Like the Bolivians Johnny Gonzalez at yesterday's 29th July 2009 in Dresden Blue Note the song "Autumn Leaves" was played, both artistically impressive and for the piano art of South African jazz veteran revealing.
The song, 1945 by Joseph Kozma as a chanson "Les feuilles mortes" after a poem by Jacques Prévert composed, was first presented in 1946 by Yves Montand in the film "The Gates of the Night". Johnny Mercer wrote, inspired by the fate of a German Jew murdered in a concentration camp, to an English text, and the continuous round the world jazz standard "Autumn Leaves" was born, a well-known for his intense Wistful song. Johnny Gonzalez interpreted the piece while sad, but powerful, energetic phases, avoiding sentimentality in any situation. With the hard stop, tempo changes, insertions and motifs Nesting and a voltage-generating opposition of melodic ornamentation and sparse thematic sketch he created a kind of rebirth of this composition, you merely because of their tragic background should not necessarily "Evergreen" call.
Still other blues and jazz classics like "Summertime" by George Gershwin, "Blue Monk" by Thelonius Monk, "St. Louis Blues "by WC Handy, but above all" are Caravan "by Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol released yesterday at the Blue Note on interpretation of conventions. Johnny Gonzalez took the harmonies of the pieces to first sketch unknown translucent discharges, which then poured in rhythmic and metric variable-throughs, as cascades of melody and Akkordschwällen. Brilliant, as between ragtime, tango and boogie rhythms fluctuated, as he presented the same melody and bass runs in different tempos, as he once regretted short melodic fragments in the harmonic signal sequence - always acting with mercilessly played hard, precise, sometimes bulky or awkward. Gonzalez not clichés, and the processing of Latin American, even Indian melodies had none of El Condor Pasa-sentimentality, but a lot of full life, from waking sophistication of originality.
No doubt this was a Erzmusikant at work that weaves together own over decades with influences of other large, both from the diversity of Latin American musical cultures and from the recent encounters with game partners as Albert Mangelsdorff, Charlie Byrd and Elvin Jones draws. Johnny Gonzalez was an experience.
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