Lina Allemano Four

Lina Allemano Four: “The Diptychs”

(CA) 

German premiere

Toronto trumpeter Lina Allemano has spent a good chunk of her time in Berlin over the years, commuting between cities and forming bands in both locales. Her eccentric Berlin trio with Michael Griener and Dan Peter Sundland, Ohrenschmaus, appeared at Jazzfest Berlin in 2020, but she is finally presenting her longest-running group this year. The Lina Allemano Four features a superb group of fellow Canadians – drummer Nick Fraser, saxophonist Brodie West and bassist Andrew Downing – taking open-ended excursions into wonderfully loosey-goosey freebop awash in nonchalant extended techniques. As heard on the band’s ninth album “The Diptychs”, whose release coincides with their Jazzfest Berlin performance, they have never sounded more assured or bold.

Allemano’s tuneful vehicles facilitate thrilling conversations – duets, trios and full-band interactions. She constructs each piece from an array of disparate passages, building compositions from shifting encounters and exchanges, a kind of round robin array of multilinear wonder. Sometimes the rhythm section provides a hurtling groove for the frontline, but just as often one of the horns tangos with bass or gets tangled up within a splatter of percussion, forever altering the music’s perspective. The quartet adroitly internalizes her themes, as instincts transform written material with endless astonishments, taking the warm familiarity of her melodies and regularly challenging expected resolutions. This is the sound of surprise.