Portuguese violinist Carlos Zingaro and Joe in the acoustically remarkable 17th century Mae D'Agua, Lisbon. This is a live concert from July 4, 2003 in the all stone-and-water environment..

"There is a great deal you have to understand before you listen to this album. Recorded under a eighteenth century acqueduct in Lisbon that has an acoustic that creates a nine second reverberation and that also have water gently falling into a deep reservoir. It is a unique concert hall. The musicians use the echo and use the sound of the water to create jazz that is unique compelling and absorbing.

This is not music that you put on to accompany your life, this is music that demands attention. The interplay between all four: the saxophone, the violin, the echo and the water is intense. I have never heard anything like this and how many performances can you say that about?" JAZZ VIEWS, ENGLAND

"An excellent improvised duo featuring Joe Giardullo on soprano & alto saxes & piccolo flute and Carlos Zingaro on violin. We've come to know and love the great reeds hero from upstate New York, Joe Giardullo, from his wonderful work with Joe McPhee, Pauline Oliveros, Steve Lacy & Marilyn Crispell, over the past decade. This is his fourth fine disc for Drimala, besides another four with his friend and neighbor Joe McPhee on CIMP or Cadence. Carlos Zingaro is another marvelous musician from Portugal who also plays with a number of other great players like Joelle Leandre, Paul Lovens, Gunter Muller, Hans Reichel & Rudiger Carl. This very special meeting and concert was recorded in Mae de Agua, a temple-like space, connected to Lisbon's aqueduct, a water circulation system. The water sounds are omnipresent and add a certain mysterious, organic quality to the music.

At times it is difficult to tell which instrument is playing, as both bend and twist notes carefully into similar sonic terrain. Both musicians sound like kindred spirits as they swerve and blend their notes around one another. This is a completely acoustic affair and beautifully captured. The natural echo (9 second reverb) adds this sublime spacious quality, like spirits drifting through a delicate fog. An immensely enchanting encounter." DOWNTOWN MUSIC GALLERY NY

 

Recorded in Lisbon in the summer of 2003, shortly before Giardullo began to concentrate more explicitly on solo activity, Falling Water captures the reedman in duet with veteran Portuguese violin improviser Carlos Zingaro. In addition to his regular axe, Giardullo is featured on alto saxophone and piccolo through the course of seven interwoven duets. In a similar fashion to deep-listening guru Pauline Oliveros’ work, Falling Water takes as its cue the possibilities of architectural space (and, to a greater degree, environment) and sound. Just as Oliveros has organized the recording of improvisers within a cistern, so Zingaro and Giardullo are caught within the vast chamber of Mãe de Agua, a component of Lisbon’s 18th-century aqueducts. Violin and reeds are in constant play with the lengthy natural reverb of the space, improvising with one another as well as the echoes provided by each player in context, a situation of self-response compounded upon initial activity creating layers of improvisational possibility. Long, sonorous tones are posed and echoed, as Zingaro’s violin scrabbles on top of itself and circular breathing becomes an infinite array of sonic links. Water and its own echo create yet another aural-environmental layer within the improvisations, providing a locator as well as an auditory underpinning. One cannot listen to Falling Water as one does most duet improvisations, for the vast amount of sonic layering that takes place makes the recording less about for-itself immediacy and more greatly about specific, spatial interaction.