Clusone Trio

by Joslyn Layne
The Clusone Trio (also known as Trio Clusone and Clusone 3) was a creative, international group of skilled musicians who blended improvisation, original compositions and old jazz chestnuts into a music that's kooky and/or delicate, but always winning. Cellist Ernst Reijseger, alto saxophonist and clarinetist Michael Moore, and drummer Han Bennink came together as an occasional trio by 1980. Later that year, they recorded music that would be released in 1981 as one side of Taiming on Reijseger's own label, Hummeloord. Several years later, Reijseger and Moore joined Bennink as members of the ICP Orchestra. In 1988, Reijseger organized the Clusone 4 with pianist Guus Janssen to play Clusone, Italy's spring music festival. After this performance, the group began getting booked more regularly and Janssen bowed out. The group revisited the quartet line-up only once, in 1996, when they were joined by trumpeter Dave Douglas for a brief tour. The trio's first two live recordings -- Clusone 3 and I Am an Indian -- first came out on Moore's own Ramboy label, but the latter was eventually picked up by Gramavision. Their third release, a tribute to Irving Berlin entitled Soft Lights and Sweet Music (HatArt, 1993), was a studio recording, followed by the live Love Henry (Gramavision, 1997) and Rara Avis (HatArt, 1999), which was recorded in late 1998, marking their ten year anniversary after which they called it quits. Among the countries this unique group toured are Canada, China, Australia, Norway and Mali.