Federico Ughi/Daniel Carter "Astonishment"
From "CDs of the week"
Luigi Onori, Alias No. 08, Il Manifesto, February 23rd 2002. Traslated from Italian

...This CD documents the Italian musician's activity in New York. He plays drums, uses his voice and works with sampling live sounds while next to him operates one of the most interesting instrumentalists of the Big Apple, Daniel Carter (he was recently touring in Italy) that plays saxophones, clarinet, trumpet and flute. The music is created as an "on the spot" composition by the two musicians and moves mainly horizontally; the tunes, played over spread and rich spaces, but always edgy somehow, combine the sound of muted trumpet with the high pitches of the cymbals, reeds phrasings with live samplings, the language of free music with a relaxing vibe close to cool. "Astonishment" is an absolutely perfect title that concentrates the dimension of surprise, dream but also enquiry of the album's six pieces. 6/7
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Astonishment - Review
François Couture, All-Music Guide. January 2002

Astonishment: the title may sound pretentious but for once it is well deserved. Federico Ughi and Daniel Carter's CD surprises and charm. Both players are well accustomed to free improvising, but their take on the genre is here a lot more atmospheric than one would expect. Carter alternates mainly between his trumpet and alto saxophone (a touch of flute or clarinet here and there too). His short, pensive trumpet lines recall Bill Dixon. His reed playing can be a little more gutsy but things rarely escalate over the whisper. Ughi mainly uses soft mallets, tickling the cymbals, less playing the drums than letting them release their inner vibrations. He also sings long, delicate notes he samples live to accumulate. The resulting music is dreamy, cloudy, surprisingly quiet and gentle for a free improv session. One thinks of Ben Monder's albums with Theo Bleckmann (the two voices also share similarities), of some of Pauline Oliveros' pieces, or of some strange, otherworldly world music -- Astonishment emits ritualistic, incantatory vibes. Singling out a particular track would not do justice to the other ones, since they all share a similar mood and seem interconnected in a unique musical vision. This CD could be used as an entry point for someone interested in free improvisation. Wrapped up in the music you hardly notice the absence of a script until you focus your attention on either player. To be listened to with eyes close, after a particularly stressful day. Strongly recommended.
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Astonishment - Review
Steven Loewy, Cadence Magazine, Vol 27, No. 12, December 2001

.. The remarkably versatile Daniel Carter... partners with drummer Federico Ughi on the too short Astonishment to highlight a subdued though no less creative, side to his playing. Carter has to be one of the most talented underground improvisers around. He manages to show up everywhere, but has somehow managed to maintain a low profile. One of the very few who can play brass and reeds well, he distinguishes himself by his tasteful freestyle blowing that rarely lights the big fire, but almost always leaves the listener with the impression that he has heard something different and, sometimes, even important. For this album, both he and Ughi focus on slow tempos and low volumes - not to the extent of, say, AMM, but nonetheless enough so that the results are noticeably different than most freely improvised products. What Ughi and Carter achieve is difficult as they maintain an even keel without succumbing to banalities. On muted trumpet, Carter sounds a bit like late 1960s Miles, lyrical and probing. On his saxophone, on which he is clearly more comfortable, Carter resists technical bravura, and instead lets his horns speak fluidly. Ughi is a splendid conversationalist and an even better landscape artist. On "Looking Forward", for example, his voice followed by sampling lays a lovely carpet over which Carter blows wistfully. The pattern continues throughout the recording. While it would be difficult for most players to maintain listener interest in this sort of low-test improvisation for any extended period, Carter and Ughi somehow manage to do so in every piece. On clarinet, Carter exudes a warmth; on trumpet an upbeat lyricism; and on saxophones, a comfortable command. Confounding established stereotypes and perhaps expectations, Ughi and Carter flip-flop the Coltrane-Ali paradigm to successfully pursue a gentler but compelling path - one in which timbre, shading, and space, and what is left unsaid are as important as other criteria. The fruits are unusual but just as tasty.
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When jazz becomes lyrical. 
Alto Adige (Italy). Giuseppe Segala. 

BOLZANO. In the most esoteric New York music scene Daniel Carter is a legend: rarely compromising, he has made improvisation and total freedom of expression his belief. This has brought him, beyond  collaborations with famous names like Cecil Taylor, Sam Rivers and William Parker, to the choice of performing in New York streets. This certainly hasn't helped him achieve broad fame in Europe. 
Therefore credit is due to Federico Ughi, a drummer from Rome active for the last three years in the New York avant-guarde scene, for bringing him over on an Italian tour that went to Rome, Viterbo and Vicenza as well as Ora and Pergine. The duet presents the results of a few months of intense work, which flourished last March with the recording of the album "Astonishment". In these concerts in our region the two musicians have traveled roads of thoughtful and pure lyricism, where delicate detail and timbre differentiation have a major role. Ughi's drums are completely absorbed and immersed in Carter's spontaneous musical construction. He avoids vain virtuosities in favor of an intense approach, controlled in dynamics and floating in rhythmic movements. He is looking for the variety of colors, the vibration of metals and the whisper of skins; he creates dense landscapes also using his voice and live samplings. 
Carter, alternating the various instruments of his expressive world, builds a special dimension with each of them, navigating long sequences with an approach that reminds us of Sam Rivers, and that because of his original gestural character makes him close to a shaman. On clarinet he creates warm moods, mellow and intimate ; the flute is intense, surrounding and moves like a dancer ; the trumpet, often muted, builds precise cutting lines ; the tenor saxophone is harsh and sinuous, the alto nervous and edgy. He approaches each instrument with different gestures and movements that not only accompany the music but seem to make music out of the fusion between body and spirit. 
Surely, the concept is not easy to approach and requires a certain attention and concentration that is not often reachable in a crowded space, but even so it is touching in its spontaneous strength, its poetic belief and its powerful and completely absorbing dialogue.
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