Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser’s solo album 18 monologues élastiques was inspired by Swiss-born modernist novelist and poet Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961) and his collection of poems Dix-neuf poèmes élastiques (1919), which captured the fragmentation and wonder of early 20th-century Europe. Blaser’s 18 original compositions are «more a wink to Cendrars’ work rather than a real tribute», but all explore and map the intersection of modernist literature, modern jazz, and sound art through the lens of shared Swiss heritage.
Both Cendrars and Blaser share roots in Frédéric-Louis Sauser in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. The house where Cendrars was born was right around the corner from where Blaser lived, and Blaser read his books in School. Blaser’s 18 short monologues, like Cendrars’ poetry, stress his idiosyncratic, expressive voice as well as his deep and intimate knowledge of the trombone legacy throughout jazz history, from the early, dance-oriented songs to free jazz and avant-garde.
Cendrars wrote in his poem «Bombay Express»: «I have music under my fingernails”. Blaser, as author Thomas Staudter wrote in his liner notes, is also a modernist who brings «fierce independence to everything he creates,» and his trombone gives «voice to the entire animal kingdom all at once in his hands».
The album was recorded at the historic Funkhaus Nalepastrasse in Berlin (the former GDR radio studio) in January and February 2013 under the artistic direction of innovative producer and sound designer Martin Ruch. Rather than recording the trombone in a traditional static setting, Ruch and Blaser opted to capture the trombone sound while walking throughout the entire complex, including the toilets, designed by architect Franz Ehrlich and constructed in 1951. This decision added a cinematic quality to the music, and the album beautifully captures Blaser’s trombone in its full mimetic range. And as Staudter concluded: «it is a collection of sound and surprise, seriously playful, a modernist’s answer, unrepeatable, to another puzzling question».
Eyal Hareuveni
Samuel Blaser (trombone)
