Polyzogopoulos Andreas
Petrichor
Label: Trumpetfish Records
Genre: Jazz / Avant Garde
Availability
- LP €23.99 Out of Stock
Petros Klampanis (double bass)
Wajdi Riahi (piano)
Liner notes by Erik Truffaz
Trumpeter and composer Andreas Polyzogopoulos is pleased to present his fifth album as a leader, Petrichor — a ruminative, all-original trio set, airy and deeply soulful. Petrichor features the leader on trumpet and occasional effects with gifted partners Petros Klampanis (bass) and Wajdi Riahi (piano). Without a drummer, the trio creates an intimate sound, with sparse textures but also a firm and decisive rhythmic sense. As fellow trumpeter and Blue Note recording artist Erik Truffaz writes in his liner notes (in the form of a personal letter to the leader): “Your music honors the silence and creates dreams. Your way of playing the trumpet is so delicate that praises this sometimes ungrateful instrument. You have a round, velvet sound, even when muted…. Your companions … are also excellent. They groove, have perfect timing and they participate equally in this dream that the three of you are drawing together.”
Petrichor, as Polyzogopoulos explains, is “the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil, my favourite scent since I was a child. Growing up in Greece, where summers are dry, the first rain in autumn marked the end of the summer and the beginning of the new season. A bittersweet feeling, because I had to accept that the holidays were over; but also a fresh beginning, full of dreams and goals to accomplish throughout the year that was on the way.” The subtlety of these emotions, and the natural, organic scent of that first rain, is brilliantly evoked by the trio in its haunting, expressive, atmospheric lyricism.
Polyzogopoulos grew up in Samiko, a small village in southwest Greece. In 2008 he released Perfumed Dreams, his debut as a leader. His subsequent records include a tribute to his favourite band Pink Floyd (Heart of the Sun), followed by Annica (inspired by a 10-day silent meditation) and the ambient album One Inch of Love. After a residency at Cité International des Arts in Paris, he moved to Brussels and began collaborating with Diederik Wissels, appearing on the pianist’s albums Secrecy, Yearn and the piano/trumpet duo album Before You Go. In addition, he has worked with Savina Yannatou, Tania Giannouli, Jacques Morelenbaum, Michel Portal, Gunter “Baby” Sommer, Markus Stockhausen, Tony Lakatos and more. The European jazz scene is where Andreas developed his voice, taking risks and experimenting with trumpet timbres, rhythm, electronics and silence.
That aesthetic is evident from the first notes of the opening title track “Petrichor,” with Polyzogopoulos conjuring an ethereal electronic haze before the trio establishes an urgent yet easily flowing feel in 5/8. Harmonizer, delays and loops are some of the sounds in his toolkit, surfacing in varied and subtle ways on “Barbas” and “Ariadne’s Scent” as well. “I use the effects to create a more spacious, dreamy sound,” says the leader, “and also to generate a bit of polyphony with harmonizer on the horn.”
The Harmon mute is another essential sound, deployed by Polyzogopoulos on “Kaiafas” (named for an area in southwest Greece overflowing with pine trees), “CPH Melodrama” (triggered by an aborted long-term stay in Copenhagen), and the closing “Petit Sablon” (“a cute square in Brussels”). If you hear what sounds a bit like a chekeré, the beguiling Yoruba instrument of West Africa and Cuba, on “Barbas” and “The Coldest Summer,” this too is trumpet: Polyzogopoulos manipulates the horn in such a way as to sustain a natural-sounding, well-conceived percussion pattern. On “Petit Sablon” the percussion loop is more central, brought into being via MIDI on laptop.
Percussion can come from the piano as well, as Riahi demonstrates on the folk-oriented “Kountouri” and the funky, swinging “First Time in Times Square.” The latter is the most overtly rhythmic tune on the album, a blues in 7/8 flipping between major and minor. The band rapport is tight, breathtakingly so, with a rapid and polyrhythmic unison line that almost recalls Bud Powell’s “Parisian Thoroughfare” (even if the title puts one more in mind of Mingus’ “Nostalgia in Times Square”).
“The Coldest Summer,” a hymn “to the refugees who die in the Aegean Sea each summer,” features one of the album’s most striking textures — the whistling of Riahi, in close but relaxed unison with his piano lines. Riahi brings an advanced, outside-the-lines harmonic sense to every piece, while Klampanis provides a solo and melody voice loaded with power and presence, grace and emotional investment. Erik Truffaz notes in Polyzogopoulos a certain kinship with trumpet greats such as Enrico Rava and Palle Mikkelborg. With Petrichor, Andreas channels the influence of these forebears even as he continues to set himself apart.