SAMUEL BLASER

In 2020, Samuel Blaser instituted Blaser Music as an outlet for his music. To date, it has released eight digital albums, three of which are reissues, and one digital single.. Same Place, Another Time, which was recorded in Luzern Switzerland in 2018, is the label’s first vinyl edition. The physical record contains seven tracks; downloads include nine. It is only the second LP of Blaser’s career, and it will be released on Pierre Favre’s 85th birthday.

When drummer Pierre Favre and trombonist Samuel Blaser perform together, Favre often tells audiences that they are from the same part of Switzerland, but born at different times. Since their differences of vintage are instantly evident — Favre was born in Le Locle in 1937, Blaser a few kilometers away in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1981 — the comment usually earns a laugh. And there’s a good chance that the audience won’t be the only ones laughing; for evidence, check out Blaser cracking up at Favre’s introduction to “La danse des ours” (“Dance of the bears”).

That spirit of good humor pervades Same Place, Another Time, the duo’s second recording. When they made their first album, Vol À Voile (Intakt Records), in September 2009, they had only played a couple gigs together. Since then, they’ve toured together in China, the USA, and all over Europe. Blaser and Favre have forged a strong personal and musical bond forged by common cultural roots, shared musical affinities, and frequent work together. Each man knows what it’s like to grow up in a remote municipality devoted to watchmaking, and the necessity to leave such a place in order to pursue a life in creative music. Both men are devoted to the adventurous spirit of jazz. Favre’s played with Don Cherry, Dexter Gordon, Albert Mangelsdorff, Irène Schweizer, and Peter Brötzmann, and Blaser with Daniel Humair, Gerry Hemingway, and Paul Motian. However, neither feels bound only to it; Favre opened himself to a world of rhythms to fashion his Singing Drums music, and Blaser has found inspiration in opera, rock steady, and the blues.

But when they get together, the common ground is jazz. Things don’t get much more fundamental than Monk’s “Round Midnight” and Duke’s “Mood Indigo,” which are the only compositions on an otherwise completely improvised album. Among Favre’s gifts is his ability to articulate a melody using cymbals and drums, but on both of these songs, he lets the trombone hold the tune while he applies brush to snare and swings like mad. The improvisations are more textural and open, but no less lucid or expressive. Consider “La Moretta,” which is named for a drink made from layers of liqueur and espresso. The way it rises from slow growls and sculpted cymbal swells to an irrepressible soft shoe shuffle could well correspond to the social experience that arises from sharing a couple such drinks. And the playfulness doesn’t end when Blaser stops laughing and starts blowing earthy, vocalized phrases over the drummer’s rump-shaking beat on “La danse des ours.”  Same Place, Another Time is infused with the wisdom of experience and joy of good company

- Bill Meyer