Ted Reichman

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My Ears Are Bent Reviews Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches eJazz News All About Jazz from Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches "...if you spend five minutes with Ted, you know he's the kind of guy you'd want to hear ramble on a blog. aside from being an awesome musician--check out his new disc, "My Ears Are Bent" on Skirl; it's a beautiful, eccentric and subtle record that exists in some harmonious nether-region between meticulous pop, electronica, jazz and classical music..."- Hank Shteamer from eJazz News June 2006 Standards are sometimes meant to be broken, hence the large cardboard CD cases produced by this newly founded modern-jazz flavored record label. One of the three new releases is New York City downtown scene favorite, and multi-instrumentalist Ted Reichman’s delightful solo excursion. Created with infectious melodies, pumping backbeats and ornamental background synth treatments, the artist’s deeply personalized compositional forays are highly engaging. Electric guitarist Mary Halverson generates animated jazz lines, while Reichman’s pump organ and acoustic piano grooves are designed with deceptively complex progressions. Whether executing a trance-like passage atop drummer John Hollenback’s solid pulses, or when deviating into the avant-garde with quirky motifs, Reichman’s visualizations surface in flying colors here. In spots, he merges cyclical and haunting themes with simplicity, often countered with a pop-like muse boasting capacious movements with a sense of childlike innocence. On the piece “It Is Almost Sacred,” Reichman combines a church organ vibe with a simple acoustic guitar ostinato. Here, he pronounces a sanctified mindset. However, the title track’s tuneful and anthem-like qualities are augmented by Hollenbeck’s climactically oriented rhythms. Thus, the newly issued gem defies strict categorizations, where space-rock, pop, and jazz align for an unlikely union that makes near perfect sense. (A top-10 pick for 2006). – Glenn Astarita from All About Jazz Composer/accordionist Ted Reichman is an integral part of the New York musical community, whether he’s leading the Ted Reichman Emigré Band or playing as sideman in John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet. For My Ears Are Bent, Reichman takes the accordion right out of the picture. Instead, he employs pump organ, percussion, bass, guitar and piano (plenty of piano) to create a set of austere, anxious pieces that are more instrumental mood-rock than outright improv. Reichman is accompanied by electric guitarist Mary Halvorson (on some of the tracks) and drummer John Hollenbeck (whose playing is more prominent and whose contributions to the recording are substantial). The opener, “Every Man to His Taste,” feels like a sweetly prayerful invocation as Reichman’s piano repeats a mantra-like melodic phrase, his pipe organ humming alongside as Hollenbeck’s unerring snare gently drives the band forward. This is rock music, pure and simple. Its layering of a repeated musical phrase and Halverson’s gloriously untechnical guitar lines very much bring to mind the intelligent pop optimism of the long-disbanded Feelies or the still-vital Yo La Tengo—although Hollenbeck’s crisp, perfect time will never be mistaken for that of Yo La Tengo drummer Georgia Hubley. “Every Man to His Own Taste,” however, is something of a red herring, because in its wake, the album gets very dark. What follows are essentially piano/percussion duets whose anxious, minor-key piano melodies, layered, clanking percussion and close, wet ambience make for some unsettling listening. An examination of the song titles (“Nun,” “It Is Almost Sacred,” “Come to Jesus,” “Peace Father”) and an even-casual hearing of their creepy, spookhouse piano ostinati make it difficult to avoid the conclusion that Reichman is taking a decidedly stark and ungauzy look back at an unpleasantly old-school Catholic upbringing. “Come to Jesus” shares the same descending melody as “Peace Father,” and to some extent, they’re different sides of the same haunted-attic environment. “I Know Nothing About It” follows dissonant, panic-attack pianos with a tempo-less middle section of chiming percussion, subdued electric guitar skronk (brittle and grinding, but quiet) and droning organ, before a final in-tempo section where Hollenbeck’s explosive kick and snare become downright dub-inflected. It’s very good, and more cohesive than the above description would suggest. The title track that ends the disc breaks the tension, at least partially—like “Every Man to His Own Taste,” it’s a slow-layered alt-rock tune that repeats and builds a simple melodic phrase over Hollenbeck’s flawless kit work. It’s just a shade short of anthemic, yet even the sighing vocal “ooooohs” that join in during the last two minutes can’t quite dispel the thorniness of the preceding pieces. You won’t hear another recording like My Ears Are Bent. It’s not quite the Brooklyn improv scene’s version of The Wall, but in its unflinchingly anti-nostalgic and claustrophobic mood, it’s close. -Paul Olson Emigré Reviews The Wire The Squid's Ear Les Inrockuptibles (French) (English) All About Jazz Italia (Italian) (English) from The Wire (UK magazine) March 2004 A top-hatted man carries a secretly wrapped parcel while a train puffs smokily over the viaduct in the background; a cat laps in the gutter at an old woman’s feet; a distant figure approaches a flight of steps in Montmartre where a second figure sits enigmatically waiting. Few photographers have better captured the mysterious ordinariness of everyday life than André Kertész. Born in Budapest in 1894, Kertész learned his craft using glass plates and served as a military cameraman with the Austro-Hungarian army before moving to Paris and then the USA, becoming an American citizen in 1944. His studied naturalism was briefly diverted toward glamorous end when he worked for Condé Nast, but in the ‘60’s he revived his coolly humanist approach. The forerunner of almost every documentary photographer of recent times, Kertész had already grasped what Cartier-Bresson called the “decisive moment” – the instant when careful compositional planning sparks with improvisational spontaneity to yield an iconic image. Ted Reichman’s tribute to Kertész works according to the same logic. The only indication of its subject is the photographer’s haunted self portrait on the cover and a short quotation in which Kertész reasserts his basic philosophy that “Everything is a subject. Every subject has a rhythm”. Reichman’s choice of folkish and more abstract ‘subjects’ is intriguingly haphazard, with little sense of the journey West, but the real core of Emigré is the search for new rhythms. A veteran of various Tzadik projects, the accordionist comes to the fore on this debut disc with a vastly increased arsenal of sound. Guitar, Hammond and pump organs, zither, piano and electronics all play their part in fixing the sepia tinged atmospheres of the suite. The other players take a relatively minor role, though Mark Stewart’s cello and guitars, Doug Wieselman’s clarinets and bass harmonica, and Joyce Hammann’s fiddle and viola add important sonic textures. People (“Elizabeth,” “Anne-Marie Merkel”), places and times (“November 12, 1920”, “Paris c 1930”, “Martinique”, “Provence 1979”) all play their part in an essentially abstract drama, and it probably makes sense to leaf through a portfolio of Kertész images as you listen to this music. Without them, it is as enigmatic as every other imaginary soundtrack, but no less compelling as a piece of music. The very simplicity of means is its greatest strength. The rhythms are mostly slow, often in placid three-quarter time, sometimes repetitive, like an early European take on American minimalism, but often rubato and unstressed. Two tracks “Distortion 1” and “4”, seem to come from a sequence of studio improvisations, which might well have been worth hearing in full, though it would be a shame to disturb the set’s easy flow with extra material. At just under 50 minutes, it does exactly what a Kertész photograph could do: suggest whole histories by showing very little, emphasizing the particular in such a way as to imply universals, restoring seeing (or in Reichman's case, hearing) as conscious and patient acts, creative in themselves. - Brian Morton back from The Squids Ear (New York-based webzine) "...His portrait of Kertesz is not only a tribute to a great artist, but also comments musically on the fate of Jews in the last century - immigration, oppression, alienation and the loss of the family and community in the Holocaust - as it was mirrored in Kertesz photographs. In his "secret" liner notes to Emigre (not included with the disc but posted at http://www.tedreichman.com, Reichman says that "though he was not an observant Jew, and though there are no explicit references to Judaism anywhere in his work, Kertesz followed a typically Jewish path as a person and as an artist, the path from family and community to individuality and alienation." Reichman doesn't opt for the easy references to klezmer music, but succeeds in portraying key places in the life of Kertesz: his home town, Budapest, at the beginning of the last century; Paris between the two world wars; and New York. The musical references are subtle and modest, hints of gypsy music (some of Kertesz famous photos are of gypsy musicians and children) with the eerie sounds of zither and chanson songs interweaving these influences into a cohesive modern texture using samples and electronic effects. He manages to grant us insight into the intimate, moody and sometimes hypnotic rhythm of his subject's photos, and Kertesz himself thought that portraying this rhythm was the impetus for his photography. "Every subject has a rhythm. To feel this rhythm is the 'raison d'etre'. The photo is a fixed moment of such a 'raison d'etre' which lives on in itself," in Kertesz's words, as quoted in the liner notes. Indeed, Reichman's great achievement is focusing and fixing our attention, our gaze, into the work of a great modern artist who was also a secular Jew. Beautiful. It is one of the best releases of the Radical Jewish Culture series so far." - Eyal Hareuveni back from Les Inrockuptibles (French pop music magazine) Feb 18, 2004 La scène musicale de Manhattan est d’un niveau si relevé que même les seconds rôles qui y officient ont parfois l’étoffe des géants. C’est le cas de l’accordéoniste Ted Reichman, l’un des hommes de main de Marc Ribot, David Krakauer ou Paul Simon, et du multi-instrumentiste Doug Wieselman, qui s’est notamment activé derrière Lou Reed, John Lurie et Anthony Coleman : leurs premiers pas en solo les désignent comme d’élégants passe-murailles. Sous prétexte d’évoquer la vie itinérante du photographe hongrois André Kertesz, Reichman et ses invités (dont Wieselman, qui manie clarinette, guitare et harmonica) s’offrent une palpitante flânerie aux confins vaporeux de la musique de chambre, du jazz et de la tradition klezmer. Avec sa belle floraison instrumentale (piano, guitare, cithare, percussions), ses cordes ondulantes et ses bruissements électroniques, Emigré est la moisson frémissante d’un musicien qui a pris le temps de cultiver son jardin et de laisser respirer son imaginaire. - Richard Robert translation by Google and Ted: “…sometimes supporting players have the stuff of giants. This is the case of accordionist Ted Reichman… Reichman and his guests… offer a palpitating flânerie with the vaporous borders of the chamber music, jazz and klezmer traditions. With its beautiful instrumental flowering (piano, guitar, zither, percussions), its undulating cords and its electronic rustles, Emigré is the quivering harvest of a musician who took time to cultivate his garden and to let his imagination breathe.” back from All About Jazz Italy (Italian web magazine) Dopo essere stato a fianco di tanti musicisti della scena Lower East Side di New York - tra cui Marc Ribot o David Krakauer - il fisarmonicista Ted Reichman ha lavorato, per il suo debutto da solista con la Tzadik, a un ritratto del fotografo di origine ungherese André Kertész, figura artistica di grandissimo valore nel '900 delle immagini. Emigré segue infatti la vita di Kertész dalla giovinezza nella comunità ebraica di Budapest all'arrivo negli USA, passando per la Francia [dove arriverà nei primi anni '20] e ha per questa impostazione un andamento fortemente descrittivo e suggestivo, dolente nel distacco dalla terra natia, estremamente efficace nel punteggiare gli stati d'animo [ad esempio l'arrivo a Parigi], piena di varietà, ma con colori ben definiti, quasi a mantenere il bianco e nero delle opere del fotografo. Reichman, ottimo nel comporre e assemblare le diverse influenze popolari che si intrecciano con la vita di Kertész, non si limita alla fisarmonica, ma suona anche organo, chitarra, percussioni, piano, strumenti elettronici, coadiuvato da amici affidabili come Dougie Bowne alla batteria, Roberto Rodriguez alle percussioni, Joyce Hammann al violino, Mark Stewart a violoncelli e chitarre, Doug Wieselman ai clarinetti. La musica che ne deriva è a tratti elegiaca, a tratti sorniona, danzando quasi in punta di piedi. Come le tante immagini che devono essere passate sotto l'occhio attento del fotografo prima che la sua arte ne desse un'immortale interpretazione, scorrono all'ascolto paesaggi, sensazioni, ricordi, incontri con altri artisti, ossessioni [ascoltate con cura l'iterazione pianistica di "Distortion 1"], veli, nudità, parchi, tecnologie, in un percorso che potrebbe accompagnare alcune pagine del meraviglioso libro di Micheal Chabon Le Fantastiche Avventure di Kavalier & Clay [non lasciatevelo sfuggire, edizione economica Rizzoli a vostra disposizione], se non fosse che si parla di fumetti e non di fotografia. Un disco notevole, volutamente senza un particolare "centro di gravità permanente" e pertanto sempre fresco ad ogni ascolto, attività questa che suggeriamo magari accompagnata dalla visione di qualche fotografia di Kertész: nel suo lucido bianco e nero convivono la quotidianità e la storia [dolorosa e intima] del '900. Valutazione: * * * * - Enrico Bettinello Translation by Google: Reichman, optimal in composing and assembling the various popular infuences that are interlaced with the life of Kertész, is not limited to the electronic fisarmonica, but sound also organ, guitar, percussions, plan, instruments, coadiuvato from reliable friends like Dougie Bowne on drums, Roberto Rodriguez to the percussions, Joyce Hammann to violino, guitar and Mark Stewart violoncelli, Doug Wieselman to the clarinetti. The music that derives some is at times elegiaca, at times sorniona, dancing nearly in tip of feet. Like the many images that must before be passages under the careful eye of the photographer that its art of it gave a immortale interpretation, they slide to I listen to landscapes, feelings, memories, encounter with other artists, obsessions [ listened to with cure the pianistica iterance of "Distortion 1" ], sails, nakedness, parks, technologies, in a distance that could accompany some pages of the wonderful book of Micheal Chabon the Fantastic Adventures of Kavalier & Clay [ you do not let it to escape, economic edition Rizzoli to your disposition ], if it were not that it is spoken about comic strips and not about photography. A remarkable disc, intentionally without a particular "center ofalways fresh permanent gravity" and therefore to every I listen, activity this that we even suggest accompanied from the vision of some photography of Kertész: in its I polish $R-bianco.e.nero cohabit the quotidianità and the painful and intimate history [ ] of the ' 900. back
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My Ears Are Bent Reviews

Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches
eJazz News
All About Jazz

from Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches

"...if you spend five minutes with Ted, you know he's the kind of guy you'd want to hear ramble on a blog. aside from being an awesome musician--check out his new disc, "My Ears Are Bent" on Skirl; it's a beautiful, eccentric and subtle record that exists in some harmonious nether-region between meticulous pop, electronica, jazz and classical music..."- Hank Shteamer

from eJazz News June 2006

Standards are sometimes meant to be broken, hence the large cardboard CD cases produced by this newly founded modern-jazz flavored record label. One of the three new releases is New York City downtown scene favorite, and multi-instrumentalist Ted Reichman’s delightful solo excursion. Created with infectious melodies, pumping backbeats and ornamental background synth treatments, the artist’s deeply personalized compositional forays are highly engaging.

Electric guitarist Mary Halverson generates animated jazz lines, while Reichman’s pump organ and acoustic piano grooves are designed with deceptively complex progressions. Whether executing a trance-like passage atop drummer John Hollenback’s solid pulses, or when deviating into the avant-garde with quirky motifs, Reichman’s visualizations surface in flying colors here. In spots, he merges cyclical and haunting themes with simplicity, often countered with a pop-like muse boasting capacious movements with a sense of childlike innocence. On the piece “It Is Almost Sacred,” Reichman combines a church organ vibe with a simple acoustic guitar ostinato. Here, he pronounces a sanctified mindset. However, the title track’s tuneful and anthem-like qualities are augmented by Hollenbeck’s climactically oriented rhythms. Thus, the newly issued gem defies strict categorizations, where space-rock, pop, and jazz align for an unlikely union that makes near perfect sense. (A top-10 pick for 2006). – Glenn Astarita

from All About Jazz

Composer/accordionist Ted Reichman is an integral part of the New York musical community, whether he’s leading the Ted Reichman Emigré Band or playing as sideman in John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet. For My Ears Are Bent, Reichman takes the accordion right out of the picture. Instead, he employs pump organ, percussion, bass, guitar and piano (plenty of piano) to create a set of austere, anxious pieces that are more instrumental mood-rock than outright improv.

Reichman is accompanied by electric guitarist Mary Halvorson (on some of the tracks) and drummer John Hollenbeck (whose playing is more prominent and whose contributions to the recording are substantial). The opener, “Every Man to His Taste,” feels like a sweetly prayerful invocation as Reichman’s piano repeats a mantra-like melodic phrase, his pipe organ humming alongside as Hollenbeck’s unerring snare gently drives the band forward. This is rock music, pure and simple. Its layering of a repeated musical phrase and Halverson’s gloriously untechnical guitar lines very much bring to mind the intelligent pop optimism of the long-disbanded Feelies or the still-vital Yo La Tengo—although Hollenbeck’s crisp, perfect time will never be mistaken for that of Yo La Tengo drummer Georgia Hubley.

“Every Man to His Own Taste,” however, is something of a red herring, because in its wake, the album gets very dark. What follows are essentially piano/percussion duets whose anxious, minor-key piano melodies, layered, clanking percussion and close, wet ambience make for some unsettling listening. An examination of the song titles (“Nun,” “It Is Almost Sacred,” “Come to Jesus,” “Peace Father”) and an even-casual hearing of their creepy, spookhouse piano ostinati make it difficult to avoid the conclusion that Reichman is taking a decidedly stark and ungauzy look back at an unpleasantly old-school Catholic upbringing.

“Come to Jesus” shares the same descending melody as “Peace Father,” and to some extent, they’re different sides of the same haunted-attic environment. “I Know Nothing About It” follows dissonant, panic-attack pianos with a tempo-less middle section of chiming percussion, subdued electric guitar skronk (brittle and grinding, but quiet) and droning organ, before a final in-tempo section where Hollenbeck’s explosive kick and snare become downright dub-inflected. It’s very good, and more cohesive than the above description would suggest.

The title track that ends the disc breaks the tension, at least partially—like “Every Man to His Own Taste,” it’s a slow-layered alt-rock tune that repeats and builds a simple melodic phrase over Hollenbeck’s flawless kit work. It’s just a shade short of anthemic, yet even the sighing vocal “ooooohs” that join in during the last two minutes can’t quite dispel the thorniness of the preceding pieces. You won’t hear another recording like My Ears Are Bent. It’s not quite the Brooklyn improv scene’s version of The Wall, but in its unflinchingly anti-nostalgic and claustrophobic mood, it’s close. -Paul Olson

Emigré Reviews

The Wire
The Squid's Ear
Les Inrockuptibles (French) (English)
All About Jazz Italia (Italian) (English)

from The Wire (UK magazine) March 2004

A top-hatted man carries a secretly wrapped parcel while a train puffs smokily over the viaduct in the background; a cat laps in the gutter at an old woman’s feet; a distant figure approaches a flight of steps in Montmartre where a second figure sits enigmatically waiting. Few photographers have better captured the mysterious ordinariness of everyday life than André Kertész.

Born in Budapest in 1894, Kertész learned his craft using glass plates and served as a military cameraman with the Austro-Hungarian army before moving to Paris and then the USA, becoming an American citizen in 1944. His studied naturalism was briefly diverted toward glamorous end when he worked for Condé Nast, but in the ‘60’s he revived his coolly humanist approach. The forerunner of almost every documentary photographer of recent times, Kertész had already grasped what Cartier-Bresson called the “decisive moment” – the instant when careful compositional planning sparks with improvisational spontaneity to yield an iconic image.

Ted Reichman’s tribute to Kertész works according to the same logic. The only indication of its subject is the photographer’s haunted self portrait on the cover and a short quotation in which Kertész reasserts his basic philosophy that “Everything is a subject. Every subject has a rhythm”. Reichman’s choice of folkish and more abstract ‘subjects’ is intriguingly haphazard, with little sense of the journey West, but the real core of Emigré is the search for new rhythms.

A veteran of various Tzadik projects, the accordionist comes to the fore on this debut disc with a vastly increased arsenal of sound. Guitar, Hammond and pump organs, zither, piano and electronics all play their part in fixing the sepia tinged atmospheres of the suite. The other players take a relatively minor role, though Mark Stewart’s cello and guitars, Doug Wieselman’s clarinets and bass harmonica, and Joyce Hammann’s fiddle and viola add important sonic textures.

People (“Elizabeth,” “Anne-Marie Merkel”), places and times (“November 12, 1920”, “Paris c 1930”, “Martinique”, “Provence 1979”) all play their part in an essentially abstract drama, and it probably makes sense to leaf through a portfolio of Kertész images as you listen to this music. Without them, it is as enigmatic as every other imaginary soundtrack, but no less compelling as a piece of music. The very simplicity of means is its greatest strength. The rhythms are mostly slow, often in placid three-quarter time, sometimes repetitive, like an early European take on American minimalism, but often rubato and unstressed. Two tracks “Distortion 1” and “4”, seem to come from a sequence of studio improvisations, which might well have been worth hearing in full, though it would be a shame to disturb the set’s easy flow with extra material. At just under 50 minutes, it does exactly what a Kertész photograph could do: suggest whole histories by showing very little, emphasizing the particular in such a way as to imply universals, restoring seeing (or in Reichman's case, hearing) as conscious and patient acts, creative in themselves. - Brian Morton

back

from The Squids Ear (New York-based webzine)

"...His portrait of Kertesz is not only a tribute to a great artist, but also comments musically on the fate of Jews in the last century - immigration, oppression, alienation and the loss of the family and community in the Holocaust - as it was mirrored in Kertesz photographs. In his "secret" liner notes to Emigre (not included with the disc but posted at http://www.tedreichman.com, Reichman says that "though he was not an observant Jew, and though there are no explicit references to Judaism anywhere in his work, Kertesz followed a typically Jewish path as a person and as an artist, the path from family and community to individuality and alienation."

Reichman doesn't opt for the easy references to klezmer music, but succeeds in portraying key places in the life of Kertesz: his home town, Budapest, at the beginning of the last century; Paris between the two world wars; and New York. The musical references are subtle and modest, hints of gypsy music (some of Kertesz famous photos are of gypsy musicians and children) with the eerie sounds of zither and chanson songs interweaving these influences into a cohesive modern texture using samples and electronic effects. He manages to grant us insight into the intimate, moody and sometimes hypnotic rhythm of his subject's photos, and Kertesz himself thought that portraying this rhythm was the impetus for his photography. "Every subject has a rhythm. To feel this rhythm is the 'raison d'etre'. The photo is a fixed moment of such a 'raison d'etre' which lives on in itself," in Kertesz's words, as quoted in the liner notes. Indeed, Reichman's great achievement is focusing and fixing our attention, our gaze, into the work of a great modern artist who was also a secular Jew. Beautiful. It is one of the best releases of the Radical Jewish Culture series so far." - Eyal Hareuveni

back

from Les Inrockuptibles (French pop music magazine) Feb 18, 2004

La scène musicale de Manhattan est d’un niveau si relevé que même les seconds rôles qui y officient ont parfois l’étoffe des géants. C’est le cas de l’accordéoniste Ted Reichman, l’un des hommes de main de Marc Ribot, David Krakauer ou Paul Simon, et du multi-instrumentiste Doug Wieselman, qui s’est notamment activé derrière Lou Reed, John Lurie et Anthony Coleman : leurs premiers pas en solo les désignent comme d’élégants passe-murailles. Sous prétexte d’évoquer la vie itinérante du photographe hongrois André Kertesz, Reichman et ses invités (dont Wieselman, qui manie clarinette, guitare et harmonica) s’offrent une palpitante flânerie aux confins vaporeux de la musique de chambre, du jazz et de la tradition klezmer. Avec sa belle floraison instrumentale (piano, guitare, cithare, percussions), ses cordes ondulantes et ses bruissements électroniques, Emigré est la moisson frémissante d’un musicien qui a pris le temps de cultiver son jardin et de laisser respirer son imaginaire. - Richard Robert

translation by Google and Ted:

“…sometimes supporting players have the stuff of giants. This is the case of accordionist Ted Reichman… Reichman and his guests… offer a palpitating flânerie with the vaporous borders of the chamber music, jazz and klezmer traditions. With its beautiful instrumental flowering (piano, guitar, zither, percussions), its undulating cords and its electronic rustles, Emigré is the quivering harvest of a musician who took time to cultivate his garden and to let his imagination breathe.”

back

from All About Jazz Italy (Italian web magazine)

Dopo essere stato a fianco di tanti musicisti della scena Lower East Side di New York - tra cui Marc Ribot o David Krakauer - il fisarmonicista Ted Reichman ha lavorato, per il suo debutto da solista con la Tzadik, a un ritratto del fotografo di origine ungherese André Kertész, figura artistica di grandissimo valore nel '900 delle immagini.

Emigré segue infatti la vita di Kertész dalla giovinezza nella comunità ebraica di Budapest all'arrivo negli USA, passando per la Francia [dove arriverà nei primi anni '20] e ha per questa impostazione un andamento fortemente descrittivo e suggestivo, dolente nel distacco dalla terra natia, estremamente efficace nel punteggiare gli stati d'animo [ad esempio l'arrivo a Parigi], piena di varietà, ma con colori ben definiti, quasi a mantenere il bianco e nero delle opere del fotografo.

Reichman, ottimo nel comporre e assemblare le diverse influenze popolari che si intrecciano con la vita di Kertész, non si limita alla fisarmonica, ma suona anche organo, chitarra, percussioni, piano, strumenti elettronici, coadiuvato da amici affidabili come Dougie Bowne alla batteria, Roberto Rodriguez alle percussioni, Joyce Hammann al violino, Mark Stewart a violoncelli e chitarre, Doug Wieselman ai clarinetti. La musica che ne deriva è a tratti elegiaca, a tratti sorniona, danzando quasi in punta di piedi.

Come le tante immagini che devono essere passate sotto l'occhio attento del fotografo prima che la sua arte ne desse un'immortale interpretazione, scorrono all'ascolto paesaggi, sensazioni, ricordi, incontri con altri artisti, ossessioni [ascoltate con cura l'iterazione pianistica di "Distortion 1"], veli, nudità, parchi, tecnologie, in un percorso che potrebbe accompagnare alcune pagine del meraviglioso libro di Micheal Chabon Le Fantastiche Avventure di Kavalier & Clay [non lasciatevelo sfuggire, edizione economica Rizzoli a vostra disposizione], se non fosse che si parla di fumetti e non di fotografia.

Un disco notevole, volutamente senza un particolare "centro di gravità permanente" e pertanto sempre fresco ad ogni ascolto, attività questa che suggeriamo magari accompagnata dalla visione di qualche fotografia di Kertész: nel suo lucido bianco e nero convivono la quotidianità e la storia [dolorosa e intima] del '900.

Valutazione: * * * * - Enrico Bettinello

Translation by Google:

Reichman, optimal in composing and assembling the various popular infuences that are interlaced with the life of Kertész, is not limited to the electronic fisarmonica, but sound also organ, guitar, percussions, plan, instruments, coadiuvato from reliable friends like Dougie Bowne on drums, Roberto Rodriguez to the percussions, Joyce Hammann to violino, guitar and Mark Stewart violoncelli, Doug Wieselman to the clarinetti. The music that derives some is at times elegiaca, at times sorniona, dancing nearly in tip of feet.

Like the many images that must before be passages under the careful eye of the photographer that its art of it gave a immortale interpretation, they slide to I listen to landscapes, feelings, memories, encounter with other artists, obsessions [ listened to with cure the pianistica iterance of "Distortion 1" ], sails, nakedness, parks, technologies, in a distance that could accompany some pages of the wonderful book of Micheal Chabon the Fantastic Adventures of Kavalier & Clay [ you do not let it to escape, economic edition Rizzoli to your disposition ], if it were not that it is spoken about comic strips and not about photography.

A remarkable disc, intentionally without a particular "center ofalways fresh permanent gravity" and therefore to every I listen, activity this that we even suggest accompanied from the vision of some photography of Kertész: in its I polish $R-bianco.e.nero cohabit the quotidianità and the painful and intimate history [ ] of the ' 900.

back