FOUR STARS
It’s been a while since he saxophonist George Garzone (Boston, 9/23/1950) became a friend of Argentina. Recognized and prestigious composer and improviser, he is also a teacher of the very prestigious Berklee College of Music. And that was the starting point to interact with musicians from our country, whether because he knew them as students or because he found out about their work through records.
The truth is that he has come here many times to play and even record with several of our people. At first, his entry point was his colleague Ricardo Cavalli and, for some time now, he has generated a strong friendly relationship with the trumpeter Mariano Loiacono who was his host again for a series of concerts at a music club in Palermo. Pandemic through, this time it had not been around for a long time. And we were able to see him in the first of a series of four performances that he shared with a local band, with the aforementioned Loiácono at the helm.
For that matter, he put together a set that started with “Equinox” by his admired John Coltrane and went through standards like “Have you Met Miss Jones”, “My One and Only Love” or “Just Friends”, but he played some of his own pieces like “Strolling Down in Bourbon Street”, “The Mingus That I Knew” or “ Hey, Open Up.”
As always, Garzone’s tenor sax combines elegance of touch, subtlety when singing melodies, the “fatness” of his sound, the power of hot moments and his particular talent for improvisation. He knows how to measure the tempo, make the classics coexist very well with his own songs, lead the group – which is not the one he plays with on a daily basis – and at the same time give room for his Argentine colleagues to shine and offer a compact, rounded and overwhelming.
And it deserves a separate comment from the local group. Probably, the figures of Mariano Loiácono stand out particularly -especially on the trumpet- and of Ernesto Jodos on the piano, two musicians who are ready to play in the most demanding leagues. But the double bassist is not far behind Mauricio Dawidthe tenor saxophonist Sebastián Loiácono – with the difficult stop of sharing an instrument with the leader – and the drummer Fernando Martínez, who in Saturday’s performances was replaced by Roberto Giaquinto. They all know how to “sing” and join the combo when necessary, but they all also have the ability to improvise when their turn comes.
