RISSI / MAZZOLA / GEISSER - Anaximandros (April 2021)

The architecture of the music by RISSI-MAZZOLA-GEISSER reminds us how intellect, bravery, and raw expression are often cohorts in the cream of creative improvised music.

Greg Buium, Coda Magazine

My long-time cooperation with Guerino Mazzola started in the Summer of the year 1978; in these past years of realy wonderful team playing we formed besides other projects in the eighties the quintet/sextet FLOW UNIT, in the nineties the quartet ARTofTIME and other groups such as the Q4 ORCHESTRA until to the trio RISSI-MAZZOLA-GEISSER with the drummer Heinz Geisser who was playing with us since mid 1994 to the year 2006.

Mathias Rissi

1. Herakleitos 25:56

2. Anaximandros 10:44

3. Thales 22:26

Mathias Rissi - tenor-, alto saxophones

Guerino Mazzola - grand piano

Heinz Geisser - percussion

Compositions by RISSI-MAZZOLA-GEISSER

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Guerino Mazzola & Joomi Park - Passionate Message (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

Silkheart Records has previously released two CDs presenting the dynamics of Guerino Mazzola on grand piano and Heinz Geisser on percussion – Folia/The UNAM Concert and Someday respectively. This time we have decided to invest in a new type of dynamics – the one between two improvisional pianists – Guerino Mazzola and Joomi Park. Our decision was based on a concept presented to us by Mazzola and Park to consider: 

« The principal idea for this CD was to set up a profound dialogue of two completely different styles – Joomi’s contemporary music approach to composition and improvisation, versus Guerino’s free jazz improvisation with previously prepared basic materials – and then synthesizing these styles in a shared improvisation on two pianos. 
Our general strategy was to investigate composition by improvisation and also to integrate composition in the improvisational approach. So it was not general free jazz, but the integration of compositional material in improvisation by Guerino and also a synthesis of Joomi’s and Guerino’s soli in a shared improvisation. Here the new music and the free jazz idioms were confronted and merged. Joomi’ and Guerino’s contributions were developed in a prolific discussion in the construction of these musics, meaning that none was an isolated creation but resulted from an intense musical exchange of ideas and performances. »

1. Black Summer (Park) 03:13

2. Black Summer (Mazzola) 03:57

3. Black Summer (Mazzola & Park) 01:44

4. Yesterday (Lennon & McCartney) 04:01

5. Yesterday (Park) 04:32

6. Yesterday (Mazzola & Park) 04:01

7. American Carnival (Park) 06:12

8. American Carnival (Mazzola) 04:58

9. American Carnival (Mazzola & Park) 04:38

10. Joomi's Dance (Park) 04:09

11. Guerino's Dance (Mazzola) 02:10

12. Our Dance (Mazzola & Park) 05:16

Guerino Mazzola grand piano

Joomi Park grand piano

Heinz Geisser - Guerino Mazzola Duo: Someday (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"Someday" by percussionist Heinz Geisser and pianist Guerino Mazzola is a companion album to "Folia/The UNAM Concert" by the same duo. These recordings were made at the Someday Club in Tokyo and at Sala Carlos Chávez in Mexico City during their autumn 2000 tour of Korea, Japan and Mexico. It is by comparing the "Someday" performances with each other, and with those on "Folia", that the extraordinary beauty of the duo's extemporising becomes clear. This is music of great sensitivity and shared, instinctively attuned responsiveness, with details rich in information and highly nuanced. Only the third CD by the duo from its remarkable ten years of existence, "Someday" is a tremendous listening experience. One to be savoured. 

Contemporary free jazz and improvised music are afflicted - to comparably ruinous degrees - by a malaise of overproduction. Musicians of questionable repute are happy for their names to appear on four or five albums per calendar year; musicians of more established renown see nothing amiss in releasing as many as nine or ten. In the context of such heedless profligacy, the Swiss duo of Heinz Geisser and Guerino Mazzola are a refreshing anomaly. 

Now heading into their tenth year of collaboration...  more

1. Someday 36:34

2. Tormenta de tiempos 36:57

Guerino Mazzola grand piano

Heinz Geisser percussion