Rosario Bonaccorso Quartet: A New Home

There is a trend in jazz today to abandon beauty for technical ability. Odd meter and eccentric changes replace sympathetic music making, favoring skills over art. Thank the heavens there are those who have never abandoned beauty. One such musician is bassist Rosario Bonaccorso. His quartet recording A New Home is an exercise in elegance and style, featuring eleven original compositions by the bassist and leader. Pianist Enrico Zanisi returns from Bonaccorso's previous outing A Beautiful Story (Via Veneto Jazz, 2017). He joins trumpeter Fulvio Sigurta, drummer Alessandro Paternesi, and guest on four tracks, saxophonist Stefano di Battista. Listeners might recall Bonaccorso's participation on several Di Battista Blue Note releases: Parker's Mood (2004), 'Round About Roma (2002), and his self-titled debut in 2000 with Elvin Jones and Jacky Terrasson.

The disc opens with "Re And Ro, featuring first Sigurtà's tender trumpet, then Zanisi's piano gliding over the stratum laid down by the bassist and Paternesi's drums. There is a gentleness in this music as demonstrated with a brief sample of the baby murmurings of Bonaccorso's grandson heard on "Viva Lorenzo," which sets a percussive piano attack against the immensely bright sound of Di Battista's soprano saxophone. Here and throughout the recording, we hear an audio mix which doesn't bury the bass. This begs the question, why must it only be on recordings by bassists (and also drummers) that this phenomena occurs? Consider this recording alongside the music of Charles Mingus, Charlie Haden, and Oscar Pettiford, all bassists with a certain discernment. Bonaccorso constructs music with the shaded impressions of bebop with "Dubbididibba," and with "Luna Rossa" the soul jazz Alfred Lion required in his 1960s Blue Note sessions. Elsewhere he plots a whispered waltz with his "Waltz for George Sand," opening the piece with one of the few bass solos heard here. Revealing more about this recording would be like spoiling the end of a great movie.