Chapters of a Day

Clairvoyance is the purported ability to perceive beyond the perceptible—to see what isn’t visible, to hear what isn’t audible, to know what’s about to happen before it does. I don’t think we need to invoke something as exotic as extrasensory perception to acknowledge the exceptional form of communication that binds together the Clairvoyance Trio’s three members—soprano saxophonist Gianni Mimmo, pianist Silvia Corda, and double bassist Adriano Orrù--in improvising music of an exceptional balance and beauty.

Both as a soloist and an ensemble player, Mimmo is one of the contemporary soprano saxophone’s leading exponents. His is a lyrical voice even when experimenting at the edges of sound: a keen sense of melody always comes through. An instrumentalist with an expansive vision of what his instrument can do, Orrù understands pitch and timbre to be equal partners, whether he’s playing from the rich depths of the double bass’s lower register or skating along on a brittle sheen of bowed harmonics. Corda’s pianism is in many respects the binding agent through which the trio’s ability simultaneously to subsume and preserve its individual voices realizes itself in an ongoing construction of form in freedom.

The three tracks on this album, the group’s third, were recorded at the Auditorium Fondazione Piacenza-Vigevano on 22 February 2025. It was a memorable evening dedicated to the memory of the late Artemio Cavagna, a friend of the group. No wonder then that the music they played that night was strongly felt.

And as we’ve come to expect from them, it also was of the highest order. Although it was fully improvised it unfolds with a structural cohesion all the more remarkable for its not having been premeditated. We hear the group spontaneously construct complex, three-part counterpoint for saxophone, piano, and bowed double bass; converge on clearly articulated harmonies built on complementary multiphonics; weave variegated textures by rearranging themselves into shifting combinations of three, two, and single voices; pursue each other in parallelisms of rhythm and accent. There are moments of pure sound, as when Corda plays inside the piano or Orrù grinds the strings with pressured bowing, but the larger context within which these and other extended techniques appear keeps them musical. Throughout, as with their previous performances, the Clairvoyance Trio lives up to its name by demonstrating Mimmo, Corda, and Orrù’s uncanny, almost telepathic ability to anticipate each others’ lines and to complete each others’ thoughts. This is an ensemble of soloists finely attuned to each other through close listening and a shared quasi-compositional aesthetic. 

Fully improvised music is an ephemeral art. Before it’s played it doesn’t exist; after it’s been played it no longer exists. It lives in the moment and once that moment is gone, it’s gone along with it. Fortunately for us, this set was preserved on a recording that allows us to re-experience Mimmo, Corda, and Orrù’s fine performance. It’s a performance that will reward repeated listens.