Daniele Cavallanti is an innovative Milan-based saxophonist and composer whose projects include Nexus, Italian Instabile Orchestra, Electric Unit, and Black Hole Quartet. Recently I spoke with Cavallanti about his musical influences, some of his approaches toward music composition, his U.S. tours, and his ongoing projects. 

DG: How did you first get interested in playing music?

DC: When I was about 11 I discovered the Beatles, so I started to "play" drums. Then I started to listen to Rolling Stones, R&B, Bob Dylan, and Ray Charles. A few years later I heard Dave Brubeck's "Take Five," and I decided that I had to learn to play alto saxophone and immediately started to take lessons and practice. After a few months I bought an Ornette Coleman CD, and that was it!

DG: What was the first Ornette Coleman record that you listened to? What did you like about it? 

DC: It was Ornette, with Don Cherry, Scott La Faro, and Billy Higgins. I really got into that sound, and I could hear a lot of blues and freedom.

DG: What do you like about Thelonious Monk’s music? What’s a record by him that you particularly liked to listen to, when you were young?

DC: What impresses me about Monk's music is that it sounds so original and personal from a melodic and harmonic point of view, and it still sounds so modern. I really loved to listen to "Misterioso" with Johnny Griffin on tenor.

DG: Who are some of your other musical influences?

DC: Don Cherry, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Wanye Shorter, Jazz Composers Orchestra, Charlie Haden and his Liberation Music Orchestra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, and many others.

DG: Why did you decide to focus on the tenor and baritone saxophones, rather than other reed instruments for example?

DC: Well, I started with alto because I heard "Take Five," and I got involved with that incredible Paul Desmond's sound. Soon after that I heavily got into Ornette, but after a few years I was hit by a Trane, so I switched to tenor. At the end of the '70s I was also intrigued by baritone saxophone, so I got one.

DG: How do you approach the tenor differently than how you approach the baritone? What are some qualities of those two instruments that affect your creative process differently?

DC: I feel that playing the tenor means facing an incredible history and legacy that goes from Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster to Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Sam Rivers, etc. While with the baritone I feel that in some way I'm more free and "original" in my playing and approach to the horn and the music. This said, I usually practice and play and think of my music in terms of tenor saxophone. I like baritone a lot, but I love the tenor!

DG: I saw the Italian Instabile Orchestra perform during the 2000 Chicago Jazz Festival, that was an amazing performance. What are some things you remember from that experience? 

DC: To begin with, it was amazing to fly to Chicago to play at the Festival -- to play on the main stage in front of that huge and receptive crowd, and to get that standing ovation. After our set, it was exciting to be with the rest of the orchestra and meet festival goers. 

DG: What’s an early composition that you wrote for IIO? 

DC: I wrote a composition in ‘92 called "La Mesa Drive." IIO had just performed at Moers festival, which was the first important international jazz festival the Instabile had been invited to perform at. I had that particular "Instabile sound" in mind, so in the few weeks that I spent in LA I worked on this composition.

DG: What are some recent developments with IIO?

DC:  IIO hasn't been that active recently, but it's never disbanded. A couple of years ago we Anthony Braxton & Italian Instabile Orchestra, a CD of a great concert that IIO did with Braxton. 

DG: What are some things that IIO has done in the last year? 

DC: IIO has new repertoire, made of compositions by Eugenio Colombo, Paolo Damiani, Gianluigi Trovesi, Giovanni Maier, Carlo Actis Dato, Tiziano Tononi, and Fabrizio Puglisi (our new pianist). I did not bring any composition of mine, and, as always, every composer conducts his own compostion.

Last December we performed and recorded in Rome at the national radio, presenting two new members in the band -- Fabrizio Puglisi, a great piano player who replaced Umberto Petrin, and trumpeter Luca Calabrese who replaced Guido Mazzon. We performed brand new compositions during that project. The CD will be released in the fall. In the future, we might do a project with Roscoe Mitchell.

DG: Your Electric Unit recording “Smoke Inside” is a fantastic recording. How did that project come together? 

DC: My friend Fabrizio Perissinotto started the label Long Song Records in 2005, and the following year he told me he was thinking about producing a different kind of record for me, something more electric than anything I had ever done in the past. So I started to write new material, and I began to think about how I could arrange some of my older compositions, and who I could call to play this music. Also, Fabrizio managed to have Nels Cline fly from LA to join us. That was great -- not only is Nels a great musician, just perfect for what I had in mind, but he's also an old friend from my LA days in the early '90s.

DG: How did you first meet Nels?  

DC: He and I met in LA in '92. It was my first time to LA -- my girlfriend at the time was living there. I used to hang out with Tim Berne when he was in Italy at the time, so when I was leaving for LA, Tim gave me Nels' phone number and said to call him up. I called him, and he and I soon became friends. Shortly thereafter I played with his trio a couple of times. 

DG: You have been working with Tiziano Tononi for many years. How would you describe your relationship / collaboration with him?

DC: Tiziano and I have been playing and leading bands together for the last 30 years. We are like brothers, in that we share most of our roots/backgrounds/ideas. At the same time, as people and composers/musicians, we are very different, almost antithetical, so we complement and contrast with each other musically.

DG: Nexus is a unique duo. What are some of the concepts behind your duo with Tiziano?

DC: He and I share the same jazz background, and our work together, even with quintets/sextets or larger bands, starts form the saxophone/drums line and nucleus; rhythm and melody in an African concept.

DG: It was great that you came to the US in fall 2006. Would you describe some highlights that you remember from that trip?

DC: It was really great when we came to Chicago and work with you guys. What has been most interesting (besides playing a lot of gigs, of course) was that in a couple of weeks time we made of our Chicago Udu Calls quintet a real band!

DG: I had a lot fun performing with you and Tiziano, and Chicago Udu Calls – our quintet with Joel Wanek and Jayve Montgomery. What are some highlights that you remember from our tour? I really enjoyed our performances at Parrish Hall in Cleveland and Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor

DC: It was great to spend two weeks, rehearsing and gigging and hanging out with you, Joel and Jayve. For me too, playing Albert Ayler’s “Truth is Marching In” at the Parrish Hall in Alber Ayler's hometown of Cleveland was an intense musical and emotional experience.

DG: Thanks for introducing your composition “The Spirit of Aman” to us, it was fun playing that. How did you come up with that composition?

DC: “Spirit of Anam” is dedicated to Italian writer and mystic Tiziano Terzani. When he died in 2004 this composition came to me and I felt that I had to dedicate it to him. Anam, which means "man with no name" in Hindi, is how he chose to call himself during his last stay in India. Musically speaking, it's inspired by Coltrane.

DG: "Rings of Fire" is a great record. How did that project come together? I really like all the strings. How did you decide on the instrumentation?

DC: As with the case of Smoke Inside and most of the other Long Song CDs, is a project that came from producer Fabrizio Perissinotto. He called me one day telling me that he wanted to produce me and Tiziano with a sort of a double quartet with two strings, two horns, guitar, bass, drums and percussion with violinist Jenny Scheinman as guest artist, performing two long suites by us, and that is Rings of Fire.

DG: How did you conceive of the “Faces” suite?

DC: This is a difficult question. Even after all these years, it still remains a mystery for me how new compositions come to me. I may not write any new music fo two or three years, and then for some reason I may write two or three new pieces in a few months. As for Faces, I started with the sound of instruments (particularly starting from the bass) played by those particular musicians in mind, and I wrote the whole suite in a couple of weeks.

DG: What are some new developments with Nexus?

DC: We're working with a new Nexus band with me, Achille Succi on alto sax and bass clarinet, Emmanuel Parrini on violin and viola, Silvia Bolognesi on bass, and Tiziano on drums. We decided to record some older Nexus compositions -- "Song for the Seals" and "Tom Cat" by Tiziano, and "Raphael's Walk," "Clown's Crown," and "Last Hope Sound" by me -- from our old LPs and CDs, ranging from 1983 to 1996. We also recorded two old compositions by Andrew Cyrille that he used to play with his quartet Naomo in the early '80s. We went into the studio to record those songs in April, and that will be released later this year. 

DG: What are some recent developments with the Black Hole Quartet? 

DC: Later this month, we'll be recording our second CD -- two compositions of mine, two compositions by Walter, and one composition by Tiziano. 

DG: What are your plans for World Listening Day?

DC: Black Hole Quartet will be playing a gig on Saturday the 17th, and since World Listening Day is the next day, we'll be probably ending the gig after midnight. We'll finish up our gig with a composition by Tiziano entitled "3 Phases" that starts with a long improvised section with sounds, calls, and whistles that evoke bird songs and the sounds of a forest and ocean at sunrise.

DG: What are some other projects that you’ve been working on?

DC: Besides teaching saxophone and jazz improvisation, I'm working with a bunch of students of the music school, in working up a sort of "Instabile." It's very interesting -- the students are very good, and we've already played four gigs this year. Also, for about a year I've been thinking about doing a project centered on Wayne Shorter's music. 

DG: Have you ever seen Wayne Shorter in concert? In April I saw his quartet at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, it was fantastic. What are some qualities of Wayne Shorter’s music that you particularly like?

DC: I had the chance to see the Wayne Shorter Quartet live in Milano two years ago, and that was incredible, really something else. For the past 45 years or so, he’s been one of the greatest saxophone players in the world. He’s a “thinking” player and composer, and at age 77, I think he’s the most interesting, modern musician/leader/composer around. His quartet and his collective concept are extremely modern and live.

DG: What would you like to do with that Wayne Shorter project?

DC: I want to put a quintet together with Achille Succi, pianist Gianni Lenoci, a bassist named Pasquale Gadaleta, and Tiziano. We’ll work on Shorter masterpieces such as “Fee Fi Fo Fum,” “Prince of Darkness,” “De Pois do Amor o Vazio,” “Witch Hunt,” “Deluge,” “Speak No Evil,” “Fall,” “Nefertiti,” and “Dolores.” 

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