Rodrigo Amado & Chris Corsano – The Healing

Zwischen Klanggewittern und zarten Zwischentönen

Zu Rodrigo Amado & Chris Corsano – The Healing

Es gibt Platten, die kommen nicht einfach nur ins Ohr. Sie dringen ein, fordern dich heraus, reißen dich mit – und lassen dich am Ende zugleich zerschlagen und beseelt zurück. The Healing ist so eine Aufnahme. Ein intensives Dokument einer musikalischen Begegnung, die viel mehr ist als nur eine Jam-Session oder ein Duo-Experiment. Hier sprechen zwei Künstler mit ihren Instrumenten, erzählen Geschichten, streiten, flüstern und schreien.

Das erste Stück, Healing Day, ist ein einziger Schlag ins Bewusstsein. 23 Minuten voller Energie, Puls und Licht. Rodrigo Amado endet den Song auf einem Ton, der nicht bloß oben liegt, sondern irgendwo über dem Körper schwebt. Das Publikum im Hintergrund feiert, atmet, lebt mit – ich spüre Gänsehaut, wo Klang und Raum miteinander vibrieren.

Dann folgt The Cry. Ein kurzes, neuneinhalbminütiges Drama in hoch- und mittleren Lagen des Saxophons, begleitet von Corsanos Trommeln, die anfangs wie ferne Stimmen klingen – ein Rasseln hier, ein Glockenläuten dort, zarte Impulse, die nach und nach zu komplexen Wirbeln und Läufen anschwellen. Es ist ein Spiel aus Angriff und Verteidigung, aus provozierendem Gespräch und gegenseitigem Aufschaukeln. Corsanos Schlagzeug ist nicht vordergründig präsent, sondern oft hinter einem imaginären Klangvorhang verborgen, angetrieben von feinen Interpunktionen und subtilen Wechseln.

Und dann Griot, ein zehnminütiger Monolith aus Energie und Ritual. Corsano trommelt, schüttelt, rüttelt an seinem Instrumentarium, das weit über das klassische Schlagzeug hinausgeht. Kleine Klangobjekte explodieren, stocherndes und stotterndes Spiel wechselt sich mit nuancierten, fast launischen Passagen ab. Das Saxophon nimmt all das auf, antwortet gesprächig und manchmal provozierend. Zusammen steigen sie in ein Hyperphysisches hinauf, das sich der einfachen Beschreibung entzieht. Man wird rasend gemacht – und gleichzeitig gefesselt. Kein Wunder, dass Kritiker wie bei AllAboutJazz in Superlativen schwelgen, wenn sie diese Aufnahme beschreiben.

Das Publikum ist nach Griot kaum zu bändigen, der finale Track Release is in the Mind beginnt wie ein Donnergrollen und entlädt sich in eine explosive Katharsis. Die Musik heilt, so der Titel – doch hier wird nicht beruhigt, sondern süchtig gemacht: nach dem Rausch, nach dem intensiven Moment des Aufgehens im Klang, nach einer Wahrheit, die nur in diesem Dialog zwischen zwei ebenbürtigen Artisten entsteht.

Was bei all dem fasziniert, ist die physische Präsenz der Musik. Wie Corsano es schafft, sein Schlagwerk zu einem Arsenal an Farben und Texturen zu erweitern. Wie Amado mit dem Saxophon nicht nur Töne, sondern Emotionen, Provokationen und Zärtlichkeiten hervorbringt. Und wie beide einander nicht nur hören, sondern wirklich wahrnehmen und darauf reagieren.

Diese Aufnahme ist nicht nur ein Album – es ist ein Erlebnis, das sich erst beim genaueren Hinhören vollständig öffnet. Die Aufnahme macht hörbar, was im Live-Moment oft zu schnell, zu überwältigend oder zu vielschichtig ist. Hier wird jede Nuance zum Schatz, jeder Atemzug zum Ereignis.

The Healing ist eine Einladung: Nicht nur zuzuhören, sondern wahrzunehmen, zu fühlen. Nicht nur die Musik zu konsumieren, sondern sich von ihr verwandeln zu lassen.

While reading Troy Dostert’s review on Allaboutjazz, it occurred to me that I would like to write a critique of critiques: look: „Among recent partnerships in free improvisation, the saxophone/drum tandem of Rodrigo Amado and Chris Corsano has been one of the most dynamic and incendiary.“ – How can you measure something like that? I can guess: he wants to express his enthusiasm and use superlatives, but to always place this duo above all others – I never know whether to laugh or cry. Something that is far too little reflected upon in jazz discourse: the language of reviews itself.

“One of the most dynamic and explosive duos in the field of free improvisation” – this is emotionally charged, but quickly comes across as definitive, as if there were an objective standard – such a superlative claims more than it can ever prove. I myself have also been caught several times reacting too emphatically, too enthusiastically, or too emotionally to recordings, getting carried away once again… The use of superlatives quickly allows conclusions to be drawn about the reviewer rather than the reviewed, referring to the present example: Superlatives and grand terms (explosive, most important, groundbreaking) are used to attract attention or elevate a text, and the reputation carousel spins: names like Amado or Corsano are established in certain circles. Anyone reviewing a new record then writes, in a sense, in the shadow of its previous reception – one doesn’t want to understate it.

Such rapturous applause also often runs the risk of achieving exactly the opposite effect: what the reviewer celebrates suddenly takes on a kind of altitude from which any further listening falls below, thus dismissing the recording without really grasping it. Criticism becomes PR, and superlatives replace genuine description, leaving only noise in the vocabulary of music. Or: those who declare everything to be superlative ultimately render nothing audible. Or: when adjectives rearrange the notes, but the gate remains invisible. Or: when adjectives attempt to describe the notes—but fail to hit the right note.

So we check the recording ourselves and find that the enthusiasm for the album The Healing is entirely understandable: what an expenditure of energy, what a dialogue between drums and saxophone. You can feel the crackle in the air, and the lineup is great anyway: just drums and saxophone. We have that more often in Berlin, perhaps supplemented with piano or guitar—that’s what makes recordings visible or audible in the first place, because the live event itself is energetically demanding and you can’t remember all the nuances, but with the recording you can check every detail again.

In this respect, every review is a balancing act: striking the right tone to create a genuine, direct listening experience that does not seek superlatives but relates to what is happening. Saxophone and drums – a dialogue without a safety net, without a harmonic backbone, without a safety rope. When it works (as in The Healing), it creates this electrically charged space, this crackling in the air. The recording makes nuances visible in the first place. What happens there – physically, sonically, communicatively.

Sometimes you need the distance of the recording to really hear everything: the breathing, the pauses, the mini-shifts in the pulse. What is overshadowed by energy in a live performance emerges in retrospect as a finely drawn micro-drama.

What unfolds here between saxophone and drums is not constructed virtuosity, but a conversation that vibrates with tension, irritation, closeness. Berlin is familiar with such formats: two bodies, two sound sources, no harmony in the background, just air, skin, metal. The recording helps you hear what the live experience overloads—but can never replace: the closeness, the crackling, the fragility. To hear (and see) what lies between the notes.

The first piece, titled The Healing Day, leaves you hanging after 24 minutes—it’s a punch, unbelievable. Rodrigo Amado ends the piece on the highest note, the audience celebrates in the background, goosebumps moment – The Cry, the second piece, starts again in the highest registers, is only nine and a half minutes long, the saxophone in the highest register moves to the middle register and is accompanied by the first rattling voices, bells, and drum rolls – they heighten each other with the run and swirl of the drums and somehow incredibly clanging saxophone tones – the drums seem to be behind a curtain of sound, not in front, but behind the action, very beautiful punctuation and changes there.

An inner monologue emerges, an essay, a description of an ideal state: Disappearing into the thicket of sounds or the whirl of the drum, after the first 23 minutes you feel worked through, shaken through, and wrung through, this final note up there is somehow above the body, taking your breath away, igniting it, kindling it, piercing it, then The Cry, up there again, nine and a half minutes, only a fraction of the first recording, but just as charged again. After the high beginning, Amado shifts down a level, the drums accompanying first with rattles, bells, small impulses—nothing pushes itself forward, everything comes to a head, in runs and swirls, it’s as if they were rocking each other, two vibrating combatively. Corsano’s drums remain as if behind a curtain, not in the foreground, but as texture, then he gradually pushes forward, halfway through the piece the body of the set begins to speak, not just cymbals and drums, but also pulse and surface, punctuation like choreographed breaths.

I often ask myself: How is that physically possible? How can someone play like that—and still hear, feel, and react?

We hear the third piece, Griot – I don’t know how to describe it. For the first three minutes, Corsano rattles, drums, and shakes his percussion instruments – one would have to find out what other instruments are used, as there are already a lot for this solo performance, which is then taken up by the saxophone in a poking, stuttering, finally becomes much more nuanced and then even conversational, then moody again or even deliberately provocative, taken up by the saxophone, escalating again into the superphysical, perhaps even hyperphysical – the longer I listen to it, the more I understand why Troy Dostert exaggerates this duo and, with it, the recording so much; it is indeed incredibly energetic and indeed very high-level, it drives you crazy.

The chaos, the subtle nuances. Almost ritualistic. A drum solo that not only sets the rhythm, but unfolds a whole arsenal of sounds and textures. Corsano doesn’t just work with the drums, he creates loud sound objects that come across like little surprises. Poking, stuttering, talkative, moody, provocative – the drums too: a fascinating mix of opposites and emotional types. A dialogue that fights and flirts at the same time, an interplay of challenge and invitation.

The music transcends normal physical space; it feels as if it breaks down the boundaries of the listeners, catapulting them to another level of perception—wilder, more intense, almost transcendental. And as a reviewer, one cannot help but speak in superlatives in this regard. My intention to write a review about self-indulgent reviews culminates in an emotionally charged atonal outburst in the face of this recording – the recording captures a raw, unfiltered power that is difficult to grasp. And according to Troy Dostert, this is above all a high-quality experience, whereas the album No Place to Fall offers pure intensity. So let’s listen to that too.

The audience is already beside itself when Griot fades out, and the tension is released in the final track: Release is in the Mind. A rumble of thunder from the start leaves no doubt: there is no quiet healing – rather an explosive catharsis. The Healing. Or are we not rather being made addicted? With the best recommendations.

The Text of ChatGpt

There are records that don’t just catch your ear. They penetrate, challenge you, sweep you away—and leave you feeling both shattered and inspired. The Healing is one such recording. An intense document of a musical encounter that is much more than just a jam session or a duo experiment. Here, two artists speak with their instruments, tell stories, argue, whisper, and shout.

The first piece, Healing Day, is a single blow to the consciousness. 23 minutes full of energy, pulse, and light. Rodrigo Amado ends the song on a note that is not just high, but hovers somewhere above the body. The audience in the background celebrates, breathes, lives with it—I feel goosebumps where sound and space vibrate together.

Then comes The Cry. A short, nine-and-a-half-minute drama in the high and middle registers of the saxophone, accompanied by Corsano’s drums, which at first sound like distant voices – a rattle here, a bell ringing there, delicate impulses that gradually swell into complex whirls and runs. It is a game of attack and defense, of provocative conversation and mutual escalation. Corsano’s drums are not prominently present, but often hidden behind an imaginary curtain of sound, driven by fine punctuation and subtle changes.

And then Griot, a ten-minute monolith of energy and ritual. Corsano drums, shakes, and rattles his instruments, which go far beyond the classical drum kit. Small sound objects explode, poking and stuttering playing alternates with nuanced, almost moody passages. The saxophone picks up on all of this, responding conversational and sometimes provocatively. Together they ascend into a hyperphysical realm that defies simple description. It drives you crazy—and captivates you at the same time. No wonder critics like AllAboutJazz revel in superlatives when describing this recording.

After Griot, the audience is almost uncontrollable, and the final track, Release is in the Mind, begins like a rumble of thunder and erupts into an explosive catharsis. The music heals, according to the title – but here it does not calm, it addictive: addictive to the rush, to the intense moment of merging with the sound, to a truth that only arises in this dialogue between two equal artists.

What is fascinating about all this is the physical presence of the music. How Corsano manages to expand his percussion into an arsenal of colors and textures. How Amado uses his saxophone to produce not only sounds, but emotions, provocations, and tenderness. And how both not only hear each other, but truly perceive each other and respond to each other.

This recording is not just an album—it is an experience that only fully reveals itself upon closer listening. The recording makes audible what is often too fast, too overwhelming, or too complex in a live performance. Here, every nuance becomes a treasure, every breath an event.

The Healing is an invitation: not just to listen, but to perceive, to feel. Not just to consume the music, but to let it transform you.