CD ECM Records Dino Saluzzi Group: El Valle De La Infancia

2014

Dino Saluzzi  - bandoneon
José María Saluzzi  - classical guitar, requinto guitar
Nicolás 'Colacho' Brizuela   -  classical guitar
Félix 'Cuchara' Saluzzi   -  tenor saxophone, clarinet
Matías Saluzzi   - electric bass, double bass
Quintino Cinalli   - drums, percussion

Argentinean bandoneonist-composer-improviser Dino Saluzzi returns to his roots with El Valle de la Infancia. Recorded in Buenos Aires, it’s the first of his discs to feature his “family band” since 2005’s Juan Condori. Here Dino is heard with his brother Felix on tenor sax and clarinet, his son José María on guitars and nephew Matías on basses. Friends joining the party are 7-string guitarist Nicolás “Colacho” Brizuela, known internationally for his long association with singer Mercedes Sosa, and drummer Quintino Cinalli, brought in by Dino to gently expand the sense of freedom that informs his music. “This work is alive with different genres”, writes Leopoldo Castilla in the liner notes. “From dances such as zamba to carnavalito to chacarera... The music captures the natural world of its origins; North Argentina, ablaze with mourning, despairing with joy.”

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In part a homage to the zamba, carnavalito and chacarera dance traditions of northern Argentina and its broader culture, the bandoneonist is quietly intense to begin and the album takes quite a while to reveal itself. The family band backs Saluzzi like listeners to the stories he is compelled to tell musically, the clarinet down-playing its natural perkiness, the classical guitar hinting at another kind of music entirely. Held in the interstices between the folk traditions of his native land and the improvised world of jazz from far northern places the sensual side emerges amid much nostalgia and café bar mystique on ‘Churqui’ the sadnesses quiet and acute and yet the band’s motion lifts the mood and the pieces all come together on ‘La Fiesta Popular’. Some lovely moments throughout amid the austerity of the chamber atmosphere: an album that casts a spell it’s hard to break.
Stephen Graham, Marlbank

Both as a composer and improviser, Saluzzi has a particular way of setting and telling his stories. He establishes the mood with a few bold strokes, and then, more often than not, lets the themes emerge, digressing unhurriedly, adding a point here, a change-of-pace detail there as the tale unfolds. […] ‘El Valle de la Infancia’ suggests the work of a master in winter, still looking ahead as he glances back.
Fernando Gonzalez, The International Review Of Music

While he’s a gifted classical and jazz musician, Saluzzi has spent the past three decades exploring a range of Agentinian genres, including zamba, carnavalito and chacarera. […] A song like ‘Churqui’ has the warmth and heart of high-plains music but is also multi-layered and allusive. Through it all, Dino Saluzzi’s bandoneón guides, suggests, riffs, queries and sermonizes. More accessible and even more wondrous than 2006’s excellent ‘Juan Condori’, also on ECM, ‘El Valle de la Infancia’ is a sublime album.
Chris Moss, Songlines

Over the past three decades of his association with Munich-based ECM Records, Argentine bandoneón virtuoso Dino Saluzzi has built a new home, but through his output on the label has traced so far back down his old roots that with El Valle de la Infancia (The Valley of Childhood) he might at last have reached the center of the earth. Playing once again with his ‘in-house’ band, last heard with slightly different personnel on 2006's Juan Condori, he emotes seamlessly with brother Felix on reeds, son José on guitars, and nephew Matías on electric and upright bass. Guitarist Nicolás Brizuela and percussionist Quintino Cinalli round out the extended family portrait […] The program of Infancia juxtaposes standalone pieces alongside compact suites, all of which blend into a meta-narrative dotted by contemplative pauses. At its core, the music (mostly by Dino himself) thrives on warm, impressionistic feelings, so that whenever the band does cohere, the effect is dazzling.
Tyran Grillo, Rootsworld.com

There's plenty of truly gorgeous playing, with highlights including the suite 'Pueblo' - with a beautifully lyrical guitar introduction from Jose Maria - and the entry of Felix's richly resonant tenor saxophone on 'Churqui'. Dino himself is clearly in his element, in this wonderfully sympathetic setting […] Delightful.
John Watson, Jazz Camera