New Spring: Live At The Village Vanguard (CAM Jazz)
Enrico Pieranunzi
Released March 17, 2017
DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lJkAjcGmwRQw3qU8px3hFQZdAhXxCDsAU
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/1usCtQxuASNeXSWukC5Iry?si=7SLOKEedSwCXjif0bJI6aw
About:
The
adventures continues. In fact, here I am presenting my second live at the
Vanguard CD, recorded in the spring of 2015, the 80th year in the life of a
club immune to ageing and that seems to live both in the present and in some
endless, timeless moment. For the occasion, I put together a quartet of some of
the most prestigious musicians on the current New York scene. Playing with them
was truly a thrill within a thrill, and I would like to take this opportunity
to thank Scott, Clarence and Donny for their incredible talent and
graciousness. The material we performed consisted exclusively of my original
pieces arranged for the occasion. Two of these – Amsterdam Avenue and New
Spring – are new entries, never previously been recorded by anyone. I could go
on forever about the astounding mix of sensations a European musician
experiences performing on one of the world’s best-known and evocative jazz
stages flanked by such outstanding American artists. But I prefer to draw the
attention of those reading these words to the music itself. That’s where it all
is, well beyond any possible description of mine.
There is one thing, however, that I do want to write down, which is that since
my now distant “first time” at the Vanguard – that is, since Lorraine
Gordon, now so many years ago, invited me to play at her club – my relationship
with her and her daughter Deborah has grown ever warmer. It is thanks to
remarkable Lorraine that this amazing adventure began, and it is those two whom
I must thank for the great gift of having been able to descend that fabled
stairway into the club so many times to play my piano with those musicians, one
more exceptional than the other. What can I say – a dream.
And so, since it doesn’t cost anything to dream, who knows if this second
chapter won’t be followed in some not too distant future by yet another…
Enrico Pieranunzi
(liner notes translated by Darragh Henegan)
Track Listing:
1. Amsterdam Avenue 07:22
2. New Spring 06:55
3. Out Of The Void (Scott Colley) 09:16
4. Permutation 08:58
5. Loveward 07:53
6. I Hear A Rhapsody (George Fragos / Jack Baker / Dick Gasparre) 09:36
7. The Waver 10:40
All music by Enrico Pieranunzi except tracks 3 and 6
Personnel:
Enrico Pieranunzi: piano
Donny McCaslin: tenor saxophone
Scott Colley: bass
Clarence Penn: drums
Recorded live on 29 and 30 April, 2015, at The Village Vanguard, NYC
Recording engineer: James Farber
Photos by Andrea Boccalini
Review:
Warning: This review of the latest from Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi might read like a one-note melody. But everything that’s missing from the text—contrasts, surprises, variety—is abundant in the music itself. There are no weak spots. No matter what criteria you apply, whether intellectual or visceral, you’ll find no blemishes. Which makes writing this as much a challenge as listening to New Spring is a delight. Pieranunzi plays with an alert spontaneity tempered by an intelligence nurtured by his long experience. Though he lights a few fireworks now and then, he prefers underplaying, approaching the performance not as the leader but as a composer, playing his parts in the written sections and thinking from a pianistic standpoint during free sections. If there’s one wellspring nourishing the brilliance of this performance, it’s the fullness with which the other musicians understand and embrace this approach. All four players are fully in the moment— more likely a few moments ahead—reading where their colleagues are going, measuring just how far outside they can venture without disrupting the unity of the quartet’s process. Even more impressively, they do so without compromising their own identities. Saxophonist Donny McCaslin’s aesthetic is undeniable—his tone, his poignant downward bends, the hints of rasp. Yet every note, like everything contributed by bassist Scott Colley and drummer Clarence Penn, serves the tune and galvanizes the quartet’s extraordinary interactivity.
Bob Doerschuk (DownBeat)
