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Jazz Nedeljom je zamišljen kao serija vinjeta koje će ići (možda ne?) svake Nedelje, nudeći preporuku u vidu jednog jazz albuma koji sam tog dana slušao. Ovo nema pretenziju da bude ni ultimativni prikaz neke klasične ploče niti otkrivanje nekog budućeg klasika, već zaista samo to, da se kažu reč-dve o albumu koji sam tog dana rado slušao. Ponekada će to biti stare, proverene klasične stvari, ponekada najnovije izdanje koje sam izvalio na Bandcampu, hoću reći, neće biti pravila. Kako i treba. Kako i mora.
Nikada nije kasno za dobar rekvijem. Tako ovonedeljni album teško da se može svrstati u jazz i uz najbolje namere i najveća rastezanja definicije pojma, ali je on dovoljno informisan jazzom sa obe strane, i dovoljno iskren, neposredn, ličan a lak za razumevanje i deljenje emocije i fasciniranosti oštećenom lepotom, da mislim da je sasvim korektno da ga obradimo. Uostalom, svojevremeno sam ne jedan već dva albuma istog autora potkačio u istom ovom formatu i mada su oni bili napravljeni isključivo od tretiranih snimaka tenor saksofona – nisu ni malo više bili „jazz“. Kevin Richard Martin: Black je jedan od onih albuma koji dekonstruišu ideju distancirane, hladne ambijentalne muzike, nudeći emotivan, ranjen zvučni prostor, ali i ideju da je abrazivna, „noise“ muzika nužno agresivna i nihilistična.
Kao i ne jedan album u istoriji popularne muzike, Black je posvećen jednoj ženi. Ali ne na način na koji biste intuitivno pomislili. Kevin Martin, koga mnogi poznaju pre svega kao producenta agresivne, teške raggamuffin muzike sa pseudonimom The Bug – a stariji među nama i kao osnivača avangardnog „orkestra“ God, polovine dua Techno Animal itd. – nije baš od onih muzičara koji pišu serenade ili slomljeno srce leče pisanjem tugaljivih balada i daju gas po autotjunu da još više razmekšaju nesuđenu izabranicu. Uostalom, ovo je danas porodičan čovek i njegova muzika se najčešće bavi apstraktnijim temama nego što su ljubavni jadi. Black nikako nije ljubavni album i u stvarnosti, kako sam na početku i sugerisao, u pitanju je rekvijem i pohvalnica za jednu prerano otišlu ženu koju neverovatni talenat i muzička nadarenost nisu spasli od najgorih pošasti šou biznisa a pakao u privatnom životu se prelivao i u muziku sve dok ih na kraju više bilo moguće razdvojiti. Nakon poslednjeg sopstvenog koncerta, održanog od svih mesta na planeti baš u Beogradu, Amy Winehouse, jer naravno da o njoj pričamo, otkazala je ostatak turneje i pokušala da sebe malo dovede u red. Bezuspešno i žena će samo nešto više od mesec dana kasnije umreti od trovanja alkoholom u fatalnoj dvadesetsedmoj godini, 23. Jula 2011 godine.
Kao ni Kevin Maretin, ni ja nisam obraćao mnogo pažnje na Amy Winehouse dok je bila živa. Izvanredni glas i umetanje elemenata jazza i soula u njenu muziku su bili umotani u produkciju Marka Ronsona za koga nikada u životu nisam mario i to se ni do danas nije promenilo pa mi po toj vezi ni Amy Winehouse nije dopirala do ušiju naročito snažno. No, čak sam i ja bio svestan razmera kataklizme u koju se taj njen poslednji koncert pretvorio, sa domaćom publikom koja je razočarano zviždala i Mobyjem koji je, nakon završetka svog seta užasnuto tvitovao da se žena raspada i da neko treba da joj pruži pomoć.
Kako je to često slučaj sa zvezdama šoubiznisa u vreme kada su mlade, na vrhuncu kreativnih moći ali bez dovoljno životnog i poslovnog iskustva, možda i bez dovoljno emotivne i duhovne izvežbanosti da se nose sa olujama koje duvaju iz svih smerova, ni Amy Winehouse nije imala podršku i njena smrt nije tragična zato što se desila, već zato što se desila pred očima tolikog broja ljudi, smrt koja je delovala nepravično i bolno jer je na kraju krajeva i te ljude lišila jednog vanserijskog talenta koji je svetu u svom kratkom životu zaista dao samo dva albuma.
Martinovo razmišljanje je slično ovome i njegovo nadahnuće za kreaciju ovog albuma – dvanaest, dakle, godina od smrti Amy Winehouse – došlo je iz ponovljenog slušanja Back to Black, a inspirisanog gledanjem dokumentarnog filma o pevačici na dugačkom avionskom letu.
Ako poznajete opus Kevina Martina, znate da je njegova muzika pre svega jedna vežba iz dosledne redukcije. Čak je i God, bend sa dvocifrenim brojem članova bio muzički fokusiran i usredsređen na jedan jasan muzički iskaz i nije delovao kao proizvod grupe muzičara od kojih svaki vuče na svoju stranu. Martinovi noviji radovi, pravljeni u duo, trio ali sve češće solo postavi su po pravilu svedene, jako fokusirane muzičke skulpture gde se ambijentalna muzika, elektornski dub, ragga ili samo buka uobličuju u jasne, besprekorno disciplinovane iskaze gde sva spontanost i eksperimentacije, koje su uvek deo Martinovog procesa pravljenja zvuka, na kraju prefektno leže jedno sa drugim i donose slušaocu lepe sonične predmete koje može da posmatra dugo, ponovljeno i sa raznih distanci.
Black je upravo ovakva ploča, kombinacija „čistih“ elektronskih tekstura, old school dub i ambijentalnih efekata. Kada sam Martinu pomenuo da se čuje dosta Basic Channel estetike na ovom albumu rekao je da mu to nikada nije palo na pamet ali neka me đavo odnese ako se specifični „ledeni a ljudski“ zvuk ovog nemačkog projekta ne može prepoznati na više kompozicija, pogotovo na prvoj polovini albuma. A opet, Martin nikako ne imitira tuđu muziku i, recimo, iako kompozicija Black počinje, za mene sasvim očiglednim aluzijama na ambijentalni dab devedesetih godina, ona se sa prolaskom vremena rastače u sveobuhvatni šum koji je nepogrešivo Martinov potpis.
Martin je poslednjih godina snimio dosta elektronskih ambijentalnih albuma, ali Black ima osobenu emotivnu crtu. Njegova bas-pulsiranja i smene tonova demonstriraju jasnu sponu sa soul i jazz muzikom kojom se Amy Winehouse inspirisala, sugerišući istu polomljenu, umrljanu fasciniranost lepotom koja je bila zaštitni znak i njenih pesama. Martin u nekim komadima dodaje i jasne bas linije pa i ritam – recimo u Camden Crawling – i ljubitelji njegovog rada sa Justinom Broadrickom će ovde čuti jasne odjeke projekata poput Techno Animal, Ice ili Sidewinder, samo umotane u jednu svečanu, melanholičnu atmosferu.
Kada se pred kraj albuma Martin dohvati saksofona, organski zvuk duvačkog instrumenta, ma koliko on bio tretiran kao samo još jedan sloj u gustim ambijentalnim građevinama, daje svemu crtu živog, ranjivog. Minijatura Belgrade Meltdown pred kraj albuma je savršen uvod za opšte rastakanje zvuka koje sledi sa To Disappear i Rest in Peace, ostavljajući poslednji preliv na ovom emotivnom, toplom ali dostojanstvenom zvučnom spomeniku. Tople preporuke za slušanje iz mnogo puta:
It’s never too late for a good requiem. And well, this week’s album can hardly be classified as jazz, even with the best intentions and the greatest stretching of the definition of the term, but it is sufficiently informed by jazz from both sides, and sufficiently honest, direct, personal and easy to understand and share the emotion and fascination with damaged beauty, so I think it is quite legit for it to be reviewed here. After all, once I reviewed not one but two albums of the same author in this same format, and although they were made exclusively from treated tenor saxophone recordings – they were not „jazz“ at all. Kevin Richard Martin: Black is one of those albums that deconstructs the concept of distant, cold ambient music, offering an emotional, wounded sound space, but it also does away with the idea that abrasive, „noise“ music is necessarily aggressive and nihilistic.
Like at least a couple other albums in the history of popular music, Black is dedicated to a woman. But not in the way you’d think. Kevin Martin, whom many know primarily as a producer of aggressive, heavy raggamuffin music under the pseudonym The Bug – while old geezers like me also know him as the founder of the avant-garde „orchestra“ God, half of the Techno Animal duo, etc. – and he’s not exactly one of those musicians who serenade the ladies or who try to heal a broken heart by writing mournful ballads and revving up the autotune to the max. After all, he is a family man today and his music usually deals with more abstract themes than are mere love woes. Black is by no means a love album and in reality, as I suggested at the beginning, it is a requiem and a eulogy for a woman who left too soon, whose incredible talent and musical gift did not save her from the worst diseases you get when you’re in the show business, and whose hell from her private life kept spilling over into her music until in the end it was no longer possible to tell them apart. After the last show of her own, held in Belgrade of all places on the planet, Amy Winehouse, because of course we are talking about her, canceled the rest of the tour and tried to “sort herself out”. Unsuccessfully, as the history reminds us, and the woman died just over a month later from alcohol poisoning at the fatal age of twenty-seven, on July 23, 2011.
Just like Kevin Martin, I didn’t pay much attention to Amy Winehouse when she was alive. The extraordinary voice and the elements of jazz and soul in her music were wrapped in the production of Mark Ronson, for whom I never had much time in my life and that has not changed even to this day, so in that regard, Amy Winehouse did not reach my ears particularly often. But even I was aware of the scale of the cataclysm that her last concert turned into, with my hometown crowd booing in disappointment and Moby tweeting in horror after his opening set about the woman that was falling apart and begging someone to help her.
As is often the case with showbiz stars when they are young, at the peak of their creative powers but without enough life and business experience, perhaps without enough emotional and spiritual training to deal with storms hitting them from all directions, Amy Winehouse did not have anyone to help her. Her death is not tragic because it happened, but because it happened in front of the eyes of so many people, a death that seemed unfair and painful because, after all, it also deprived same onlookers of an extraordinary talent that gave so much the world in during its short two albums lifespan.
Martin’s thinking is similar to this and his inspiration for the creation of this album – twelve years after the death of Amy Winehouse – came from repeated listening to Back to Black, inspired by watching a documentary about the singer on a long plane flight.
If you know Kevin Martin’s work, you know that his music is primarily an exercise in consistent reduction. Even God, a band with a double-digit number of members, was musically focused and dedicated to one clear musical statement and it never sounded like a product of a group of musicians, each pulling in their own direction. Martin’s more recent works, made in a duo or trio format, but increasingly solo, are as a rule sparse, highly focused musical sculptures where ambient music, electronic dub, ragga or just noise are shaped into clear, impeccably disciplined statements, where all spontaneity and experimentation, which are ever part of Martin’s sound-making process, in the end fit perfectly with each other and bring the listener beautiful sonic objects that can be observed for a long time, repeatedly and from various distances.
Black is another such album, a combination of „pure“ electronic textures, old school dub and ambient effects. When I mentioned to Martin that I heard a lot of Basic Channel aesthetics on this album, he said that it had never occurred to him, but I’ll be damned if the specific „icy but human“ sound of this German project cannot be recognized on several compositions, especially on the first half of the album. Then again, Martin does not imitate other people’s music and, for example, although the composition Black begins, for me, with quite obvious allusions to the ambient dub of the nineties, it dissolves with the passage of time into an all-encompassing soft noise that is unmistakably Martin’s signature.
Martin has recorded a lot of electronic ambient albums in recent years, but Black has a special emotional streak. Its bass pulsations and tonal shifts demonstrate a clear link with the soul and jazz music Amy Winehouse was inspired by, suggesting the same fractured, stained fascination with beauty that was a trademark of her songs. In some pieces, Martin adds clear bass lines and rhythm – for example in Camden Crawling – and fans of his work with Justin Broadrick will here clear echoes of projects like Techno Animal, Ice or Sidewinder, only wrapped in a solemn, melancholic atmosphere.
When Martin reaches for the saxophone near the end of the album, the organic sound of the wind instrument, no matter how much it is treated and turned into just another layer in these dense ambient structures, gives everything a touch of vitality and vulnerability. The miniature Belgrade Meltdown towards the end of the album is the perfect introduction to the general dissolution of the sound that follows with To Disappear and Rest in Peace, leaving the final touch on this emotional, warm but dignified sonic monument. Warm recommendations for many future listens: