Italian prolific multi-instrumentalist-composer-improviser Marco Colonna is known for his collaboration with British pianist Alexander Hawkins exploring the music of Eric Dolphy (Dolphy Underlined, Fundacja Słuchaj!,2020), the seminal influence of John Coltrane on his art (he dedicated two solo albums to the great master, Playing Coltrane, Manza Nera, 2028, and Offering (Playing The Music Of John Coltrane), Niafunken/Setola Di Maiale, 2021)

Terra (earth in Italian) is another solo album, reflecting Colonna’s search for a profound relationship with the breath of the Earth, with the ancestral sounds that have codified the need for human musical expression in the relationship with its environment and the need to act in the mystery of nature. This album in a way sums so far Colonna’s 25 years journey full of explorations of the sonic options of the bass clarinet.

Colonna’s journey embraces local folk traditions and more modern contemporary music and experimental and free music. His bass clarinet tone is intimate, warm and melodic, and his finger percussion devices add to the engaging playfulness and natural flow of the music. He plays a folk dance, employs extended breathing techniques on «Heart(h)beat» in order to create ritualist multiphonics, suggests an intense, mysterious story on «Imaginary Forest» and uses the bass clarinet as a percussive instrument on the poetic «Breathing». «Slow Passages» weaves experimental, extended breathing techniques into a hypnotic, minimalist soundscape and concludes his impressive journey with the lyrical, poetic and touching «Not Only One».

Eyal Hareuveni   

Marco Colonna (bcl, finger perc)