Concert review on Radu Malfatti / Taku Unami improvisation duo (9/11/2011)

I just listened to the live recording of Radu Malfatti / Taku Unami duo improvisation set from the AMPLIFY festival again. I still think that this might be the best set I have ever seen, listened, and experienced in the whole AMPLIFY history. Performed in New York City on September 11th, this duo set was also the most beautiful memorial tribute to 9/11 I have ever seen or heard (though I am not sure if the two musicians actually intended that.)

The set started in a contemplative silence. Unami lit a candle and stood it on the flour. His clicking sounds of a lighter in the silence, a human gesture (not a machine noise), felt like an introduction to the intimate world of their duo performance. Unami barely made any sound after that, just casting some little moves of the nuanced shadows on the wall reflected from the light from the small candle. He was mostly hidden behind the cardboard box he built around the candle, so the only thing we could see was the shadows and lights reflected on the back wall. After a long silence (while I was fascinated with the subtle, nuanced moves of the shadows and lights Unami reflected on the wall), Malfatti made a very quiet, long, almost inaudible low-key trombone sound. Malfatti’s figure was invisible in the darkened room, and since his trombone sounds were so subtle, the sounds felt as if they were appearing from the darkness, and disappearing into the silence - naturally. It was a breathtakingly beautiful, solemn moment.

Even though there were extremely sparse sounds in the set, the interaction between Malfatti and Unami stayed incredibly close. The silence and the sparseness of sounds in Unami's performance were perfectly matched with Malfatti's silence and sounds. Malfatti's trombone reflected the delicate moves of Unami's visual work with its tones (you could almost imagine Unami's shadow works just from Malfatti's trombone), while Unami's shadow/light reflections on the wall in the silence respectfully reflected Radu's moves on trombone. The sounds Unami made were the clicking noises of his lighter (he made occasionally in the middle of Malfatti's trombone sounds), cutting a cardboard box, building it up around him. When I listened back to the live recording now, it is surprising to find how perfectly his sounds fitted to Malfatti's moves on trombone, which I did not notice during the concert. When listening back to the set with the live recording now, I can feel the deep, beautiful interaction between two musicians. Unami presented something beyond the visual works, something that could reach the listeners even afterward through the sounds and silences filled with his deep respect for Malfatti.

What impressed me deeply in the set was how both musicians showed their respect for each other's sensitivities, their respect for each other's silence, their respect for the music, and the humbleness of the two musicians who were paying close attentions to the sounds and the silences that were born in front of them in this moment. The calm yet intimate interaction between the two musicians gradually filled the room with a solemn, soothing atmosphere, which I also found deeply healing in the memory of 9/11.

The pureness of the sounds could be easily clouded by the musician's personal ego, which could overshadow the music with his/her strong statement or emotion or tendency. When it happens, the world of music is narrowed and limited within the musician's own small sphere, which could fade as time goes by due to the narrowness. What the duo of Malfatti and Unami achieved in the set was to clear the cloud away. Restraining the performers' statements or tendencies to the minimum extent, the duo has created the clearest air or the environment for the sounds to be born in the purest form.