud's music is hard to qualify as jazz. It is built up of several layers of stretched trumpet sounds, that weave a slowly shifting background of kaleidoscopic variation over which the lead trumpet voice builds its narrative. It's no surprise that several track titles refer to 'panoramas', as this reflects well the sonic space presented here. The second part of the album contains more exploratory, angular and noisy pieces, equally with a collage of different voices.

Rampersaud creates her own musical universe, one that is both welcoming and strange, moving and surprising, using the full potential of pedals and processing, which at times does not do credit to the quality of her trumpet playing itself, but that's her own choice of course. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Flavio Zanuttini - Ginkgo (Self, 2022)

Italian trumpet player Flavio Zanuttini starts his album by an uptempo, joyful shor little dance on solo trumpet, playful and sensitive, setting the tone for a wonderful album of only acoustic sounds. The mood changes with the languid and slow sustained notes of the second track, a strong feat of breathing control and multiphonics. The track titles refer to the Ginkgo Biloba tree, inspired by a poem by Johan Wolfgang van Goethe (see below). The inspiration can be even taken more literally, as a musical expression or interpretation of the visual concept. The one called "Chioma d'Autunno" (Autumn canopy) brings a weird variation of exploratory sounds, alternated with recognisable voices, demonstrating the variety of colour in the tree, just like the next track 'Linfa' (sap) flows in circular rhtyhmic repetitions with minor variations. "Floema" has a deep and raw sense of yearning, performed with a wonderful raspy voice. On "Xylema", the trumpet's bell is probably resonating against paper to give a vibrating sound. 

Like on Heberer's album, the pieces are short, they have their core theme, their creative concept and careful delivery, more poetry than epic. 

The album ends with a variation on Ellington's "The Single Petal Of A Rose", a song equally inspired by the beautiful elements of nature, in a rendering that is possibly the most minimalist version ever performed. 

An excellent album. 

Ginkgo Biloba (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1815) 

Dieses Baums Blatt, der von Osten  Meinem Garten anvertraut,  Giebt geheimen Sinn zu kosten,  Wie's den Wissenden erbaut,  Ist es Ein lebendig Wesen,  Das sich in sich selbst getrennt?  Sind es zwey, die sich erlesen,  Daß man sie als Eines kennt?  Solche Frage zu erwiedern,  Fand ich wohl den rechten Sinn,  Fühlst du nicht an meinen Liedern,  Daß ich Eins und doppelt bin?

This leaf from a tree in the East,  Has been given to my garden.  It reveals a certain secret,  Which pleases me and thoughtful people. Does it represent One living creature  Which has divided itself?  Or are these Two, which have decided,  That they should be as One? To reply to such a Question,  I found the right answer:  Do you notice in my songs and verses  That I am One and Two?

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Christian Wolff & Nate Wooley - For Trumpet Player (Tissu Tissu Editions, 2023)

This short album is performed by Nate Wooley, based on a composition by Christian Wolff. Wolff is an American composer of German origin whose works are in the broad avant-garde category of artists such as John Cage, Steve Reich, and Cornelius Cardew. 

We read in the liner notes: "Written specifically for Wooley, Christian Wolff has constructed a gloriously knotty and Wolff-ian set of musical questions about pacing, silence, timbre, and melodic meaning that Wooley approaches with his naturally curious and improvisatory spirit". 

We read on the Issue Project Room website: "Wooley describes the impetus of commissioning these works as coming from a desire to add music to the solo trumpet repertoire that met a certain aesthetic that felt lacking in the contemporary literature: music with an attention to non-linear forms, an attention to sound and timbre over technical flash, and music that was personal not only within the language of the composer but the player as well".

Sorry to copy sentences instead of writing a review, but I think these two paragraphs capture the intention well. Together with the link to the album, I also add two videos of different performances of the same composition. I will leave it to the reader to assess the differences, and to appreciate the absolute quality of the album. 

Wooley has been a wonderful searcher for new musical forms, and you can only applaud him, not only for his incredible skills, but even more for his relentless exploration of musical possibilities. 

 

Enjoy!

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Forbes Graham - I Continue (Infrequent Seams, 2023)

Then we move towards two solo trumpet albums that I personally find hard to listen to. Forbes Graham electronically alters the sound of his trumpet beyond recognition and beyond my personal comfort zone. I have nothing against breaking boundaries, so I invite fans to explore it. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

João Almeida's Hocus - Noise Complaint & Intolerance (Self-Released, 2023)

João Almeida electronically alters the sound of his trumpet beyond recognition and beyond my personal comfort zone. I have nothing against breaking boundaries, so I invite fans to explore it. 

Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe I'll have to get back to this music in a few years from now, when I might have a different mindset and possibly more open ears to fully appreciate it. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.