And So on

A free-for-all set recorded in Rome in 1991. The three-part improvisational suite offers a rare hearing of Mario Schiano restricted to alto saxophone for the occasion, and, also, a tag-end concert of Ernst Reijseger playing alone later the same year somewhere else. It's curious as to why it's there, but it's a pleasure nonetheless. As for And So On, this is the sound of improvisation continuity, and what's most striking about that continuity is the conscious use of intervals in the free playing process. It's obvious that Schiano is the leader here, whether he is playing or not. The flow of the music is too organic, nearly melodic, and almost lyrical; it bears his stamp. When one group of musicians is not playing it is because, quite purposefully, others are and their sonic encounters, whether they are on the low end of the dynamic scale or out and out fire breathing sessions as in the case of Rutherford and drummer Günter Sommer in the second set, they are able to execute their tight communications because Schiano is directing traffic. And, make no mistake, it is not with an iron hand. If anything, he gently points with his horn or his breath to ward the different spaces in the group's series of improvisational corridors. He understands that the intervallic imposition is as much a liberating device as a potentially constraining one. Hence "And So On" becomes a tapestry of textures. The color schemes are muted, drawn more from pastels than lights and darks. Schiano's own playing, which is more prominent in the latter two sections, travels along with countryman Leon Francoli's bass paying, skirting the outside of the inner spaces and punctuating them only when necessary while creating a necessary if foreign lyricism for the ensemble in the process. It's an astonishing feat, really, that Schiano's focus can be so drawn to the ensemble's sound making that he creates outside them in order for them to take those ideas and extrapolate further and drive the work down into the inner sonic and textural dark they seek so earnestly. This is improvisation at its most sensitive, most restrained, and, in its own way, most elaborately and elegantly beautiful.