La volta del suono

File under "Improvised Music - Italy" states the leaflet, and perhaps that is as good a characterization as any. Three Italian saxophonists and a vocalist exploring sonorities: they call them "sound events" that echo the spatial uniqueness of Genoa's Sottoporticato of the Abbots of Palazzo Ducal. Nine short explorations, freely improvised, never crossing over the line to new age banalities, but instead focusing on space, sound, timbre, and echo. Not always easy listening either, though often ethereal, the quartet may remind the listener of experiments by Steve Lacy or Roscoe Mitchell, but the Italians do it their own way — not better or worse, but alternately light and intense, all new and sometimes exhilarating, sometimes tiring. The nine "parts" make a seamless whole — short, to be sure — but long enough. There is a sense of fullness, of completeness to it all: exhausting and thorough, but sometimes difficult to enjoy. Very artistic, these Italianos. Indefinable, too. No melodies, but implicit structure. Cristina Alioto's voice is the odd one out, the three saxes embracing the empty space. The voice anchors, bringing the intertwining, interlocking spirals to a common point — at least sometimes. At others, she lands in the atmospheres. Sometimes it works, but not always. Call it an Italian experiment. A worthy one, too, much of the time.