Detailed Reviews [Trigon - 2000 - "Free Gone"]

All compositions written by Trigon, except where mentioned. Arranged and produced by Trigon. Recorded at "Voxtel" studios, 1999, Moldavia.

Line-up: Anatol Shtefanetz - viola, vocalize; Alexander Murzak - bass; Oleg Baltaga - drums

Prologue. One more contemporary "Bohemian" band and the freshest album of the Progressively set company, let alone all recently released issues. These talented Moldavian guys present themselves as "Art-Jazz-Folk-Trio" and when I've got nothing to object to about "Art" and "Folk" after repeated listens to the CD, I'm facing certain problems with the "Jazz" definition, just the same I had with Er J- and Vermicelli Orchestras especially. Recall, the genre label on the back covers of the CDs refers them to Jazz + Modern Music and Jazz + Creative Music. And this album of Trigon is labelled as Jazz + World Music. When both genres are specified correctly, I've got one more "Jazz" question considering the style of the band. There's no World music in the actual meaning of the definition regardless of the fact that "Free Gone" is literally stuffed with Moldavian, Romanian, and Gypsy tunes. But all these tunes collected from around the world, my dears, nevertheless have something to do with the word "Folk", while "World music" is an opera of the Pseudo-Prog style along with its New Age, Ambient, etc. It's generally quite a plain, often meditative kind of music, which uses petty components of either ethnic music, thickly - of Eastern. The genre description which is given by the members of the band is more precise then.

The Album. Indeed, the Moldavian trio Trigon plays effervescent instrumental music, a fusion of various styles which I'd rather arrange in another way: Folk + Art-Rock + Jazz-Fusion. I consider "progressive" meaning of the last term, not "jazz" one, as only with gun pointed at my face I'd dare say "Yeah, these flowing violin passages are real ad lib, invented by Afro-Americans as a way to express their soul moves. These arrangements can by no means be regarded as stored in advance which is part of the old European tradition of composing music amenably the Symphonic harmonious laws, unlike weaving a melody impromptu within a set harmonious scheme (despite it be complex as well)." In practice the abundance of typical jazz improvisations turn out to be pseudo-jazz stuff we commonly label as Prog-Fusion. As it's not even Jazz-Fusion (in the real meaning of the word "fusion"), that is synthesis of genuine Jazz and Rock or Progressive (Symphonic in particular), for it's more often synthesis of all of them altogether, then we are carried away by the works of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To Forever, Brand X, and so on. Anyway, I suppose "Proglovers-Aryans" as well as "Jazzlovers-Aryans" (pseudo - in both cases) would hardly share my "progressive" views on the three whales which, to my mind, are holding Progressive Rock (let's let alone Classical music and its different manifestations) - they are Art-Rock, Prog-Metal, and Jazz-Fusion. So the violin plays the leading part in Trigon's melodic soloing, though the rhythm-section do practically the same thing - they rain with headlong virtuosic solos through the length and breadth of the violin part. In general they do it solely according to the symphonic laws, as both Art-Rock and pseudo-jazz improvisations, and the music of all involved nations work within the borders of these laws (the CD booklet contains no reference to Afro-Americans, otherwise you'd have something to argue with me about).

Summary. Trigon's "Free Gone" is an exclusively original work, all done by terrific arrangers (compare Shtefanetz and Ponty playing the violin) - it's one more alpha plus album in the collection of the new progressive trend of the Slavonic School. My friends, hold on a sec, don't just pass by: right now before your eyes a unique drive is establishing and it will have hundreds of disciples. Hey, Russians (generally speaking), do you realize that it's in our own country that the Future Classics is being born. You can't imagine in what great demand our Soviet and Post-Soviet works of progressive genre are in the West.

VM. April 15, 2001

"Boheme Music" website is at: http://www.bohememusic.com/

The CD ordering is via e-mail: boheme@iol.cz