Our work:
Elevating Jazz Music Vol. 1
We play Elevating music, not Elevator music, quoting a phrase by Eminem on Rap God. By doing so, we try to emphasize the social and communicative aspects of music, too often put aside to favor the so-called usability.
The album presents itself as a collection of stories about recent events, less-recent ones, and what’s going on right now. Some serious, some not so serious, our dialogues want to encourage reflection on different aspects of the world around us, depicting the feelings evoked by them.
The open-ended writing style of the compositions was conceived with a specific sound in mind, which led to the founding of the BSDE 4tet. At the same time, it leaves space for interaction among all who participate, so the personal and expressive contribution of both musicians and audience become essential.
Interplay and a collective sound are aspects that the band feels very strongly about, to the point that the album was recorded the “old-fashioned way”, in a single room and without headphones or double-glazing to separate the vibrations of the instruments.
Personnel:
Daniele Nasi – Tenor & Soprano Saxophone
Jung Taek “JT” Hwang – Piano, Moog & Fender Rhodes
Giacomo Marzi – Double-bass
Andrea Bruzzone – Drums
Recording Data:
Recorded, Mixed & mastered on July 2021 at Sonic Temple Studio, Parma (Italy)
Sound Engineer: Domenico Vigliotti
Artwork: Ike Edgerton
Graphic: Studioclessidra.it
Produced by GleAM Records
Printed in Italy 2022
EAN 8059018220070
T.R.i.P.
The album begins with T.R.i.P., dedicated to a missing person. A physical and metaphysical journey that explores the contrasting emotions triggered by the events and the memories linked to this person, in a time frame that re-initiates at each conclusion.
A journey that begins with an end,
the unknown, once dreadful, becomes the unexplored,
a pier to set sail from,
fragmented memories floating,
a sea filled with expectations,
a wish to rest in peace.
Dedicated to Lorenza.
Drowning in Guilt
Drowning in Guilt was written in response to an episode that occurred 8 years ago, but linked to a theme that remains terribly relevant, that of migrations. More specifically it addresses the Mediterranean Sea, where too often the hopes of many migrants, who have embarked on a desperate journey, are cut short. The tune seeks to evoke those moments, the depths of an unforgiving sea, a drowning in guilt. Dedicated to the 268 people who lost their lives on October 11, 2013, while Italy was trying to bounce to Malta the responsibility of sending aid.
“The Nave Libra, an Italian Navy patrol boat, is barely an hour and a half away from a sinking boat with Syrian families aboard. But for five hours it is left waiting without orders. On the afternoon of October 11th 2013, the Italian military command dithers about which coast to transfer the refugees to. So they do not order their unit into action, despite numerous distress calls and repeated formal requests from the Maltese Armed Forces for the Italian ship to intervene.
The fishing boat, which had left Libya with at least 480 people, is taking on water: it had been hit by machine gun fire unleashed by militiamen on a gunboat who wanted to rob or kidnap the passengers, almost all of whom were Syrian doctors. That afternoon the Libra is between 10 and 19 miles from the boat. Lampedusa is 61 miles away. But the Coast Guard operations room in Rome orders the refugees to head for Malta, much further away: 118 miles.
After five hours of waiting and unheeded pleas from the Maltese authorities to their Italian colleagues, the boat capsizes. 268 people die, including 60 children. [...] In four years, despite four years of appeals from the survivors, no Italian Public Prosecutor's Office has completed the investigation."
by Fabrizio Gatti, l’Espresso, May 15th 2017.
Waltz for Palestine
Waltz for Palestine is dedicated to the Palestinian people, to those who have to endure a compromised daily life, a condition that has been going on for too many years. Mahmoud Darwish's poem, "I Have A Seat In The Abandoned Theater", perfectly describes the feeling we have when confronted with these situations as spectators; but to what extent are we mere spectators? Who is the author? What was the beginning like?
I Have a Seat in the Abandoned Theater
I have a seat in the abandoned theater
in Beirut. I might forget, and I might recall
the final act without longing ... not because of anything
other than that the play was not written
skillfully ...
Chaos
as in the war days of those in despair, and an autobiography
of the spectators’ impulse. The actors were tearing up their scripts
and searching for the author among us, we the witnesses
sitting in our seats
I tell my neighbor the artist: Don’t draw your weapon,
and wait, unless you’re the author!
—No
Then he asks me: And you are you the author?
—No
So we sit scared. I say: Be a neutral
hero to escape from an obvious fate
He says: No hero dies revered in the second
scene. I will wait for the rest. Maybe I would
revise one of the acts. And maybe I would mend
what the iron has done to my brothers
So I say: It is you then?
He responds: You and I are two masked authors and two masked
witnesses
I say: How is this my concern? I’m a spectator
He says: No spectators at chasm’s door ... and no
one is neutral here. And you must choose
your part in the end
So I say: I’m missing the beginning, what’s the beginning?
Mahmoud Darwish, "I Have a Seat in the Abandoned Theater" from The Butterfly’s Burden. (Copyright © 2008 by Mahmoud Darwish, English translation by Fady Joudah. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press.)
Callin’
“So peremptorily did these shades beckon him, that each day mankind and the claims of mankind slipped farther from him. Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the forest.”
Jack London, The Call of the Wild.
Water-Eyes
Water Eyes is a ballad, inspired by the story in "Memoirs of a Geisha". In this tune, every blow, every breath seek a sound belonging to a floating world, with its ethereal beauty and somber secrets.
“She paints her face to hide her face. Her eyes are deep water. It is not for geisha to want. It is not for geisha to feel. Geisha is an artist of the floating world. She dances, she sings. She entertains you, whatever you want. The rest is shadows, the rest is secret.”
Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha.
7 Is the New 5
The foundation of the BSDE project took place in Groningen (NL), where the pianist and the sax player undertook part of their studies. Here they both had the opportunity to play and study with many musicians from the Balkan area, where a lot of folk music is based on claves in odd time signatures. 7 is the new 5 is inspired by this tradition, trying to turn a complex rhythm into something simple, a dance.
“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”
Charles Mingus.
Ban Orban or
Ban Our Band
Ban Orban or Ban our Band is not meant to be just a tongue twister, but a critique to that homophobic strand still present in the European Union. In the tune the words of Katalin Cseh, Member of the European Parliament, illustrate part of the problem, the music the rest of it.
“In 2014, hungarian gay rights activist Milan Rosza climbed into the fortified russian embassy in Budaest. He held up a rainbow flag and called out Putin’s anti-gay law and the violence unleashed by it. Milan was a friend of mine, one of the most passionate and brave people I ever knew, and a few months later he took his own life.
His tragedy sheds light to all the mental pain LGBTI people very often suffer from, and this is beyond tragic that we are here today to witness the exact replica of Putin’s law being adopted in the EU.
Right now, in Hungary, it’s illegal for teachers to talk to High schoolers about diversity and acceptance or for kids to watch cartoons with queer carachters in it. This law conflates gay people with pedophiles and it incites violence and hatred and we already see that. If this is not enough for the EU to take action, then nothing else will be.
So I tell you what to do, stop funding Victor Orban’s corruption, apply the rule of law mechanism, because human rights abuses are only a means for him and kleptocracy is the ultimate end. Thank you very much.”
Katalin Cseh, 07 July 2021, plenary speech on Rights in Hungary and Poland at the European Parliament.
The Tapping Changes
The album wraps up with a track that is meant to be a homage to the jazz tradition and the giants of the past, with a touch of BSDE, The Tapping Changes.
Rattling around,
choosing one,
climbing halfway to the top…
Wait, look at that other one!
Back down,
rattling around again,
restart.
Hard to choose the right pair of shoulders...
Is there a right pair of shoulders?
rattle, rattle rattle…
So many giants!
DN.