Caterina Palazzi - The double bass apostate

A punk background and jazz training: Roman double bassist Caterina Palazzi is emerging as one of the most charismatic and original figures in the new Italian jazz, if it weren't for the fact that the label fits her rather awkwardly. The work she pursues with her quartet Sudoku Killer sits at the crossroads of different languages (jazzcore, noise, psychedelia, film scores), always marked by a solid compositional personality and a strongly recognizable instrumental voice.

I meet her at Mikasa, the favorite haunt of Bologna's dark scene, where she's about to perform solo with her drone project Zaleska, a "little funeral orchestra" of double bass loops and horror-tinged visuals, her face hidden behind an unsettling white mask. During the soundcheck, the sharp temperament of this perpetually black-clad woman comes through, unhappy with a mix she finds too clean and not dense enough: "A sound poor in bass is the death of the double bass. It doesn't matter if it's muddy, what matters to me is that my anguish comes through. I want everything to shake!"

For the interview we settle into the venue's courtyard, still closed to the public. It's pitch black, so much so that I struggle to make out her features — a vampiric dimension she seems perfectly at ease in. Before we start she seems wary of my Tascam ("Bassists don't talk," she's keen to point out), but then agrees to let me keep it running.

One of the most interesting aspects of your work is this "amphibious" dimension, let's call it that: amphibious between two musical universes like jazz and rock (which from time to time could be framed as noise, psychedelic, post-rock, even echoing bands like Morphine or Karate), but also between different registers and atmospheres (dark/light, seriousness/irony). Music, in short, that shuns definitions while placing great importance on listening pleasure, without becoming abstract or cerebral: where does this need to carve out an identity in elusiveness come from?

From the need to find my own path without following in anyone else's footsteps. I have a punk and grunge past, then I moved on to blues (I especially loved Jimi Hendrix) and finally to jazz. At a certain point, after getting a taste of several musical genres, I realized none of them represented 100% what I had in mind, so I tried to take what I liked from every kind of music I'd listened to and played to arrive at what I do now. It wasn't a calculated decision, but the result of a spontaneous process. This indefinability is a strength but also a weakness, especially in a country like Italy that always needs to know "what kind of music you play" and doesn't go crazy for mixtures: those who love jazz go to jazz concerts, those who love rock go to rock concerts, being something in between isn't particularly appreciated, whereas in places like Northern Europe it's considered a plus.

What you're saying about Italy seems especially entrenched in a place like Rome, where I too lived and played for many years: a truly "tribal" city, where strongholds tend to form around specific genres or approaches (for your heretical brand of jazz, for instance, these might be the notorious "Rome East scene," the Franco Ferguson collective, or the galaxy orbiting around Gronge, which incidentally is where your guitarist Giacomo Ancillotto comes from), impermeable to one another. A situation in which it isn't easy for someone like you, offering hybrid solutions, to survive...

Look, I live in Rome during the periods when I'm not touring, but I don't hang out with the musicians or the clubs there. My problem isn't so much with what they offer (actually, they often do great things that I go and listen to as well) but with exactly what you just said: everything moves in "sectors," and I think there's also very little curiosity (every time some brave soul books a band from out of town, we always end up being the same four people in the audience). To do what I want without feeling diminished, I try almost never to play there: in fact I've played far more often, say, in Milan or Lecce than in Rome, which is a strange thing given it's my own city...

By doing that, at least, you avoid another of that city's long-standing problems, namely the fact that whatever is born in Rome tends to die in Rome: such a big city lets you play often in different venues without wearing out your welcome, and there are those who, over the course of an entire career, have almost never ventured beyond the city walls...

Sure, for me playing music can't just mean setting up shop in one city and doing gigs in front of the same people over and over, only changing the name of the venue... If anything, the beauty of this "job" lies precisely in touring around and getting new audiences to hear your music!

Going back to where we started, your music is amphibious even if you leave out the rock component and focus only on the purely jazz elements, which seem to sit halfway between American and European jazz.

Yes, I'm especially fascinated by the Northern European scene, although honestly, since I don't consider myself a jazz musician, I don't listen to a huge amount of jazz. Then of course, on the American side there's John Zorn, who's my idol, though in terms of sound I don't really consider him properly American so much as klezmer. I like American Jews a lot — Marc Ribot is also among my favorites.

Well yes, I'd say you've named the two most obvious reference points. Which is to say everything and nothing at the same time, since John Zorn alone is a planet unto himself.

Yes, he's done so many different things that saying you "sound like John Zorn" doesn't really mean much. It's a bit like saying you sound like the Beatles: what genre did the Beatles even play? In fact, it's mostly his spirit and his attitude that inspire me.

Another presence I sense is the progressive one, especially the darker side of King Crimson, the dark strand of bands like Univers Zero, or some bands linked to the Canterbury scene (Soft Machine, Henry Cow, Nucleus), especially in the use of horns. I was surprised to read in an interview that you've never actually listened to this genre... I mean, usually that's the classic crossing point through which rock listeners arrive at jazz, a kind of Charon ferrying you between the two shores. You, on the other hand, from what I understand, went straight from the Sex Pistols to Anthony Braxton with no transition at all, and maybe that's also why what you do has such a strong personality.

It's true, I think one of the reasons why what I do sounds fairly original is that I've listened to few things, but very intensely. The records I like, I wear them out, I get to know them by heart, but then I don't have very varied listening habits - actually I consider myself fairly ignorant. For instance, I know nothing at all about progressive. People played me King Crimson saying they found similarities with my music, but I never liked them, they don't seem gloomy enough to me... My music is anguished, and I don't think they are. Still, I trust the judgment of people who know that genre well - if they spot similar passages, maybe it's true... I'm very naive.

Yes, it shows. The double bass is a fairly unusual instrument for a composer/bandleader, at least compared to other roles: in the jazz world, all things considered, we remember relatively few among the sacred monsters (off the top of my head I can only think of Charles Mingus, Charlie Haden, Dave Holland and Gavin Bryars). Female figures are even rarer, with the notable exception of Esperanza Spalding (who, however, is primarily a bassist, and can only partly be classed as jazz). How did you end up with this strange and fascinating instrument?

First of all, there are quite a few bassists (meaning people drawn to low frequencies who chose that kind of instrument) who, even without being in the spotlight, are actually the real leaders of a group, even if not explicitly so. As for my own choice, it was fairly random: I was a guitarist for ten years, then at 17 I saw Zu play live for the first time at Forte Prenestino, and listening to their bassist I understood which path was mine. That sound got so deep under my skin that I decided to switch instruments, even though it took me a while to actually do it. In truth, a crisis was already underway: the strings felt too small to me, I couldn't move my fingers properly, I didn't feel connected or in tune with the guitar (which, in any case, I almost always played on the E string, so I already had my doubts about actually being a bassist... But you know, once you've set off down a path it's hard to abandon everything after so many years). Then it happened that, right as I was about to switch to bass, I started getting into jazz, and by the time I made the change I was going through a very traditional listening phase, in which the double bass is sort of the jazz alter ego of the bass guitar. Another reason was the physicality of the instrument: with the double bass, the wood vibrates against you, you get the feeling you're playing with someone. When people ask me if I get bored playing alone, I always say I'm not alone because "he's" there too (he even has a name: he's called Vlad and comes from Transylvania). And when people suggest I rent a bass guitar or an electric upright, I can't accept - the best thing about the double bass is exactly the wood! Besides, I play bass guitar very little and never live, so I don't consider myself a bassist.

How does this instrument influence your approach to composition?

Actually, I don't compose with the double bass but with the guitar or the bass guitar, which make it much quicker to sketch out the melodies that come to mind. Also because I don't just write the bass line but all the parts, so I need a more harmonic instrument, as well as a more practical one. So the double bass doesn't influence me directly on a practical level.

But how much of your music is written and how much is improvised?

With the quartet we started out with written themes and a lot of improvised moments, but by the third album we'd gotten to the point of almost entirely eliminating the unwritten component: there are lots of themes and the occasional free "flourish" over a defined base, few and very guided - by now we work through images and dynamics. Also because I realized I'd gotten bored with improvised music, not so much listening to it as playing it: paradoxically, it's more limiting than written music, you end up doing pretty much the same things whenever you improvise... So right now it doesn't interest me all that much. I still like devoting some moments to improvisation, but let's say that, in an hour-long show, fifty minutes are written. I get more excited holding down the same bass riff for half an hour than having the freedom to do whatever I want but maybe not coming up with anything cool and ending up bored...

A very sharp observation about the limits of improvisation - I've often thought the same myself. Let's talk about the quartet: who does what? Even just from the fact that your name comes first, it's clear you're the central figure...

Sudoku Killer has now been around for eleven years. Except for the saxophone, which has changed with every record so far, the drummer and the guitarist are founding members like me and irreplaceable elements. I write the songs and handle everything on the organizational side, so there's definitely a leader (Sudoku Killer is really more of a stage name of mine, which is why we don't call ourselves "the" Sudoku Killer: the word is singular, after all). That said, we consider ourselves a band, and if one of us isn't there, we don't play. Then there's the sound, which is a hugely important part of the group and which we build together, even though I write the parts: the band's creativity is expressed precisely in the sound. Some people feel limited if they can't play a solo, whereas what worries me is that there are still people who want to play them at all... Working on sound and dynamics is just as creative and difficult a task, if not more so, in my opinion.

Absolutely agreed. Let's talk instead about the Zaleska project, and take the chance to say a few words about the horror-vampire dimension you love to immerse your music in...

Zaleska, I don't know if you know this, is the name of Dracula's daughter (a character who really existed, or so it seems: history books mention her as the illegitimate daughter of Vlad Tepes, the Romanian nobleman who inspired Bram Stoker). I wanted to build a project around Dracula without naming him directly - I liked the idea that for many people the reference wouldn't be immediate and they'd have to look it up. Same goes for the videos, which are an integral part of the project since it's an audiovisual performance: the visuals have nothing vampiric about them, except in a very muted way, because I don't like doing a caricature with capes and fake teeth, theme-festival style... I wanted to offer my own personal, non-explicit tribute. Vampires have always been a passion of mine, so when I decided to do something entirely my own that wouldn't have to answer to other people's tastes or trends, I decided to invent this "funereal little orchestra of Dracula."

A decidedly original formula, by the way: there might be others out there, but right now I can't think of any other musicians going around looping an effects-laden double bass with visuals of that kind in the background...

Now that I think about it, I can't come up with other double bass players who do this kind of thing either… There surely are some, you find all sorts of things out there, and I've realized that even the most original idea we think we've had has actually already occurred to someone else before. But I'm not interested in doing something new so much as doing something that's mine, so even if there were another seventy double bass players who'd had the exact same idea, I'd still want to do it.

I read an interview where, talking about your second-to-last album, you clarified that the "infanticide" in the title wasn't an invitation to slaughter babies but rather a way of distancing yourself from that sense of wonder and naivety that characterizes childhood, and partly adolescence too…

Yes, it's the virtual killing of the child inside us, the moment when you lose your innocence and move into adulthood.

Well, it seems to me that this "child" inside you isn't dead yet. While it's undeniable that your art is dominated by an austerity that comes from taking yourself exactly the right amount seriously, there still seems to be room for a strange playfulness: I'm thinking of the way you handle your communication, how you present yourself on social media, the posters with serial killers…

As you said before, there's definitely irony there, but to me that's actually a very adult thing: a child can be likeable, but a sense of irony is something that develops later, different from just being witty. Honestly, I don't feel very connected to play or childish things: "Infanticide" refers to the adolescent phase when you become an adult, in the sense that you start suffering like hell because you realize life isn't all roses. In a teenager there are still some childish sides, but that carefreeness is gone. Personally, I don't have any pleasant relationship with children, I don't look at them fondly, I feel like I can't really communicate with them. I understand teenagers much better: I see it, for example, when I teach bass at school, where I mostly interact with that age group, and that's the one I connect with best. As for the posters and the other things you mentioned, I'd call it macabre irony rather than playfulness.

Between the lines, though, another kind of game also emerges, in this case meant as an intellectual exercise: I'm referring to the curious web of connections between one record and the next, whereby, if I understood correctly, the title of each album actually anticipates the content of the following one. So "Infanticide" refers to the tracks on Asperger, which in turn points to the concept of the album you'd record after that…

Exactly. If "Infanticide" marks the death of the child, and therefore of the positive worldview in which good must always triumph over evil, in the following album this awareness is reinforced even further, to the point that it's dedicated to Disney cartoon villains (one for each track). For a child, Peter Pan is more appealing than Captain Hook, being a positive hero who defeats a ridiculed loser, whereas I'm more interested in that other type of character. For instance, there's a track on the album dedicated to Grimhilde, the witch from Snow White who scares everyone and whom everyone hates, but to me she has a certain fascination, which is exactly the morbid interest you start to feel for certain figures once you're an adult.

A point of view that's somehow also consistent with your punk background…

Not only that: I get the feeling that society today, in general, is fascinated by unscrupulous people, while the good guy is perceived as a "loser", exactly the opposite of the view we have as children. The album is dominated by this kind of cynicism, the atmospheres are darker, and musically it's more rock than its predecessor.

That's actually an observation I was about to raise with you: it seems to me that you're gradually moving away from jazz, which was dominant on the first album, to embrace increasingly rock-oriented solutions.

Absolutely. Between the first and the second there's a big shift, between the second and the third it's less sharp since "Infanticide" was already leaning toward those kinds of atmospheres, but the sound has become harsher regardless.

One area where you definitely don't "play" much, though, is your live performances, where your stage presence is truly striking: your silhouette has something iconic about it, and I have to say few things in recent years have struck me in the same way. In general, it seems to me that you have a natural ability to manage your image, not just on stage but also in the photos that portray you. How much does the live dimension matter to you (essential in jazz, being a physiologically performance-based music) and how much does image matter (fundamental in rock instead, being a strongly media-driven, mass-oriented field)?

Actually, I don't take great care over my image, in the sense that the face I go on stage with is the one I always have, it's not a studied pose. In fact, we're often criticized for paying too little attention to our image! Maybe I naturally communicate something, the others much less so: Maurizio [Chiavaro], the drummer, would happily go on stage in his pajama top… But I find him very compelling as a musician, he has a way of moving that makes you understand he's completely inside the music he's playing, and that's the most important thing. With Zaleska I'm more careful, since it's more of a performance than a simple concert: with Sudoku you can close your eyes and travel, and the music maybe even reaches you more that way, whereas with Zaleska there's the video, so your eyes have to stay open. One of the reasons I wear a mask is precisely to draw attention away from my gaze, I'm not the important thing in that moment. Anyway, I have to say the stage is the only place where I think I'm truly sincere, while other people, when they perform live, maybe slip into a role and transform, like in theatre… I think some people play music exactly for that reason. I, on the other hand, feel much more fake off stage than on it.

I think yours is simply a matter of charisma, which you're giving off right now talking to me, and it's clear there's nothing artificial about it. You said that listening to the quartet makes you want to close your eyes and travel, and it's true, since it's very pictorial, cinematic music. As I said at the start, your compositions tend to be pleasant to listen to, at times I'd even say catchy: some themes are very recognizable and, why not, beautiful. Have you ever thought about writing music for film?

I've scored some videos live, but I've never written soundtracks specifically conceived for that. If someone were to offer it to me I'd do it, but I wouldn't go looking for it myself, because I'd feel a bit limited, I always need a spontaneity that would be taken away by working on top of assigned images. I realize my music is cinematic, but I think that writing specifically for images would be a limitation for me. Also because everyone has to take their own journey with my music, if it became mere background something would be missing. At least with Sudoku…

What about a voice, then?

No, definitely not that. Making instrumental music still convinces me completely. I don't feel the need for a voice, also because it would come with lyrics that would spell out things I want to leave undefined, without saying what a given piece is actually about. I want anyone listening to one of my tracks to have the freedom to choose whether to cry or smash a wall…

Along your artistic path you've crossed paths with three pretty important bands: the already-mentioned Zu (with whom you've often played live, and whose sound engineer Lorenzo Stecconi recorded your latest album), Uzeda (with whom you toured last summer) and Ulan Bator (in which your new saxophonist Sergio Pomante used to play). How did these encounters contribute to your growth as an artist?

As for Zu, one of the five tracks on "Asperger" is dedicated to them—for me they were THE band, they influenced me enormously, and opening their shows gave us a ton of opportunities, so that small tribute was the least I could do. I like Uzeda a lot, but above all they're wonderful people (their bassist, besides being a monster player, let me use his amazing amp and insisted on personally taking care of my sound: that tells you that great bands are always made up of good people). With Ulan Bator we haven't had any musical contact yet, in the sense that we've still never shared a stage, but things are going great with their (now former) saxophonist—he shares our exact idea of music and we're very happy with the addition.

You've toured quite a bit across Europe and beyond: what differences have you noticed in terms of how shows are organized and how engaged/attentive audiences are?

For a band like us, with dynamics that swing both high and low, noise in the room can be a problem: if you want to travel with your head somewhere else, you can't be distracted by people chattering. At the same time, though, it's just as important to feel the audience's presence, otherwise something's missing. From that point of view I particularly love Germany: everything is super well organized and they never give you any trouble, but at the same time people are also very warm.

With your latest album you moved from an Italian label (Auand) to a Portuguese one (Clean Feed). Have you noticed any changes? Do you think it still makes sense to sign with a label, given the general tendency to follow artists on their rosters very little or not at all, essentially just offering a name?

Clean Feed is based in Portugal, but it's essentially a European label. It's a well-regarded label with a very interesting catalog. It's funny that I ended up there right during the period when I was trying to move away from jazz, because they're very jazz-oriented—though we're talking mostly free jazz and pseudo-rock, so it suits us. As for the broader question about the role of labels, generally speaking they're still useful—they help you press records and take care of some tedious practical matters—but it's also true that in the end you're the one paying for the album, and you have to buy from the label whatever copies you want to sell: it's still a form of self-production, to some extent. Almost nobody manages to actually invest money anymore, especially in such a niche genre. Still, it's nice to be part of a high-level roster, it's a small satisfaction.

How many musicians in Italy would you say you can relate to?

Not that many come to mind, but I think that's partly because I don't follow the scene closely. In any case I struggle to find kindred bands, not so much because we're particularly original but because I find others are almost always either very jazzy or not at all, and I honestly can't think of other examples of our particular kind of mix. I notice it especially when we share a bill: take Zu, we're compatible in terms of emotional impact, but I don't feel we're all that similar. Uzeda even less so, though in that case the difference creates an interesting contrast. Maybe Fuzz Orchestra, but not that much either. People have told me about Ottone Pesante, but I still have to see them live, so I couldn't say. And with jazz bands, forget it.

A fellow musician you particularly admire? And an artist you'd like to collaborate with, or have produce you?

For the first question I can again cite Zu and Uzeda, all of whose members I hold in great esteem (especially the two bassists, among the very best out there: I think Massimo Pupillo has the most beautiful sound on earth!). For the second, at the risk of repeating myself, I'll say it again: for me the artist with a capital "A" is John Zorn. But I'll also say, I'm madly in love with Bob Dylan too—if I ever got to work with him I'd be the happiest person on earth. Well, that'll never happen, but he had to be mentioned as the ultimate unreachable dream. Then there's Nick Cave… The Rolling Stones… Ha, always impossible things! In more jazz-oriented territory, I'd love to collaborate with Marc Ribot or Bill Frisell. Oh, and there's also Steve Albini…

As I imagine you know, Albini prides himself on producing (though he'd never use that word himself) anyone who asks, and it doesn't cost much: on his website there's even a calculator to work out the expenses. Have you ever thought about sending him your material?

Yes, it's a dream we'll fulfill sooner or later. The price isn't high, but it would still mean going to Chicago, which would involve costs we might struggle to cover right now. But who knows in the future, we'd love to…

We're living through a moment when, through indirect channels, a certain kind of jazz is forcefully making a comeback not just in niche circles but even in the mainstream: I'm thinking for instance of the success of Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, BadBadNotGood and a whole series of figures tied to new Black American music, rap especially. Regardless of what one thinks of the phenomenon (and of these artists' actual jazz credentials), do you think this resurgence is healthy for contemporary jazz, or is it something else, perhaps more tied to marketing and publicity? And in general, how would you describe the state of health of contemporary jazz?

Look, I think that, regardless of the genre, everything nowadays runs so much on fashion that if it's decided behind closed doors that an artist (whether jazz, pop, rock, metal or whatever) has to fill arenas, they make sure it happens. As far as jazz goes, I remain attached to John Coltrane and to the idea of jazz played in some dive bar, with violence: having lost that kind of approach is, in my opinion, a huge loss. Take Italian jazz clubs, they're all super polished: little tables, cocktails, middle-aged ladies in fur coats. To me, that's death. What I love about this music is what connects it to rock, that is, total emotionality. Lately the word 'jazz' has been bothering me a bit, because it's always associated with background music, clean and tidy, which I don't appreciate. It feels like a betrayal, in a way.

On that note, John Zorn put it rather eloquently…

Hah, exactly: "Jazz snob eat shit”!

Are you satisfied with your journey so far? What are you aiming for?

I'm satisfied, and I also consider myself quite lucky, especially in recent years when, after that bit of grinding and paying dues that pretty much all of us are forced to go through, I've managed to play only with my own projects, aside from the occasional collaboration with artists I admire. The goal is to keep doing this at ever higher levels, and above all in better conditions: venues with the backline you ask for, a quiet audience, decent accommodation. These are all things that weigh heavily on you while touring.

How easy was it to establish yourself? You seem like an extremely determined person…

Music is the only truly important thing in my life, so if I decide I need to get somewhere, one way or another I'll get there. I'm a war machine in that sense. That doesn't mean elbowing my way through or chasing influential contacts at all costs though — quite the opposite, actually, it's something I avoid, even at the cost of missing opportunities. I don't consider myself a particularly sociable or likeable person, so I don't run much risk on that front…

Well, I find you very likeable, even though I have to admit you're a little intimidating…

That's a common feeling. After shows I always wonder if people liked it or not, because nobody ever comes up to me. Then, without fail, the next day they write to me with compliments!

For my part, I can only wish you to keep going and reach ever further. People like you are good for music in general, we really need them.

I'll keep going, nothing's going to stop me! We'll see what happens…

The show will confirm the two faces of this priestess of darkness: a stubborn eccentricity in demanding absolute darkness in the venue (in a room barely lit by the equipment's own lights!), and a snake-charmer's talent for hypnotizing us with her cavernous instrument.

Ride the wave of great music

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