Opera and jazz? At first glance, this combination may seem a bit irritating. Isn’t opera just gaudy and artificial theatrics? And, isn’t jazz the complete opposite – spontaneous, honest expression? But they do fluidly crossover into each other. Let’s just say: Opera was the pop music of the 19th century. Whether it was a celebrated solo virtuoso or a brass band playing on the street – what they mainly offered the people at that time was an opera potpourri. That was also true for New Orleans, the multicultural port city where jazz began at the end of the 19th century. In his earlier years, Louis Armstrong enthusiastically listened to records of celebrated Italian opera singers like Caruso and Galli-Curci and modeled his trumpet playing after them. In the twenties, Armstrong played melodies from Mascagni and Suppé with Erskine Tate’s band in Chicago’s Vendome Theater. Finally, in New York, he was one of the first to introduce songs from the Broadway stage to jazz. And what else could the origin of these stage songs be than gaudy and artificial theatrics. “M’ascolta”, the first piece on this record, begins with strange sounds. These are produced by Patrice Heral, the rather eccentric drummer in this trio, who not only loves to paint with a wide pallet of percussion colors, but occasionally also uses his breath and voice imaginatively. This has a somewhat psychedelic effect – almost as if we had to make our way through the fog of time, space and ignorance to approach Verdi’s arias with a new perspective: namely, from the perspective of jazz. “Verdi gave birth to jazz,” says Dieter Ilg, the leader of this trio and one of the best bass players in Europe. To him, it is impossible to overlook the relationship between Verdi’s harmonic phrasing and modern jazz. With his trio project “Otello”, which he began in 2009, he therefore consistently brings to the forefront what always just slumbered under the surface in Verdi’s
works. “Fuoco di gioia” unfolds with an elegant groove, “Ave Maria” turns into a deeply intimate trio ballad, and “O là” is hard-hitting modern jazz. In the final piece “Otello” there are real episodes of bluesy intensity.
In Dieter Ilg’s “Otello” we hear that there was a lot contained in Verdi that later turned into jazz and has remained a big part of jazz till today. It’s time that jazz musicians discovered their roots in things that seem foreign. “We caress Giuseppe Verdi’s music with our instruments,” says Dieter Ilg, famous as a gourmet of the palate as well as the ear. Mr. Ilg plays a bass that sings almost like an opera singer. “This music is so wonderfully melodic. It is exciting as well as relaxing; it is calming and at the same time stirring.” The trio’s Rainer Böhm is a pianist who shines with all of these different facets – sometimes with economical gestures, sometimes with voluptuous imagination. The result is a concentration of passion and suspense. And this condensed emotion is exactly what associates Verdi with jazz: “For me, the most important thing in Otello,” says Dieter Ilg, “is the dramatic moment in the music.”

Hans-Jürgen Schaal Translation by January 2012 Joe Grand