|
IN STOCK
|
ARTIST
TITLE
Passing
FORMAT
2LP
LABEL
CATALOG #
MJC 129005LP
MJC 129005LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
7/21/2023
"Francesco Sotgiu has forged a unique and very swinging project of songs. With a quintet consisting of Luigi Bonafede on piano, Emanuele Cisi and Riccardo Luppi on woodwinds, Salvatore Maiore on bass, Francesco on drums, and with special guest Paolo Fresu on trumpet to cap off this heartfelt collection. There is also a nice diversity of groups within this larger collection..." --Gil Goldstein, five-time Grammy award-winning American accordion player
This record was recorded in the middle of the pandemic times and most of the work for preparing this record took place via the telephone: the selection of the songs on paper, the exchange of ideas on arrangements, staff, and instruments, a sort of "phone rehearsal" of the structure of the songs, with the choice of a solo; everything else, everything that will happen in the recording sessions, is the result of a controlled improvisation, a jam session masterfully captured in the studio through the use of well-positioned ribbon microphones. In the classic "Caravan" by Duke Ellington and Tizol or "Afro Blue" by Mongo Santamaria, Coltrane toning, the Latin accent of the rhythm section supports the interpretation of the theme and the interplay in the solos between the soprano and tenor saxophones by Cisi and Luppi, and the piano by Bonafede. A certain elegance in the execution distinguishes pieces such as "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love", with a calibrated solo on the double bass of Maiore and the flute by Luppi, the immortal "Take Five" by Paul Desmond, with the highlighted soprano by Cisi, "Wishes", "7th Street", and the eponymous "Passing", characterized by the precise medium/fast drive of the drums and a certain "cinematic" taste of the main themes. In songs such as "Black Bats and Poles", composed by Jack Walrath, and in "Stranatole", an original piece by Sotgiu, the quintet opts for an effective hard bop language, while in Coltrane's "Wise One" and McCoy Tyner's "Ballad For Aisha" you enter a modal, mystical, and ceremonial jazz. A special separate mention for two classics such as "My Foolish Heart" by Victor Young, performed in trio by Sotgiu, Maiore and the unmistakable trumpet by Paolo Fresu, and the "Lotus Blossom" by Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington, which in the piano-violin duo of Birro and Sotgiu, in a minute gives a suspended momentary magic, sums up the roots of African-American jazz music. Features Paolo Birro and Marco Micheli.
|
|
|