Sei Miguel - Still Alive in Barrio Alto
(Headlights)
Sei Miguel's biography is barely above cliché: member of seminal (or so we're to believe, they never issued any recordings) Moeda Noise, who Miguel disbanded just as they brushed the cusp of success, group leader for almost twenty years, prolific releaser of solo and ensemble recordings, participator in festivals, and yet scarcely known outside of Libson, Portugal.
Miguel's latest release, Still Alive in Barrio Alto is a live album recorded in Libson, featuring Miguel (clad in a cat costume on the cover, which I can only hope he wore to perform) and an group of seven other improvisers, each also decked out in feline garb. The album's lone track, the forty-two minute "Favourite Places in Time..." is made up mainly of the scattered sounds of Miguel & mates exploring minimal technique and volume led by Miguel's direction. While his trumpet emits stunted smears and condensed flourishes, Miguel leads his supporting cast through more than a half-hour's worth of scattered sound. Fala Mariam's trombone offers complimentary bleats and blurts, while Manuel Mota and Tiago Brandão handle guitar duties, Margarida Garcia plays twin-stringed bass, and Monsieur Trinité and César Burago's array of shakers and wood blocks provide the album's percussion. The improvisation's silences are as numerous as its sounds, and extended periods occur in which only two or three members of the ensemble play at once. The album starts with Miguel and Garcia trading off, and the bassist's first two minutes are probably her best on the album, for as the set continues, she wanders up and down the neck of her instrument almost aimlessly, adding little to the proceedings and largely failing to build on the other musicians' work in any constructive ways. This is unfortunate, because as the rest of the musicians enter and exit the mix, Garcia, along with Miguel, is one of the musicians whose presence is the most constant during the set's forty-two minutes. The rest of the rhythm section consists mainly of the aforementioned shakers, which alternate between barely audible patter and locomotive chugging of varying tempos. Though fitting with the performance's limited tonal palette, the percussion raises the question of why two musicians were needed, as they rarely play at the same time, and aren't discernible from one another. Mota and Brandão, the guitarists, though not without their own faults exhibit far more variety and thoughtfulness in their playing than the rest of the ensemble. Their technique varies to suit the sounds around them, and when the two are left virtually alone in the mix it results in the cd's most satisfying moments. Fala Mariam does well as the session's best listener and it's most sympathetic listener, but Miguel proves himself to be not only the leader of the group in name, but also in deed, as his trumpet is responsible for the disc's most consistently pleasing work.
The individual members of Miguel's group, however they perform, are still quite obviously parts of the bigger whole, and the performance's best and worst moments coalesce to form a piece that wanders incidentally through a long forty-two minutes with little in the way of variety. Volumes, pitches, and intensities change, but, when the improvisation ends and the audience begins to applaud, there's little more for this listener to clap about than perhaps respect for the attempt to create something substantial within the piece's "less is more" parameters, a frustratingly simple quest that, aside from a few exceptions, has foiled jazz musicians more formidable than those featured here.
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