Portuguese, Coimbra-based prolific guitarist, composer, educator and Cipsela label owner Marcelo dos Reis and Italian, Amsterdam-based multi-instrumentalist, multimedia artist, and composer Salvoandrea Lucifora recorded a free improvised set in a quartet at Salão Brazil in Coimbra in 2020, with Portuguese trumpeter Luís Vicente and drummer João Valinho.
Five years later, dos Reis and Lucifora, now trading the trombone for tuba, recorded a free-improvised duo at Salvo’s Room in Amsterdam in June 2025. Dos Reis, on electric guitar, and Lucifora use this rare format and the intimate space to sketch vivid, melodic conversations, first in the aptly titled four-part «Low Bird Suite», contrasting dos Reis’ easily soaring electric guitar and Lucifora’s deep-toned, earthy dancing tuba, ornamented with bells. Each part of the suite adds more nuances and variations to the emphatic interplay and intensifies the duo’s dynamics, until dos Reis and Lucifora reach a profound, peaceful understanding.
«Coleman Whisper» is a thoughtful homage to Ornette Coleman’s harmolodics philosophy with echoes of Henry Threadgill’s knotty compositional sensibility. «Song of the Flying» is an intense, confrontational conversation where Lucifora focuses on challenging, stormy extended breathing techniques. This fine, exploratory album ends with the delicate ballad «Birds Rave», with Lucifora colouring dos Reis’ skeletal, suggestive lines with percussion, shells, and later on also low, sensual vocalisations of the tuba.
Eyal Hareuveni
Marcelo dos Reis (electric guitar), Salvoandrea Lucifora (tuba, percussion, shells)
