1.
Mitte der 80er Jahre war es Ekkehard Jost noch möglich, ein Buch über die Emanzipation des europäischen Jazz und die in den 70er Jahren entstehende Improvisierte Musik, »Europas Jazz« zu nennen. Die 60er Jahre und die amerikanischen Vorbilder, von Ayler über Coleman bis Shepp, waren noch präsent (eben als Vorbilder und nicht als unantastbare Ikonen), da lag es nahe, das, was, Jost als »Europas Jazz« charakterisierte, als Adaption des afroamerikanischen Free Jazz zu verstehen und als damit einhergehende Aufforderung, daraus etwas Eigenes zu machen.

Heute, 15 Jahre später, lässt sich die Geschichte der Improvisierten Musik in Europa als Dialektik von Übernahme und Bruch nicht mehr so ohne weiteres erzählen. Nicht nur, dass es einen europäischen Jazz gibt, der sich auf die jeweiligen volksmusikalischen Traditionen bezieht und genau das als das europäische in seiner Musik versteht, es dürfte mittlerweile schwierig bis unmöglich sein, bei all den radikalen Improvisatoren noch die Wurzeln im Jazz auszugraben - weil es sie gar nicht mehr gibt. Derek Bailey ist ja in den 50er und 60er Jahren als britischer Jim Hall zu gewissem Ruhm gekommen. Somit mag es legitim sein, ihn einem Jazz-Kontinuum zu zuschlagen, auch wenn alles, was er nach 1968 veröffentlicht hat auf einen autonomen Entwurf verweist.

Aber bei den jüngeren Musikern, die als unmittelbare Vorbilder nicht Django Reinhardt sondern Bailey adaptieren, eine innere Verbindung zum (Free) Jazz aufzuzeigen, ist schlicht unmöglich.

Heute müsste man anstatt von »Europas Jazz« von »Höchst unterschiedlichen Improvisierten Musiken, die alle in Europa entstanden sind, und von denen sich einige durchaus noch auf den Free Jazz beziehen« reden. Klingt reichlich gewunden. Für einen Buchtitel untauglich.

Man muss aber vor dem (musikalisch überaus produktiven) Chaos der mannigfaltigen Stile und Geschichte nicht kapitulieren, man muss nur die Perspektive erweitern. Anlässe dazu findet man überall: z.B. bei Peter Brötzmann, der ja in den 60er Jahren mindestens genau so sehr bildender Künstler wie zorniger Musiker war. Er arbeitete in Wuppertal mit Nam June Paik zusammen und nahm an diversen, heute Legende gewordenen Fluxus-Manifestationen teil. Oder bei den Holländern: Willem Breuker, Misha Mengelberg und Han Bennink waren damals an Fluxus-Happenings beteiligt (Breukers »Lunchconcert for three barrel organs« von 1969 ist direkter Ausdruck einer der damaligen Aktionen). Der wahlweise lakonische (Mengelberg) oder manische (Bennink) Anarchismus ihrer heutigen Musik zeugt von dem Fortwirken dieser Involvierung.

Für eine empirische Herleitung der These, dass das, was mal Europas Jazz war und dann sehr schnell zu jenem improvisiertem Chaos mutierte, aus dem Geist von Fluxus geboren wurde, reicht es zwar nicht aus - aber doch für ein Gedankenspiel. Was ist also, wenn neben dem Free Jazz (als Imaginationskraft allerdings mehr und mehr verblassend) Fluxus die entscheidende Inspirationsquelle war? Fluxus freilich nicht als Vorbild, das es zunächst zu imitieren gilt, um es überwinden zu können, weil Fluxus bereits immanent seine eigene Infragestellung und Destruktion und Überwindung darstellt und sich als »Vorbild« permanent selbst verhindert, sondern Fluxus als Reich der Möglichkeiten, dass man auch für sich einnehmen kann.

2.
»à Robert Filliou« ist eine von dem Schweizer Saxophonisten Christoph Gallio komponierte und konzipierte Suite, die sich ausschließlich Texten des Fluxuskünstlers Robert Filliou bedient und von diesen wesentlich inspiriert ist. Das ist insofern ungewöhnlich, weil, meines Wissens nach, es kaum direkte (Rück-) Bezüge innerhalb der Improvisierten Musik Europas auf die heiße Phase der Fluxusbewegung gibt.

»à Robert Filliou« ist beides: Rekonstruktion und Hommage; Weiterführung und eigenständiges Werk. Nichts wäre ja einfacher als offensiv die prozessuale, extrem offene, dabei niemals unverbindliche Arbeitsweise Fillious für die Improvisierte Musik zu vereinnahmen. Sein legendäres »Permanent Creation Tool Shed« könnte ebenso gut ein Ort sein, an dem Improvisierte Musik geschaffen wird _- die ja das verkörpert, was Filliou so sehr beschäftigte: eine Kunst, die die Regeln und Abläufe ihrer Veränderung deutlich macht.

Gallio belässt es aber nicht bei so einem Kurzschluss, dazu hätte es ja auch völlig ausgereicht, wenn es geheißen hätte, »à Robert Filliou« sei seinem Werk verpflichtet. Aber in dem Moment, in dem Gallio Fillious Texte, also konkretes Material verwendet, stellt er konkrete Bezüge her, und wo Bezüge hergestellt werden, gibt es eine Distanz. Diese Distanz ermöglicht es ihm einerseits um die Texte herum Kompositionen zu schrieben und mehr noch: mit den Texten zu komponieren, und andererseits die daraus resultierenden Kunstlieder in einen größeren Rahmen, z.B. in eine Suite zu integrieren. Diese Suite, darin den Fluxuswerken sehr verwandt, dekonstruiert sich selber, denn sie besteht wesentlich aus Vignetten Improvisierter Musik, die nicht nur bloß den Lücken zwischen den ebenfalls angedeuteten, skizzenhaften Kunstlieder überbrücken, sondern einen Zusammenhang stiften, der weit über den möglichen Anlass, die Vertonung einiger Filliou-Texte, hinausweist und damit die eigentliche Suite aushebelt und es in etwas Eigenes verwandelt. Dass damit die Musik den Intentionen Fillious viel näher kommt, als eine epigonenhafte, »enge« Hommage und damit um so mehr dem Fluxus-Geist entspricht, ist die Dialektik von Nähe und Distanz.

Natürlich findet sich in den hier zu hörenden Improvisationen viel von der Geschichte dieser Musik: z.B. der Verzicht auf eine konventionelle Instrumentierung, die (äußerlichen) Anklänge an Kammermusik, was natürlich nicht heißt, dass sich die Musiker um irgendeine kammermusikalischen Konventionen scherten, die ausgeprägte Detailverliebtheit (zur Geltung kommend in der Subtilität von Gitarre und Gesang) und aber auch Reminiszenzen an den Free Jazz, was man besonders gut in den kraftvollen, eruptiven Einwürfen der Holzbläser hört. Aber all das wird relativiert oder besser: rekontextualisiert durch die Texte. Obwohl beide Grundelemente dieser Musik, das Kunstlied und die Improvisation, jeweils perfekt ausgearbeitet (nicht: ausformuliert) sind, funktionieren sie in dem, sagen wir: Environment, wie es Gallio entworfen hat, nicht ohne einander: sie stützen sich, in dem sie sich infragestellen.

Die Musik wird zu ihrem eigenen Perpetuum Mobile. Wir könnten jetzt wieder von vorne anfangen ... Felix Klopotek

1.
In the middle of the 80's Ekkehard Jost was still able to title a book Europe's Jazz, which dealt with the emancipation of European Jazz and the improvised music originating in the 70's. Since the 60's and the American role models, from Ayler through Coltrane up to Shepp, were still present (but as role models and not as untouchable icons), it would seem that what Jost characterized as "Europe's Jazz" should be understood as an adaptation of Afro-American Free Jazz and as a concomitant demand to make something one's own. Today, 15 years later, the history of improvised music in Europe--as a fragmentation and adaptation--can no longer be simply told like this. Not only because there is a European Jazz that refers to its own particular folk traditions and understands exactly this as the "European" in its music, but also because, nowadays, it's difficult or even impossible to still dig up the roots in jazz among all the radical improvisers. These roots don't exist any more. To a certain degree, Derek Bailey became famous in the 50's and 60's as a British Jim Hall. Thus it may be legitimate to attribute a jazz continuity to him, even though everything he published after 1968 refers to an autonomous design. It is simply impossible, however, to demonstrate an inner connection to (Free) Jazz among the younger musicians who adopt their role model not from Django Reinhardt, but from Bailey.

Here, instead of "Europe's Jazz," one must speak of "highly differentiated improvised musics that all originated in Europe and of whom a few still refer to Free Jazz." Sounds rather torturous. And unsuitable for a book title. One cannot, however, capitulate in front of the (musically quite productive) chaos emerging from the varied styles and stories; one needs, rather, to expand the perspectives. Reasons to do this are present everywhere: look at Peter Brötzmann, who was as much a visual artist as an angry musician. He worked in Wuppertal with Nam June Paik and took part in diverse fluxus manifestations, now legendary. Or check out the Dutch: Willem Breuker, Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink also participated in the fluxus happenings (Breuker's "Lunch Concert for Three Barrel Organs" from 1969 is a direct expression of such an action). The alternatively laconic (Mengelberg) or manic (Bennink) anarchism of their music today shows how this involvement lives on.

A little play of thought isn't enough to empirically prove this thesis--that what was Europe's Jazz and then very quickly mutated to this improvised chaos derived from the spirit of fluxus. Or perhaps it is? What then, if next to Free Jazz (fading more and more, however, as a power of imagination), fluxus were the decisive source of inspiration? Not as a role model, of course, that one needs to imitate in order to overcome it, since fluxus immanently presents its own questioning, destruction and overcoming, and permanently prevents itself being understood as a "role model." Rather fluxus as a realm of possibilities that one can take as one's own.

2.
"à Robert Filliou" is a suite composed and conceived by Christoph Gallio that exclusively uses the texts of the fluxus artist Robert Filliou and that is fundamentally inspired by them. This is quite unusual, since, as far as I know, there has hardly been any direct (reverse) connections to the heated phase of the fluxus movement within European improvised music. 

"à Robert Filliou" is both reconstruction and homage, continuation and an independent work. Nothing would be simpler than to offensively incorporate the process-oriented, extremely open, but never non-committal working methods of Filliou for improvised music. His legendary "Permanent Creation Tool Shed" could be a place where improvised music is made, a place that embodies that what Filliou was so occupied with: an art that makes its rules and processes of its changes distinct.

Gallio, however, does not leave it at this short sighted idea. Then it would have been enough to simply bind "Mösiblö" to Filliou's work. But at the moment Gallio uses Filliou's texts, that is, concrete material, Gallio produces concrete references. Where references are produced, so is distance, which allows him, on the one hand, to compose around the texts and even more, to compose with the texts. On the other, he can integrate the resulting art songs in a larger frame, e.g. in a suite. This suite, which is closely related to fluxus works, deconstructs itself, since it fundamentally exists out of vignettes of improvised music that do not simply bridge the gaps between the likewise intimated, sketchy art songs, but rather provide a connection that goes far beyond the possible reason, the musical setting of Filliou's texts, and thus cancels the actual suite and transforms it into something all its own. The dialectic is about proximity and distance, so that the music approaches Filliou's intentions more than is a epigonous, "close" homage; hence this suite corresponds all the more to the fluxus spirit.

Of course, a lot of the history of this music is found in these improvisations, e.g. doing without conventional instruments, the (outward) suggestions of chamber music (which, of course, does not mean that the musicians don't care anything about chamber music conventions), the expressive love of details (which stands out in the subtlety of guitar and voice), but also the reminiscences on Free Jazz, which one hears particularly well in the powerful, eruptive insertions of the woodwinds.

But all this is made relative, or better, is recontextualized through the texts. Although both are fundamental elements of this music, the art song and improvisation, each perfectly worked out (not, however, formulated), they do not function in the, let's say, environment, as Gallio designed it, without each other; they support each other by questioning each other.

This music becomes its own perpetuum mobile. We can begin again from the beginning. Felix Klopotek Translation: Bruce Carnevale

Dear Listener 
Robert Filliou is a person many people would have wanted to know. Were it not for our beliefs of 'this and that', we could know him today. That's the way Robert was. For as it is, we could meet him one to one right now, if we were mentally open to it; emotionally and spiritually prepared. Robert was an unusual human being in his lifetime. In his death his character may be felt as we turn a corner, bump into and old friend or wake up and realize "what a perfect rainy morning, why am I being so hard on myself?," or deciding that instead of going for the big 'deal' today, the career or social function tonight, maybe I should just take a day off to walk in the forrest... Robert Filliou was dedicated to life, to being human and to giving his best for those around him. He was a life master and mastered among other talents, art, simplicity, kindness and love, Yes, he did become successful in his profession, but he was blessed by a self awareness as inquenchable as a mountain spring. He disperaged fame. He was humble.

Another accomplished artist, in his later years, told me that Filliou saved his life one day. This artist told Filliou that he feared he was loosing his mind. Filliou, already and expert in finding answers in rocks said, " I lived my whole life as a madman and it's beautiful....the only problem is not knowing that we're mad to begin with, but once we realise that, then everything is ok". So it was.

Here are some facts and maybe rumors about Robert's journey through the world: Born in poverty in the South of France, Filliou participated in the French underground in WWII. Later, in the USA he was a laborer for Coca-Cola, put himself through college, hosted a radio talk show. He worked for the UN as an economist, and travelled around the world. In Japan he came in contact with Buddhism. Returning to Europe, he developed his work as a writer & artist, living within a community of European artists whose careers and work are still powerful influences today. Through his art connections, he was introduced to Tibetan Buddhism and eventually died within the simple surroundings of a monastery, in the French countryside to which he returned, after a very rich and eventful journey through life.

In the 1970's, Robert's friends in Dusseldorf all chipped in and created a stipendium for he and his wife Marianne and their daughter, Marcelline (then known as Marcel). It was like the community actually helped them enter a new phase of life and a career was launched from their help.

The Fillious placed the values of being human ahead of 'getting ahead' in the typical, social sense. It was this principal that inspired Robert and his art is a reflection of this inner human activity. The world responds to it. His art is a simple, universal language that we all understand, when we become more simple, too. "Innocence & Inspiration" two words that occur in one of Robert's works, can be translated as: emptiness and form, or female and male, or death and life.... Playful, profound, generous, affordable and simple. Filliou's art is like our responses to life, purified and refined to philosophic playthings, making our lives more precious and fantastic.

Filliou's inner work maybe his greatest gift to us though. His journey and discovery of spiritual well being and freedom reinforce a mythic desire within each of us to embrace spirit and live in truth. Thanks Robert, your success is ground for hope!

And about this Gallio CD on Filliou...Christoph found fruit on the tree and left a garden of its seeds. Enjoy Gallio's, Filliou inspired tracks!! All the best, John Halpern in the USA

A tribute to the Fluxus poet Robert Filliou, from the consistently stimulating saxophonist Christoph Gallio. Gallio's background was in free jazz and improvisation, where he has worked with the likes of William Parker and Rashied Ali. The seemingly naive imagery and flirtatiousness of Filliou's texts couldn't be further removed from the angst and tension of free jazz and has allowed Gallio to "begin again from the beginning". His chirpy saxophone lines set the tone for Sara Maurer's texts while Thomas Eckert (clarinets), Marino Pliakas (guitar) and Peter Schärli (trumpets) add a surreally animated backdrop, not too far in spirit from those oddball East European cartoons that Channel Four used to broadcast. 

Un nuovo lavoro per il prolifico sassofonista svizzero Cristoph Gallio (molte le sue registrazioni nel catalogo Percaso), che sceglie atmosfere cameristiche e un linguaggio free per omaggiare uno dei grandi esponenti del movimento Fluxus: Robert Filliou, artista visuale, poeta, compositore, mente multimediale (quando ancora questo non destava sospetto), sublime conoscitore dei meandri della parola, del linguaggio e dei suoni. Le poesie qui dispiegate sono piccole sentenze, aforismi, frasi rubate all'antologia di Filliou ispirata alla poesia giapponese. E suonano infatti come haiku le piccole preziose gemme che compongono la suite: gusto della frammentazione, della velocità e brevità, della sensazione evocata e mai ribadita, i trentasei piccoli pezzi superano raramente i tre minuti, e si aggirano invece sui trenta secondi: brevi momenti (alcuni dei brani -quelli senza testo- non hanno titolo, ma solo il numero) strappati al fluire della vita, isole di leggera poesia (i suoni concreti e naturali che affiorano dalla chitarra di Marino Pliakas, creando ambienti in interazione con il vocalismo di Sarah Mauer) architetture che le ance e la tromba possono "abitare" con il loro portato free jazz. I brani si susseguono tra momenti ironici, non-sense, giochi di parole trasgressivi, (manifestazioni del movimento fluxus nella sua inclinazione dada) e brani di intensa liricità. L'ambito espressivo di Gallio e dei suoi è quello del free nella sua lezione europea, che risente delle esperienze di improvvisazione radicale ed è talvolta vicina agli ambiti colti delle scelte avvenute in seguito alle stagioni della serialità. La voce di Sarah Maurer recita e canta con doti non comuni, è versatile e passa dallo "sprechesang", al canto (le melodie più orecchiabili, molte delle quali ricche degli intervalli caratteristici della tradizione giapponese) al recitato. Certo, la prova è difficile; a lei è affidata la responsabilità della comunicazione del senso esplicito, sempre interagente con l'interpretazione di matrice free del combo. Vengono in mente certe composizioni di teatro musicale, da Schönberg a Kurt Weill, viene in mente la voce dell'inarrivabile Cathy Berberian (e qui il confronto è per forza arduo); mentre in altri brani, più radicalmente improvvisati, si rimpiange un po' di spregiudicatezza in più (e vengono in mente Jeanne Lee, Catherine Jauniaux o Laureen Newton). Un disco di free da camera, un bellissimo "evento fluxus" .
Valutazione: * * * * 

Per saperne di più sul movimento fluxus: www.nutscape.com/fluxus/homepage Il portale fluxus: www.fluxus.org 

"Mösiöblö (À Robert Filliou)" is the work of an accomplished composer, an opus of maturity, something to be remembered by. "Day & Taxi" saxophonist Christoph Gallio did not set a selection of Robert Filliou's haïku-like poems to music, he worked them into the compositions, creating multi-referential ties between the two mediums, the musicality of the words triggering responses from the musicians. "Mösiöblö" takes the form of a suite of 36 short vignettes for mezzo-soprano and a chamber quartet (in lack of a better term) of guitar, clarinet, saxophone and trumpet. Approximately half of the tracks feature minute improvisations, the others are composed. Both categories of pieces remain very short, often under one minute, exceptionally over two. Sarah Mauer's warm and precise voice and the art song stylings of Gallio's writing recall Dagmar Krause's various projects, from the similalyr miniaturized songs of "Commuters" to her albums with "News from Babel" and "Marie Goyette". It allies the purity ofthe motet with contemporary melodies. The accompaniment ranges from delicately crafted scores of new music to more animal outbursts. Restraint is the key. Marino Pliakas, best known for his tenure as bassist in the avant-core trio "Steamboat Switzerland", shines on classical guitar. Gallio managed to condense a lot of things in these charming songs, yet they feel light, almost naive -- exactly as in Filliou's haïkus. A successful artistic endeavor, "Mösiöblö" is also highly pleasurable for the listener, who comes out of these 36 tracks (in 42 minutes!) with only one desire: press the play button again in order to hear every detail hidden under the apparent simplicity. Delightful and strongly recommended. 

Mixing jazz with poetry probably reached its zenith in the beatnik era, with such hip versifiers as Langston Hughes (with Charles Mingus) and Jack Kerouac (with Al Cohn and Zoot Sims) recording with instrumental accompaniment.
Since that time, the concept has been tried with various degrees of success by musicians as different as Julius Hemphill, Steve Lacy, Steve Swallow and Don Byron. Most attempts have been less than triumphant, as the portentousness of the words either deadens the music or the vigor of the instrumental sounds buries the poetry.
Swiss saxophonist Christoph Gallio has tried a different approach. For a start Gallio, who would probably bristle at being called a jazzman rather than a European improviser, has created an instrumental setting for a small chamber jazz group made up of his alto and soprano saxophones, Thomas Eckert's clarinet and bass clarinet and Marino Pliakas' acoustic classical guitar. Text is made up of the words of French-American poet Robert Filliou (1926 - 1987), a member of the irreverent Fluxus movement and a follower of Tibetan Buddhism. Although Filliou considered words and language an artist's primary material, the poems used here are short -- mere haiku length -- and reproduced in 23 tracks that range from 18 seconds to little more than a minute. Instrumentals make up the other 13 tracks, which considering the entire disc clocks in at a tich over 42 minutes, makes the results even less than minimalist. Classically trained mezzo-soprano Sarah Maurer takes the primary role using her lightly-accented voice to alternately speak, sing or dramatize the English words, which sometimes offer little more than one pithy thought. Around her the instrumentalists create breezy backing which seems to take more from baroque and other earlier chamber musics than pure improv.

The problem with this approach is that the entire structure rises or falls on the strength of the individual poems, which to be frank, often seems to promise more profundity than they deliver. Filliou's creations, at least in this case, are shaped around word play, irony and often the reiteration of the obvious. On the printed page, perhaps, bookended by other verses, the triviality of many of these thoughts wouldn't be as apparent. But recorded, Maurer arching tones promise wisdom that a close listen to the words doesn't reward. More dividends appear on the remaining tunes where the mezzo's wordless tones, mumbles, rambles, sighs and repetitions are mixed with extended instrumental techniques. You can then appreciate the laid-back, protracted reed explorations indulged in by Eckert and Gallio -- Pliakas confines himself to accompaniment -- but then the whole point of including the poetry in the first place seems to be lost.
Gallio obviously thinks enough of Filliou's work to have already written and had recorded a session of piano music honoring him in 1992. This time out, though, like other attempts at multi-media, the intent of mixing French-American, Japanese-influenced poetry with Swiss-composed or improvised music, appears to have been lost in translation. 

Musik zu kryptischen Texten. Viel ernster kommt die in grossen Teilen streng komponierte Hommage an den Dichter Robert Filliou daher, die der in Zürich lebende Basler Saxophonist Christoph Gallio geschaffen hat. Die oft rätselhaften, anregenden kryptischen Texte des vergessenen französischen Abenteurers und Denkers haben Gallio zu Melodien inspiriert, die oft (offensichtlich ganz bewusst) der Stimmung der Texte entgegenlaufen und diesen gerade deshalb zu einer plastischen Wirkung verhelfen. Besonders viel zur Dringlichkeit der Botschaften trägt der Gesang von Sara Maurer bei, die neben einer wunderschönen Stimme auch über einen ausgeprägten Sinn für dramatische Effekte verfügt. 

Ricevo e volentieri commento per voi le due nuove uscite di una delle più brillanti e "serie" etichette europee di Jazz: la svizzera PERCASO di Christoph Gallio. Agro è un dolcissimo musicista, privo delle "paranoie" cicliche di un Wim Mertens o della fin troppa "eleganza" di un Roger Eno. Nelle venti composizione eseguite al piano da Tomas Bachli si respira l'odore forte della terra dopo un temporale, lo scampanellare immaginario di una mucca, il correre forte di un ragazzino dai calzoni corti, c'è senza dubbio una scarpa a bollire dentro ad un pentolone per pranzo. Sentimenti che non sono sentimentalismo, una musica dolce che non è ricattatoria e incupimenti improvvisi, meditazioni, discese nel buio della notte, una luce, una lampada, un lampo, qualcosa da vedere e non vedere. Discorso diverso per il disco del patron Gallio, eccelso sassofonista che in questo caso lascia gran parte del "lavoro" alla bravissima mezzosoprano Sarah Maurer. Dicevo che il discorso è diverso perchè l'approccio è senza dubbio più celebrale, più mediato, se vogliamo più colto e anche più "paranoide". Immaginate gli Art Bears intervallati da improvvisi silenzi che suonano come una fuga dalla limpida gioia che Sarah sa regalarci. Un madrigale, un inno alla vita e poi la domanda: può essere così bello? Perchè oggi sono felice? 

Christoph Gallio: Mösiöblö <À Robert Filliou> (Percaso/ RecRec) Een van de mooiste poëzie-met-muziekplaten die ik ooit gehoord heb. Wie denkt aan de Fluxusbeweging uit de jaren zestig, denkt aan radicaal verbaal geweld, en de jonge Yoko Ono. Saxofonist Christoph Gallio boetseerde echter een subtiel ensemble rond de teksten van Robert Filliou, een Frans dichter uit de Fluxusperiode. Steamboat Switzerlandbassist Marino Pliakas speelt akoestische gitaar, omringd door enkele improviserende blazers, en de stem van Sarah Maurer. De fijnzinnige humor in de (akoestische) muziek, en de goede verstaanbaarheid van Filliou's onzinteksten verraden een grote liefde voor deze in Nederland onopgemerkt gebleven gedichten.

Jazz composition has come a long way since the contrafacta of show tunes and the blues which dominated bebop, or the skeletal melodies of free jazz. Today, the composed element of jazz may extend in many different directions, from graphic scores to through-composition, large-scale harmonic structures to combinatory melodic modules.
Christoph Gallio is probably best known for his work with Day and Taxi, a free-blowing but laid-back small group which uses compositions in the more conventional sense, rather good though they are. This project is far more ambitious, setting texts by Fluxus artist Robert Filiou for a classical mezzo and a wind-based group.

In keeping with Sarah Maurer's very proper enunciation, the group sound during the written passages like a small chamber ensemble; only during improvised passages (in which Maurer does not participate) do the players move away from clean, "straight" execution. The mixture is odd, even incongruous, which is presumably exactly what's intended.
A clue to the reason why the music sounds the way it does is found in the texts, whimsical and extremely brief meditations on Japanese characters. The jokey and deliberately un-intellectualised content is typical of Fluxus works, which tended to be amusing rather than profound, or rather they attempted to use triviality and lightness of touch (not to mention weak puns) as an alternative route into profundity to that offered by the po-faced and serious abstract expressionists.
It was inevitable, then, that the music would also have these qualities about it if it was going to work as a setting of Filiou's words. The resultant CD is as infuriating, puckish and silly as it ought to be. Very few tracks aspire to two minutes; many last for less than one. The music is poolytonal and reminiscent of Stravinsky's so-called Neoclassical writing, with interjections from the contemporary avant garde. One possibly idiosyncratic note: it's wonderful to hear the splendid Peter Schaerli again, who this writer has not heard a note from for a considerable time.

Outre que leur matière sonores soit inspirée d'un support littéraire, ces trois albums ont la particularité remarcable de posséder chacun un langage sûr, qui ne se cherche pas puisqu'il s'est trouvé. Et c'est tant mieux car si certains privilégient toujours la recherche (ou la fuite en avant) sonore et travaillent à l'élaboration de nouveaux languages à travers de nouvelles textures, Gallio, Nabatov et le Not Missing Drums Project récoltent, eux, les fruits de l'impressionnante nébuleuse sonore du XX siècle (particulièrement la seconde moitié) et leurs cuisines respectives méritent le respect autant qu'une oreille attentive. Car, non seulement les langages à l'oeuvre sont efficaces, mais le réinvestissement compositionnel de ces langages est excellent. En ce qui concerne l'adaption d'un support littéraire en musique, il est important, d'une part, d'avoir une technique nourrie et variée, et c'est là que les qualitées des musiciens de nos quidams révèlent une digestion effective de la New Thing, de l'improvisation et du langage contemporain, d'autre part, il s'agit de maîtriser parfaitement cet outil afin que l'agencement du mimétisme musicale soit toujours au service du support littéraire. Ici on peut dire sans aucune hésitation que les projets sont d'éclatantes réussites. Ce qui frappe singulièrement à l'écoute de A Robert Filliou , c'est qu'il se trouve au croisement de pluisieurs chemins musicaux très variés. Outre ceux cités plus haute, cet idiome musical, articulé par un quintet efficace, possède assez d'habileté pour renouer avec une vieille tradition classique d'accompagnement musical de textes de poésie (Monteverdi et Le Tasse, Silvestrov et Mandelstam, Poulenc et Eluard... Non je n'délire pas!). Tradition qui, ici, s'enrichit de l'alliage très réussi mêlant composition et improvisation, contextes musicaux improvisés et contemporains, pour former une texture sonore attirante au charme certain. Une écoute diligente révèlera la finesse de la mise en sons des poésies (en anglais) de l'artiste fluxus Robert Filliou, ainsi qu'une plénitude, toujours au service de la recherche de l'absolu poétique vers lequel tout texte tend, jusque dans l'aléatoire. Effets lyriques momentanés, balbutiements de la vie à son aube, souffles éraillés des cuivres et des cordes vocales dans l'évanescence d'un papillon de jour, dont les ailes articulent quelques fragiles adresses à la lumière du soleil. La subtile organisation des mots musicaux permet d'aborder ce disque comme ce qu'il est: un recueil d'"art songs", et d'étayer les milles éclats de leur perspectives très "sketchy" dans un ésprit post-dada. 

Robert Filliou, poète et écrivain contemporain de la mouvance pluriartistique Fluxus est un personnage incontournable de la scène culturel indépendante. Christophe Gallio, soucieux de porter le verbe de cet artiste hors norme à composer à cet effet cette pièce de musique baroque, session improvisée où s‘exerce, dans une joute amicale quelques belles figures du genre : Christoph Gallio (Soprano & alto saxophone) bien sur, Thomas Eckert (bass clarinette), Marino Pliakas (Guitar), l’interprète des textes Sarah Maurer (Mezzo Soprano) et Peter Schärli (Trompette & Flügelhorn). Des Artistes dont les précédents albums ont fait les belles heures de Enja, Hat hut & Har Art et ce au côté de Joe Mc Phee, Glenn Ferris ou encore Ton Varner. Une belle brochette d’invité, dont l’intime projet aura été de faire écho, par le biais de leur instrumentation et compositions, aux textes innocents et inspirés du poète. Des critères révérencieux qui n’empêche pas la composition de s’emballer à l’occasion, causant de bien jolies apartés où la trompette éructe sa rage, le saxophone crache la cadence et la guitare triture. L’interprète mezzo-soprano sarah Maurer, quant à elle m’exaspère un brin sur la longueur. (Effet prof de chant !) Un honnête appendice de l’œuvre écrite de cet artiste Fluxien qu’il est urgent de (re)lire. 

Depuis le début des années quatre-vingt, le saxophoniste suisse Christoph GALLIO, connu tout particulièrement en Europe pour sa participation active sur la scène de Free Improvisation, a été édité aux catalogue de Leo, de Slam et d‘Unit, parallèlement aux albums qu‘il a produit sur sa propre étiquette, Percaso, depuis 1986. Tout au long de ce parcour international, il a collaboré avec des musiciens de son pays (Urs BLÖCHLINGER, Werner LÜDI) et et provenant des grandes pôles internationaux de la free improvisation: Allemagne (Peter KOWALD), Étas-Unis (Rashied ALI, Robert DICK, Sam BENNETT), Angleterre (Phil MINTON, Fred FRITH), Japon (Chie MUKAI, Takashi KAZAMAKI, Uchihashi KAZUHISA), etc. Le travail de GALLIO s‘est caractérisé par un effort de multidisciplinarité extrêmement dialogique en ceci que differents médiums ou disciplines ne sont pas soumis à l‘oeuvre d‘art d‘un artiste qui engloberai et dépasserait ces composantes. Les artistes, leurs instruments et disciplines qui se rencontrent entrent en dialogue réel, complexe, riche et surprenant. Dans cette voix, GALLIO s‘est adonné jusqu‘à présent à une série de collaborations avec les danseurs Christin BRODBECK, Yvonne MEIER et Franz FRAUTSCHI. À l‘exemple de Steve LACY, inspiration de GALLIO, ce dernier s‘est adonné à un travail de composition en intégrant dans un dialogue fructueux les poèmes d‘ascendance haiku de Robert FILLIOU, lus par Sara MAURER (mezzo-soprano), avec un quatuor composé de Marino PLIAKAS à la guitare, de Thomas ECKERT à la clarinette et à la clarinette basse, de Christoph GALLIO aux saxophones soprano et alto, et de Peter SCHÄRLI à la trompètte et au bugle. De ce dialogue en découle un second entre l‘improvisation et l‘interprétation: dans la foulée des recherches d‘un juste milieu entre loevre composée et la tradition jazz d‘après-guerre du petit ensemble musicalement hyperflexible, GALLIO trouve un bon terrain d‘entente en laissant s‘improviser librement plusieurs pièces autour des poèmes de FILLIOU et en imposant parfois la partition aux musiciens lors des chaudes récitations angéliques de Sara MAURER, dont le style évoque celui des opérettes allemandes (Mischa SPOLIANSKY, Kurt WEILL, Rudolf NELSON, etc.). 

Gallio is a self-taught saxplayer and composer from Switzerland. Since 1977 he played with Irene Schweizer, Urs Voerkel, Stephan Wittwer, Peter Kowald, Charles, Bern Nix, Michael Lytle, Kalle Laar, Robert Dick, Werner Lüdi, Urs Blöchlinger, Fred Frith, Phil Minton, John Russel, Chie Mukai, Takashi Kazamaki, Samm Bennett, a.o. In 1986 he started the Percaso-label. On many of these releases Gallio himself is present as a solo artist, in a duo or as a member of an ensemble like Day & Taxi. With this group Gallio makes his own mixture of modern new music and impro. This also defines the music of his new cd 'Mösiöblö'. On many pieces the esthetic comes close to the music of Lindsay Cooper, Dagmar Krause, or Art Bears and the like. In other words it expresses a post-Eisler and Weil kind of style. In other pieces this is definitely not the case. They are more abstract, free and improvised. All 36 pieces have in common that they are very short: going from 0:18 seconds to about 3 minutes. Together these miniatures form a suite. Gallio was inspired by texts of Fluxus artist Robert Filliou and composed this suite as a hommage to this french-born artist who died in 1987. A quote from the liner notes: 'But at the moment Gallio uses Filliou's texts, that is, concrete material, Gallio produces concrete references. Where references are produced, so is distance, which allows him, on the one had, to compose around the texts and even more, to compose with the texts. On the other hand, he can integrate the resulting art songs in a larger frame, e.g. in a suite".