My review of Dino Saluzzi Group's El Valle de la Infancia, today at All About Jazz.
In his 32-year relationship with ECM Records, Argentinean bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi has explored many paths—paths upon which he has rarely traveled more than once, even if there were certain road marks common to them all. A pair of trio recordings with his son, guitarist José Maria Saluzzi, employed two different bassists—Marc Johnson on 1997's Cité de la Musique and Palle Danielsson on 2003's Responsorium—their graceful elegance possessing a similar but different intimacy when compared to the bandoneonist's ongoing duo with cellist Anja Lechner, which first began with Ojos Negros (2007) but then expanded to a trio with the addition of his brother, saxophonist/clarinetist Félix "Cuchara" Saluzzi, together alone on 2011's Navidad de los Andes, following the trio's first encounter on El Encuentro (2010), a more sweepingly ambitious orchestral project.
There have only been two contexts within which Saluzzi has worked more than once: first, the solo recital of his 1983 ECM debut, Kultrum and its 1988 follow-up Andina; and second, his Dino Saluzzi Group, longstanding despite only three recordings to its name—1992's Mojotoro, 2006's Juan Condori, and now, El Valle de la Infancia. Still, these three recordings may be connected by name and the consistent lineup of Saluzzi's son (though José Maria actually started on drums on Mojotoro, making his first appearance as a guitarist on Cité de la Musique) and the bandoneonist's brother Félix; but if these three members of the Saluzzi family have brought some consonance to their small discography, the shifting of the rest of the personnel and attendant additional instrumentation have also made each recording an entity unto itself, with the repertoires clearly predicated on their distinct lineups.
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