The planned quartet studio date of multi-reed player Joe Giardullo on September 11, 2001, was turned upside down and inside out. The emotions of the day were enormous, yet the band with Joe McPhee on tenor and pocket trumpet, Mike Bisio on bass, and Tani Tabbal on percussion, courageously went on with the recording session. What resulted was an enormously sincere and emotional outcry of feelings transmitted through music. To say the mood is solemn would be a gross understatement. Giardullo initiates the homage with a compassionate bass clarinet rendering, which gradually induces the others to the service. Bisio adds deep sentiments, McPhee weeps through his tenor, and Tabbal gently touches the heartstrings with tender caresses of the drum skins. Although Giardullo has been in mournful musical situations playing touching spirituals as part of McPhee's Bluette, this sound is different. It is not a display of respect for the past but a living, realistic expression of the here and now.

Thus, the music transmits an array of feelings that indicate anger as well as sadness. The musicians do not suggest vengeance in their playing, but the music is not all 'head bowed and sorrowful.' McPhee is the first to become assertive, and the staunch spirit in each artist rises to the fore. The band communicates brilliantly, passing the baton from player to player as each makes vital statements of the heart. Obviously, the tempo is maintained at a respectfully slow pace, but the music has extensive warmth and the musicians are able to sustain the mood without becoming maudlin.

Each selection sends a complementary message. Bisio's bowed statements on his "In the End There Is Peace" hang in the air as tearful clouds. The accents of Tabbal unobtrusively punctuate Giardullo's shenai passages on the North African flavored "Well of Souls." McPhee borders on rebellion when playing pocket trumpet, and Tabbal is probably the most outspoken when soloing on "Question of Time." All four musicians collectively composed three of the eight cuts, giving them a special group identity.

This music is a tribute to the indomitable spirit of these men, who produce music with beauty and make a lasting impression; yet, it has stand-alone allure even if one were not aware of the special circumstances under which it was made.

One Final Note
Summer/Fall 2002

Frank Rubolino

A year hence, it's hard to remember -- at least from the vantage of New York City -- that everthing didn't stop on September 11, 2001.  People were at work.  Highways west of the Hudson were open.  If only for the forces of economics, the world kept turning.

Saxophonist Joe Giardullo had booked studio time for that Tuesday morning upstate in West Shokan. The quartet he had assembled knew what had happened 100 miles south of them. They went ahead with the session.

It's always tempting to read meaning into song and album titles, to make assumptions about what musicians were thinking or feeling during a recording session. Here it's impossible not to. From the two blurred white columns on the cover to the liner notes with each of the band members reflecting on terrorist attacks, and above all from the playing contained within, this is an album of mourning, of vulnerability, of the trying of the spirit.

The playing is quiet, anxious, yearning. There are extended solo passages. The seven tracks work together as a suite with an inescapable theme. Even the titles ("Cries, Whispers & Cries", "City on the Edge of Forever", "Well of Souls") bespeak the unshakable images no doubt going through the musicians' minds. In a way, it's almost a shame. The disc is so stamped with tragedy, it's hard to hear it any other way.

A shame because the session Giardullo planned didn't happen, and the disc we might have had we simply don't. The remarkably sympathetic quartet illustrates the pain of that day almost too well. But the role of art, at least in part, is to respond to, to illustrate the human experience, and if Shadows & Light doesn't end up being a record I play often, it's still a remarkable testament I'll keep in my collection.

All About Jazz-NYC
September 2002

Kurt Gottschalk

Jazz music is structured around voices-voices of the musicians who use their instruments to convey personal feelings of joy and happiness, pain and sorrow. Trumpets, flutes, clarinets, saxophones, percussion, and bass are some of the instruments that Joe Giardullo, Joe McPhee, Mike Bisio, and Tani Tabbal performed on Shadow and Light. Their latest release presents doleful, minor-mode music, in the light of September 11. When these musicians came together on that late summer morning, Shadow and Light became their palette-an opportunity for each man to speak his peace, alone and together.

When the recording session began at the Make-Believe Ballroom studio in West Shokan, the group didn't talk about what they were going to do, they just started to play, according to Paul de Barros of Signal to Noise Magazine. "Everything was a natural expression of how we were feeling," said Bisio.

Three quartets, two duos, and three solo pieces were recorded that day. The pieces are aptly titled "One Moment and the Next," "Cries, Whispers and Cries," "City on the Edge of Forever," "Twilight at Noon," "In the End There is Peace," "Well of Souls," "Question of Time," and "Shadow and Light."  This CD contains snapshots of the band's collective emotions-a portrait of what unravels when creative musicians are subject to devastating acts on humanity.

Multi-instrumentalist Giardullo (flute, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, and shenai, a classical, double-reed instrument from the Indian sub-continent) organized this, his 11th recording session. He has recorded with McPhee (tenor saxophone, pocket trumpet) on the "Specific Gravity" project and Bisio (bass) on "Primal Intentions." Tabbal, (drums, percussion, djembe) a newcomer to the group, has worked as a professional percussionist since he was 14 years old.

"Cries, Whispers and Cries" is inspired by African rhythms. The track features McPhee and Giardullo performing tenor and soprano saxophones, respectively. The notes squeezed from the two men's horns float around the atmosphere, wailing and dancing aimlessly like thousands of displaced, searching spirits.

On "Well of Souls," Tabbal accompanies Giardullo, whose shenai playing calls the world to come together in prayer. On "Question of Time," Tabbal improvises alone-his melodic musical phrases are spelled out on the wings of delicate cymbal crashes and caressed drumbeats.

At the root, these songs are complex arrangements of free-form jazz, echoing elements of the early masters Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry. "Shadow and Light" traces the quartet's footsteps as they create a haunting landscape tinged with elements of light and hope.

Performance poet Mikhail Horowitz, who worked with Giardullo in the 1980s and early '90s, said that, "He can always be counted on to summon every ounce of head, heart, and breath to play something astonishingly specific to that time and place, to whatever thoughts are being thought and whatever feelings are being felt by him and his fellow musicians in that room, at that moment."

Chronogram

Christian Polos

Multi-instrumentalist Giardullo has collaborated with notable musicians such as composer Pauline Oliveros and singer Thomas Buckner, and for the past decade he has regularly played alongside tenor saxophonist and trumpeter Joe McPhee. Scheduling this session at West Shokan, New York for 11 September 2001, he had no idea that chilling events in the global media arena and the actual deaths of thousands of New Yorkers would condition the music as it did.

Determining to go ahead with the recording, the wind players, with bassist Bisio and percussionist Tabbal, registered their shock and incomprehension in music that has the alarmed beauty of a premature thaw. It's all the more affecting because it lacks the self-awareness required for formal elegy. To have worked through numbness to this subdued affirmation is really quite extraordinary.

The Wire

Julian Crowley

Isn't there some cliché that states that "out of great tragedy comes art", or something like that? Well that's only partially true. Art shackled to the reflection of a cataclysmic event is as likely to appear as a polemic or agit-prop. Having the right opinions or feeling strongly about a situation doesn't automatically elevate your creation to a masterpiece. Any number of folk ditties or punk rock snarls can be cited as evidence.

Sometimes -- though not always -- purely instrumental music will offer enough distance from the event to raise the believability stakes. Certainly the four veteran improvisers represented on Shadows & Light show this. Strictly by chance, the recording session for this CD was scheduled for September 11, 2001 in upstate New York. After jazz economics convinced them not to cancel -- bassist Mike Bisio, on tour with other band members, lives in Seattle -- the group went along and recorded some of the most moving, yet joyful music to reflect the events of that day. Yet because these men are thinking improvisers rather than propagandists, the emotions have to be intuited from the impassioned playing, not descriptive titles or shouted slogans.

Like a suite, the almost 55-minute CD starts off with muted, near inaudible exhalation from Joe Giardullo's bass clarinet gradually turning to rodent-like cries and echoing multiphonics, until snare rattles from drummer Tani Tabbal signal the rest of the band's entry and the second tune begins.

"Cries, Whispers and Cries" builds up from this near silence to cacophonous lines from each instrument playing at the same time. Giardullo introduces vaguely Oriental-sounding trills on soprano saxophone, Joe McPhee counters with tough tenor asides, Tabbal weighs in with subtle percussion suggestions, as the piece is built around and extended with an extended pizzicato vamp from Bisio.

The bassist, who has recorded duet sessions with both McPhee and Giardullo in the past, gets the spotlight to himself for "In the End There Is Peace." A continuous arco showcase which begins with him approximating what could be extended reed techniques, advances to a centre section of variegated pitches that sound as many strings as possible, and ends with a mournful bass line that suggests repose.

Subtle too, is the solo work of Tabbal on "Question of Time." This brief -- a little more than 41/2 minute -- percussion workout demonstrates that each part of the kit can be highlighted without appreciably increasing the volume of attack. His playing almost seems to be taking place in slow motion, with each gesture relaxed enough to appear to be recorded underwater, so deliberate and specific does it seem. A Detroit native, who has played in the bands of saxophonists James Carter and Roscoe Mitchell, Tabbal didn't realize how far from peaceful his personal 2001 would be. A couple of months after this session, he underwent 12 hours of surgery to remove a benign, grapefruit-sized cranial tumor. He is now said to be recovering well with his playing skills undiminished.

McPhee too is the master of oblique references as on "City on the Edge of Forever," a duet with Bisio at his melancholy best. Here, his choked pocket trumpet tone hangs for a time in the air before detonating into screeching debris. Sadness becomes almost palpable as the bassist's produces low, legato tones. If he's ethereal on brass, then elsewhere McPhee can also be hard-bodied and raucous on tenor saxophone, which he plays with a pronounced vibrato. This split-horn personality doesn't pose a problem for the others, especially Giardullo and Bisio who with bassist Dominic Duval perform regularly with McPhee as Bluette.

Giardullo too is able to represent distinctive differences on each of his chosen instruments. For the day at hand, probably the most appropriate sound appears on "Well of Souls," where to the accompaniment of Tabbal's West African percussion, the curving tone of his shenai allude to the ritualistic incantation you may hear on a field recording of Arabic trance music. Despite the blame being apportioned to Muslims during that hysterical day, that timbre should remind everyone that universal music could overcome political and sociological differences.

In the end, while it's apparent that Shadows & Light, which can only be found at www.drimala.com, isn't program music per se, surely it provides an earnest sound picture of 9-11. Listen to it as an exceptional musical experience, not as anything else.

Jazz Weekly

Ken Waxman

Joe Giardullo intended this session to sound like Dave Holland's Conference of the Birds, but history interfered. The studio, 100 miles from the World Trade Center, was booked for September 11, 2001 - Joe thought of canceling, but then changed his mind. His quartet would play pure improvisation, their impressions of the day's events; as Giardullo wrote, "I don't believe I have ever been more 'in the moment' than I am today." His plaintive clarinet opens "One Moment and the Next", with a deep woody groan on some notes. From this calm surface, unrest emerges: piercing honks one moment, multiphonic squeals the next. It ends with an ominous drone, like a didgeridoo … scary times are ahead.

"Cries, Whispers & Cires" begins softly: a bowed bass murmurs (Mike Bisio) as brushes are rapidly scraped (Tani Tabbal). Joe McPhee works a dockyard tenor; it's a rusty, worldly sound. He laments, while Giardullo explodes: he is screaming into some instrument, though it's not obvious what. Bisio is barely audible, marking a tense figure; this is where McPhee honks, twittering in desperate streams. Giardullo tries classical counterpoint on a soprano - this too splinters off, in unkempt fury. Mike's part turns sour, the drums go where they will, and the horns unite in a sad, march-like theme. This is unwritten music, but it is not unorganized … purpose is heard in every note.

The focus is on McPhee for "City on the Edge of Forever". As Bisio rumbles low, Joe wields a pocket trumpet: at first we hear chaotic squeals, yielding to creamy stillness. When Mike starts "sawing" his strings (think of John Cale on The Velvet Underground's "Heroin") McPhee is cataclysmic; when the bass resumes its dignity, Joe plays a dirge, resigned and peaceful. Both elements are good, though they don't fit together that well.

A spate of short piece then follow: Bisio sounds like scraped metal for "In the End There Is Peace" … and there's a fast quote of "The Star Spangled Banner"! Strident and vigorous, this bass has plenty of muscle. Tabbal tackles the deep drums on "Well of Souls" as Giardullo plays the shenai, a double-reed instrument from India. (His tone is between an oboe and the keyboard solo on The Beatles' "Baby You're a Rich Man"!) As Joe emotes, Tani remains quiet, simmering as his partner boils.

Tabbal's tune "Question of Time" is a long drum solo, where tight patterns emerge from a formless background. The steam builds, and it sounds like he's playing two kits at once - such is the fury this day evinced. The quartet comes back for "Shadow and Light", a blend of whispering winds, rhythm like raindrops, creeping bass, and a hopeful soprano … seemingly the loneliest voice in the world. This is the tragedy's aftermath, where massive activity was followed by silence. McPhee speaks up, with endless ferocity; quiet at first, Giardullo joins him in wailing. Every note of the performance is real; as the leader said afterwards, "I've never felt like that in my life." I think all of us can say that.

Jazz USA

John Barrett

The session Joe Giardullo planned for September 11, 2001 never happened. As the musicians assembled about 100 miles from the horrible destruction in New York, they contemplated scrubbing the recording. Giardullo had planned to model this recording after Dave Holland’s Conference Of Birds (ECM 1972) record with Barry Altschul, Sam Rivers and Anthony Braxton. The day and the mood called for something else.

Preconcieved notions set aside, the music was purely improvised and affected by that somber day. The first take, which became the last track and title piece, acts as an introduction of the players and sets the direction for the day. Musical advances and statements are made, withdrawn, and answered. Like many on 9/11, the musicans knew they were treading on new ground and footing was certainly unsure.

This recording is a special session because it captures all the anxiety and mystery of that fateful day. Giardullo is a frequent collaborator with saxophonist/pocket trumpeter Joe McPhee, recording a duo Specific Gravity (Boxholder), and a couple in McPhee’s Bluette, In The Spirit (1999) and No Greater Love (2000) both on the CIMP label. The multi-instrumentalists are joined by drummer Tani Tabbal (James Carter, Geri Allen, Roscoe Mitchell) and bassist Mike Bisio (Rob Blakeslee, Vinny Golia).

The respectful music suggests the musicians are finding their way in the dark. Giardullo breaks up the recording with three quartet, two duos, and three solo tracks. His solo bass clarinet from “One Moment And The Next” is a 5-minute landmark. He begins with a simple procession and expands into upper register explorations and overtones. Giardullo, like Tabbal and Bisio on their solos, keeps to the sober tones of that day. The longest piece on the disc, “Cries, Whispers & Cries” Giardullo references Albert Ayler’s wail over McPhee’s dodging soprano. The song resolves itself through Bisio’s commanding march. Several other tracks offer the suggestion of blossoming only to fall back. It is as if these four musicians were meditating on the perdition that was that day.

This is a beautiful and sad recording.

All About Jazz

Mark Corroto

McPhee and Giardullo are longtime collaborators who know each other well, though nothing could have prepared them for this. That they, and their compatriots, produce something as sophisticated, emotional, and heart-rending as this recording is testimony to their talent and depth of feeling.

All Music Guide

Steve Loewy

Joe Giardullo is a multi-reedist who's interested in microtonality, in which the octave is divided into a different set of tones than the twelve offered by conventional Western music. (Microtonal music often sounds "out of tune" to the untrained ear.) His music is unnerving and understated, and sounds best in an environment where the listener can fully appreciate the silences, breathing noises, and seasick pitch slides that are as important to his music as notes and rhythm. Tenor saxophonist and pocket trumpeter Joe McPhee, on the other hand, is at his best in legato passages that show off his full, burly tone and howling multiphonics. Both players, especially McPhee, have proven remarkably able to adapt to unfamiliar playing situations, and the two men have played together for over ten years. And admittedly, I've only heard one other album on which they've performed together. But on paper, they seem to have little in common.

Little, but not nothing. By chance, Giardullo scheduled the recording of what became Shadow and Light last September 11th. After the players (including Giardullo, McPhee, bassist Mike Bisio and drummer Tani Tabbal) learned of the terrorist attacks that occurred that day, they scrapped their original plans for the session and played a freely improvised set instead.

The playing brilliantly expresses the sense of shock, confusion and helplessness most of us felt that morning -- the musicians sound as if they're struggling to stand up, as if the next note they play might cause them to collapse. Shadow and Light's bent notes and mournful, legato lines are reminiscent of the blues, but they're also unfamiliar and disorienting. Many of the pieces are quiet ruminations for solo or duet, but even when all four musicians are playing, a subdued mood prevails. When the music does get more frenzied, it sounds more out of frustration than ecstasy.

Giardullo's wobbly melodies and space-filled phrasing and Tabbal's echoing drum sound remind me of the Joe Maneri Quartet's In Full Cry with percussionist Randy Peterson. But the wild card here is McPhee, whose more conventionally blues-like melodies complement Giardullo perfectly in this setting. If this record were more aggressive, or more lighthearted, or more detached, then I'm not sure how the collaboration between McPhee and Giardullo would work. But, by emphasizing unnerving silence and mournful sound, Shadow and Light finds the space where McPhee and Giardullo have the most in common.

Dusted

Charlie Wilmoth

SHADOW & LIGHT is a recording that was made coincidentally on September 11, 2001. That coincidence has therefore rendered the recording significant. It is impossible to know how the music would have sounded had this coincidence not occurred. Yet, given how the music does sound, I cannot brand it as literally describing the events of that day. I am compelled to listen to this flawless, quintessentially balanced set of music by the quartet comprised of Joe Giardullo, Joe McPhee, Michael Bisio, and Tani Tabbal as meaningful in the context of mere survival and the consistency of existence.

The recording testifies to the narrow window in which the ramifications of creativity are the most powerful. When we have suffered the behavioral abomination that rapes our very beings, we have no choice except to transcend the attempt to penetrate & destroy our souls. In order, is the creation that holds the key to why we are on this earth: to discover ways in which we can move on...ways in which we can overcome the scourges, the deprivations, the traumas, the terrors that blanket our lives.

We become collectively like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain. Realizing this becomes almost accidental for those who are minding their own contributions to the global delights of living through disastrous tragedies that are truly out of our control. What is within our ability to DO is to shape how we deal with the pushing; how not to ever tire of the pushing; how to always believe that the effort of the pushing will endow us with the satisfaction that we actually ARE pushing, striving, making our way.

This recording addresses all of those positive means to travel to a next place in our lives. The recording’s place in history will never disappear. Yet, it must be remembered for its curative nature, its musical characteristics that speak to humility, evanescence of being, the rumbling of coming back to life.

SHADOW & LIGHT cannot be separated from each other. We live in the shadow of death every day and pray that the goodness and blessedness of enlightenment on earth and the light that follows death forever bonds us together as people to endure. Let this recording teach us that...

Jazz Review

Lyn Horton

Our friends at Drimala never cease in their effort to provide challenging music(s) for listeners who enjoy sonic challenge. I can tell you, they have outdone themselves with this one. Some of the most soulful, albeit sorta' laid-back & melancholy improv I've ever heard. It isn't until you read the promo sheet/liners that you realize why... it was recorded (about 100 miles away from the disaster) on 9/11/01. The session had been planned already & they thought about canceling after they heard the news of the terror; then decided that it was more appropriate to record anyway

McPhee's tenor/pocket trumpet, Bisio's bass, Giardullo's soprano, flute & shenai & Tabai's drums/percussives join together in (what I would term) sheer (though gentle) POWer! There are beautiful flights of fancy, as well as a segue to a beautifully bass-anchored "standard" section on my favorite track, #2, "Cries, Whispers & Cries"! The title track is a close second. If you listen to the music on this wonderful CD, you'll agree with me... MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for lovers of insightful improvisation!

Improvijazzation Nation,
Issue #55

Dick Metcalf

This title was recorded on September 11th, 2001, while the WTC Towers burned till it´s final collapse and that shows from the very first improvisation till the last one. JG, JM, MB and TT contradict here one of the basic rules of the freely improvised music, the mental emptiness, and play having in mind the tragedy that was going on that very day in NYC. The themes are invariably slow, though they seem possessed. Nothing more natural, considering the shock the musician had suffered.

It was JG´s intention to establish the kind of sound one can find in a work of reference,"Conference of the Birds", by Dave Holland, but it looks like he missed the point. Fortunately it happened that way, because the soprano and tenor saxes, flute, shenai (a kind of Indian oboe), pocket trumpet, bass and percussion, perfectly serve the immediate expressiveness and the unquietness that usually take part in the nature of improvisation; or used to, when it was released from free jazz, with it´s emancipatory urgencies in the time of all revolutions.

Rui Eduardo Paes

translation by
Eduardo Chagas

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