Search - Andrea Centazzo / Gianluigi Trovesi / Alvin Curran / Carlos Zingaro / Lol Coxhill :: Thirty Years From Monday

The recording scene of the 70s was fairly discouraging. Record companies were not interested in producing "committed music", and in order to be released this music found its way out through small musician - owned labels. Carla, my wife and I, we decided to create our own label: ICTUS Records, boldly named "The creative label for creative music". ICTUS was born to be a forum for music that the institutionalized market refused, and, also by design, was a hands-on operation; one that encouraged the artist to express himself freely, without restrictions, and to have control over all the phases of production of the record. All this was possible due to the dedicated work of Carla Lugli, who saw to the daily operation of the record label. The ICTUS Records experiment started where all the other attempts at self management had finished on the international scene. The driving need to make our music, and the fact that we were the only link with those who wanted to get to it, brought about the creation of ICTUS, which was born not as a commercial but as a cultural operation. Distribution of the records was carried out through certain music magazines, and by mail order at a rigorously 'political' price. (This meant an accessible price to allow everyone to recover their expenses, with what little profit was made being re-invested in new productions). The recordings here presented are part of the ICTUS history in a very peculiar way. I invited Alvin Curran to perform a duo concert in Udine in 1977, in the first concert series organized by me with the aim to record more material possible for the starting ICTUS label. The concert came out great, but some of the recording was totally distorted; so we didn't have enough material for a complete LP. Now you can enjoy the only 2 tracks left: a long live electronic improvisation where all sounds were recorded trough 2 tape machines (one recording and the other playing back in real time) and one acoustic, more jazz-like improvisation. Portuguese violin player Carlos Zingaro was one of the founding members of Mitteleuropa Orchestra; with Carlos we also did a trio concert along with bassist Ken Carter at the Setubal Jazz Festival in Portugal, but we never performed a duo in concert. In 1983 while he was in Bologna for one of the last Mitteleuropa gig, we decided to put some music on tape. Those two tracks are the best of that session. With Lol Coxhill I did several tours in Europe and the music here enclosed has been recorded on the second series of concerts, done mainly in Italy. The recording was done in a Classic Music Concert Hall and has a natural reverberation for a weird final effect. Last two tracks on this CD present my duets with Gianluigi Trovesi. Our collaboration was documented on the ICTUS LP Shock which is one of the jazziest recordings on the label; the music was finally going very melodic and rhythmic, like an anticipation of my next career step. In the same year we did several duo concerts with Gianluigi: here you'll find some beautiful improvisation from one performed open air, in Passariano, Italy. (Andrea Centazzo)