Featured Artist: La Balteuband

CD Title: La Balteuband

Year: 2006

Record Label: Not Yet Records

Style: Free Jazz / Avante Garde

Musicians:

Emilio Teubal (piano/composer/producer) Franco Pinna (drums), Moto Fukushima (bass), Felipe Salles (tenor and soprano sax), Kobi Salomon (clarinet and soprano sax), special guest Mariano Gil (flute)

Review:

La Balteuband is the musical enterprise of pianist/composer/producer Emilio Teubal, an Argentinean musician who moved to New York City in 1999 to pursue his ambitions as a jazz artist. Rounding out his band La Balteuband are drummer Franco Pinna, clarinet and soprano saxophonist Kobi Salomon, electric bass guitarist Moto Fukushima, and tenor and soprano saxophonist Felipe Salles. Their self-titled debut album, produced by Emilio Teubal, supports avant garde music structures and baroque-jazz displays. The music notes are spontaneously splayed and extemporaneously spliced. Each song is a musical vignette that when strung together creates a whole composition of moving pictures demonstrating independent movements that fluctuate between being uncoordinated and acting in accordance with each other.

The music mimics the activity going on a city street as people are bustling about with their own routine independent of each other. Everything that is happening on a stretch of block is being represented in the movements of these musical vignettes. Instrument parts are strewn autonomous of each other as their librettos vary and their tempos are diverse with some slow and other hurried. The songs are a hotchpotch of expressions and musical ideas with the horns often operating the dominant chords and the piano laments cabling the undercurrents. The music has a free spirit as notes are plotted with spontaneity and emotive impulses coursing streaks and stipples across the melodic folds.

Each instrument sequence has their own unique accents guided by their own capricious instincts and idyllic hyperboles. The instrument parts usually do not act in accordance with each other but rather follow their own independent ardor. The horns can be fervent and some times competitive while the drums will be sedate or frilly depending on their temper. Each instrument makes their own melodic blueprint and inebriated bliss so when these lines are layered, they cause the songs to pull the listener in different directions. There is not one conceivable melody to follow but several meshed into one song. Independently of one another, the artistry of each instrument is bedazzling but when put together the melodies battle for the listener’s attention which gives the songs intense complexity.

The members of La Balteuband are all award winning musicians and avid students of jazz music. Their vast complexity is reminiscent of John Coltrane and their liberty with music notes recalls Gil Evans. The music is dependent on the instruments variables which take on a different facile, accents, and trundling mechanisms similarly to the way people on a city street move around each other autonomous of one another. It’s orderly chaos as independent schemes are spliced to make a musical bouquets representative of personal tastes. The music is personalized to La Balteuband and in that way impossible to duplicate.

Tracks:

A Caballo, Capinias, El Sausa, Twisted Title, Histories Tristes, AC in Ab, Berry, Intro, Sin Pestanias

Artist's Website: http://www.emilioteubal.com

Listen or Buy:

Reviewed by: Susan Frances

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