Trio Molino’s roots stretch back to Chile’s VII Region. At the beginning of the 20th century, my great-grandmother had a wheat mill (“molino” in Spanish) in the town of Cauquenes. Of course, at that time, mills were not just vitally important for putting bread on the family table, but they also acted as a social hub for the people who lived in those vast stretches of the rural Chilean south. And it was in the mill that my grandparents met for the first time. As the years went by, they moved to Santiago looking for better opportunities, just as thousands of other families did, so my parents and my aunts and uncles all grew up in Santiago.
These days, my generation of the family is mostly spread out all over the world. Personally, I feel like I have directly benefitted from those past migrations. Not just the ones within Chile, but also those from hundreds of other countries that have changed the destinies of so many of us. The original Trio Molino line-up included Belorussian guitarist Alexander Badiarov and Vietnamese-German singer Thanh Mai Susann Kieu, and we would play a mix of jazz standards and pop. For a number of reasons Alexander could no longer continue to tour with us, so we were joined by Alvaro Severino, who was due to arrive in Germany in early 2012. It was with this change, and on board a Mediterranean cruise ship, that we began to play our own compositions. Once we were back in Germany, we invited André de Cayres to join us, as he had worked with me on a great number of ethno jazz and Latin American music projects. That was the moment when Trio Molino finally became a group of composers. Trio Molino, as a traditional Jazz guitar trio, has always sought to incorporate all the ideas we bounce off one another, which are often based on the cultural fusion that characterises the Americas. That is to say, North America, Central America, and South America with their unique blend of: 1) Greco-Roman culture, 2) Judeo-Christian ideologies, 3) African polytheism (especially that of Angola, Mozambique, Senegal, Cameroon, and others) and 4) Pre-Hispanic cultures with a heavy influence from Mongolia and Polynesia.
The improvised musical styles that were already deeply ingrained in our ancestral cultures clash first and foremost with the influence of mass global migrations, and fuse, improve and transform the sound into what we have come to recognise today. This is our starting point: to accept that we are a product of cultural fusion, and to keep that fusion going. Our philosophy is to trawl through the music that has sprung up from our continent and continue its development with all the parameters available to us: rhythm, color, dynamism, harmony, texture, shape, melody and words. Punto sin Retorno #latinjazz
Migration is a phenomenon that is still a major discussion point among political parties from nations the world over, and is often seen as a problem rather than a great opportunity. Trio Molino, always striving to be inclusive, wants to keep collaborating with musicians from around the globe, to hold out a hand of friendship and share a pure, inclusive experience through music, taking full advantage of the vast array of opportunities that jazz and Latin American music bring us.
