Belgian prolific experimental guitarist Dirk Serries has worked separately with Portuguese sax hero Rodrigo Amado (the duo album Jazzblazzt, Raw Tonk/Klanggalerie, 2020) and in many more formats with British drummer Andrew Lisle, as a duo, The Kodian trio with sax player Colin Webster, or with sax player John Dikeman and double bass player John Edwards. Amado played with Lisle when he resided in Portugal. The Invisible is the debut trio album of Serries, Amado and Lisle, recorded after three performances at the Sunny Side Inc. Studio in Anderlecht in November 2021. Amado, who is also a gifted photographer, took the cover photo.
The Invisible offers three extended pieces that adopt free jazz dynamics and led by the warm tenor sax tone of Amado, with the abstract and more ethereal guitar lines of Serries and the intuitive, free pulse of Lisle. It is clear that the already-established bond between these master improvisers informs the trio’s dynamics and opens the music for more sonic adventures. The trio patiently and organically alternates with tension building and release, and swinging from the melodic and lyrical to the fiery and thorny. There is a lot of space in these extended pieces for individual courses, just as Amado’s cover photo suggests.
The newly founded Lemadi Trio features another Portuguese sax hero José Lencastre (aon alto sax), Serries’ partner in life and music, Martina Verhoeven, on the vintage electric Crumar piano and Dirk Serries. Verhoeven alsto took the cover photo. This trio’s debut album was recorded live in May 2023 at Jazzblazzt in Neeritter, The Netherlands. It represents the very first notes this new trio played together, when «stars were aligned and the music flowed effortlessly in a profound conversation where each personality and instrument matters». Serries produced before a recording of Lencastre with fellow Portuguese musicians – electronics player Carla Santana, violinist Maria do Mar and double bass player Gonçalo Almeida (Defiant Illusion, A New Wave of Jazz, 2024). A week later after recording Trytophan Suite, Seriies and Lencastre they recorded a duo album, Live At Hotelier Porto Portugal May 7th 2023 (Nachtstück, 2023).
The title of the album refers to an amino acid needed for normal growth in infants and corresponds faithfully with the natural development of the two, untitled and mostly sparse free improvisations. Lencastre alternates between short and brief attacks and whispering soft sounds with commanding, extended breathing techniques; Serries punctuates his flights with fast and sharp comments while Verhoeven floats gently in between with her highly resonating keyboard. Together they sketch these pieces like exquisite and unpredictable stories that occasionally gravitate towards dense and powerful climaxes.
Serries produced and released albums for Portuguese, Rotterdam-based alto sax player Hugo Costa via his label A New Wave of Jazz (The Art of Crashing, with German drummer Philipp Ernsting, 2022, and Tongues of Flames of Gardua Trio with Rodrigo Pinheiro, 2024), and recorded before a trio album with Dutch percussionist Friso Van Wijck (Le Sud, Creative Sources, 2023, with British violist Benedict Taylor). Live At Oude Klooster Kapel Brecht / Belgium documents the second time this trio played together in September 2023, a year after its first performance.
The two free improvised pieces stress the open dynamics of this trio, allowing the spacious and ethereal pieces to flow and evolve naturally and easily, in their own accord and with their own inner logic, while exploring the unique acoustics of the chapel. The spirit of these collective improvisations is introspective and contemplative and Serries and Van Wijck color beautifully the melodic, lyrical sax flights of Costa with subtle and abstract ambient touches that correspond with the serene, spiritual space. Only towards the second piece, «Olber’s Paradox» (an argument in astrophysics and physical cosmology that says that the darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe), the trio erupts with full force.
Eyal Hareuveni
Dirk Serries (guitar), Rodrigo Amado (tenor saxophone), Andrew Lisle (drums), José Lencastre (alto saxophone), Martina Verhoeven (Crumar piano), Hugo Costa (alto saxophone), Friso Van Wijck (percussion)
