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Personnel:
Gabriel Amargant (ts), Marco Mezquida (p), Adrià Plana (g), Miquel Serna (b), Gonzalo Del Val (d)
Reference: FSNT-466
Bar code: 8427328424660
"Ya me he oido este disco cuatro veces y cuanto más lo pongo, más me gusta. Este es el Amargant que quiero escuchar... La técnica instrumental dominada sin esfuerzo... Esa musicalidad... Esa madurez que les falta a otros de su misma edad... Esas ideas siempre renovadas... Sigue así, chaval... ¡Anda! ya se acabó el disco! Vale, dale al replay..."
- Juan Claudio Cifuentes, "Cifu"
"The Monty Python tag line is at least partly ironic. What Amargant, who's not yet 30, has done is to absorb a huge amount of jazz literature and then to produce his own versions of it. So pretty much every track will remind the listener of some great precedent before alerting him to the presence of a genuinely original new talent. Thus: Wise Man begins with the portentuous shimmer of A Love Supreme, but it's the clarinet that comes in first, in folk-classical mode and with a sinuous line that sounds authentically Argentinian. Likewise Mah!, which seems to channel one of the more agreeable sides of Stan Getz before establishing an asymmetrical swing that is entirely Amargant's own. Seventy Steps... (Stairway) is a clever mash-up of familiar sequences. Great raw clarinet playing on Pigeon's Dance as well.
The young saxophonist studied with Stan Sulzmann for a time, and with others, and already has a sizeable CV. Again in contradiction of the title, this is not the first outing for a group which sounds beautifully balanced and alert. Plana makes significant contributions at every stage, including a delightful intro to La Petite Chien and never gets in the way of the piano. Bass and drums execute tricky metres and open harmonies; Serna also has a lovely feature on La Petite Chien. It's not clear here and there which of his saxes Amargant is playing, but you'll stop wondering for this is great stuff: another gem from the FSNT mine."
-Brian Morton (Jazz Journal, June 2015)
http://www.jazzjournal.co.uk