Search - Joe Giardullo Trio :: Language of Swans

"Language of Swans features multi-instrumentalists Joe Giardullo with long time collaborators, Michael Thompson on drums and piano and Chris Sullivan on bass. This is Joe's second recording for Drimala Records and a world away from his first recording, Shadow & Light. Here Joe is relaxed, the sound is easy and flowing, with a casualness that belies the intensity of effort. The compositions explore the metaphor of nature's language using the elegance of swans as a foil for the exploration. The music traces the transmigration of life through music without self-consciousness or presumption. The session moves from the sensitive, almost delicate, ballad on ""A Tear For The Missing"" to an absolute tour de force of circular breathing on ""Migrations""...but these are only arbitrary stopping points along the complete journey of musical discovery that Joe takes the listener on. Behind Giardullo is one of the strongest, if not the most eclectic, rhythm sections working today in Thompson and Sullivan. Anticipating his every nuance and phrase, their rhythmic intensity and discoveries reflect a broad history across a wide spectrum of styles from the hard driving free sounds of Archie Shepp to the calypso rhythms of the Mighty Sparrow. But the result is never muddy or confused. Theirs is a journey of purpose, tightly focused, without distraction...but taken at leisure. As a sojourner with them on their travels, the result is most enlightening."