Clusone Trio, also known as Trio Clusone or Clusone 3, was a Dutch musical group active from the late 1980s to the late '90s, composed of saxophonist/clarinetist

Michael Moore Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author and left-wing activist. His works frequently address the topics of globalization and capitalism. Moore won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for ' ...

, cellist

Ernst Reijseger Ernst Reijseger (born 13 November 1954) is a Dutch cellist and composer. He specializes in avant-garde jazz, free jazz, improvised music, and contemporary classical music and often gives solo concerts. He has worked with Louis Sclavis, Derek ...

and drummer

Han Bennink Han Bennink (born 17 April 1942) is a Dutch drummer and percussionist. On occasion his recordings have featured him playing soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, trombone, violin, banjo and piano. Though perhaps best known as one of the pivotal fig ...

. Initially planned to be a one-time collaboration for an early 1980s jazz festival in

Clusone Clusone (Bergamasque: ) is an Italian town and ''comune'' in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy. Located in the Val Seriana, it received the honorary title of city on 15 May 1957 with a presidential decree which ratified a Napoleon's promise ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, the trio became a regular group by the end of that decade. Their music was a blend of

free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician(s) involved. The term can refer to both a technique (employed by any musician in any genre) and as a recognizable genre in its ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

, the latter typically in a

post-bop Post-bop is a genre of small-combo jazz that evolved in the early to mid 1960s in the United States. Pioneers of the genre, such as Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane and Jackie McLean, crafted syntheses of ...

free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during ...

vein (but sometimes touching on

swing music Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands ...

), and including both original compositions by the trio and interpretations of

jazz standard Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive lis ...

s. Additionally, their performances often featured a humorous edge due in no small part to Bennink's propensity towards quirky,

slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such a ...

humor. Somewhat unusually for a cellist, Reijseger often played pizzicato

walking bass Bassline (also known as a bass line or bass part) is the term used in many styles of music, such as blues, jazz, funk, Dub music, dub and electronic music, electronic, traditional music, traditional, or classical music for the low-pitched Part ( ...

in the style of a jazz double-bassist or held and strummed the instrument like a guitar.Kaufman, 1998 They occasionally performed as the Clusone 4, with guests

Guus Janssen Guus Janssen (born 13 May 1951) is a Dutch composer of contemporary music and a recording artist. A pianist and harpsichordist, he is also active as a jazz performer. He studied piano and composition at the Sweelinck Academy of Music in Amster ...

on piano or Dave Douglas on trumpet. Clusone Trio released six albums, the first two on Moore's small independent label before recording for larger labels like Grammavision or HatArt.

Discography

* ''Clusone Trio'' (1992) Ramboy * ''I Am an Indian'' (1993) Ramboy, reissued by Grammavision Records in 1995 * ''Soft Lights and Sweet Music: Clusone Trio Plays the Music of Irving Berlin'' (1994) Hat Hut Records / Hatology * ''Love Henry'' (1996) Gramavision Records * ''Rara Avis'' (1999) Hat Hut Records * ''An Hour With...'' (2000) Hatology

References

{{Authority control Dutch musical groups Dutch jazz ensembles Free improvisation ensembles Gramavision Records artists