San Francisco Encuentro documents a rare meeting – Encuentro in Spanish – of two American, idiosyncratic free improvisers – Brooklyn-based free jazz reed player Blaise Siwula, who plays here on clarinet and wooden flute, and San-Francisco-based experimental free improviser and guitarist Ernesto Diaz-Infante, who plays on electric dulcimer, guitar, and objects. The album was recorded at Diaz-Infante’s home, next door to Jefferson’s Airplane Studios in San Francisco in August 2025.
Siwula calls this free improvised meeting a reunion recording of sorts, as about twenty years passed since he and Diaz-Infante played together the last time. The album features six «transfictional instrumental dialogues spontaneously composed with no lyrics». The atmosphere of these pieces was unassuming, relaxed, and conversational, capturing the «underlying joy expressed in this afternoon gathering».
Siwula and Diaz-Infante sound as if they attempted to sketch a cycle of irreverent, thorny folk songs. Siwula’s vibrato-tinged playing of the clarinet flirts with klezmer music, while Diaz-Infante pushes these pieces into more radical, spiky, and drone territories. They explored a simple, playful theme, and after twisting and exhausting it, they moved to the next one. This encuentro faithfully reflected Siwula’s musical philosophy, no frills music, as his production label is named.
Eyal Hareuveni
Blaise Siwula (clarinet, wooden flute), Ernesto Diaz-Infante (electric dulcimer, guitar, objects)
