Ada Rovatti: The Hidden World Of Piloo

Ada Rovatti's curiously titled album, The Hidden World of Piloo, has a tale attached (and a tail). Piloo is an affectionate name Rovatti's father has called her since childhood, after a "naughty" cat in a favorite children's book. She adopted it for her label as well (Piloo Records). Rovatti grew up in Mortara, Italy, outside of Milan, in an unusual household. Her mother was a semi-pro softball player and her dad a geologist, professional hunter and purveyor of cars. The family spent summer holidays listening to live opera and classical music in Tuscany, near where Puccini lived.

Rovatti discovered British pop early on via radio. Her brother introduced her to American soul, blues and R&B, persuading her to take up saxophone when she was 16. She took music lessons in her hometown, from a local Berklee graduate. This led her to earn a scholarship at the Boston jazz school a bit later. The school's funding was short and the tuition high, so she returned to Italy, where she and her husband, Randy Brecker, met by chance and became "victims of love at first sight." More on her interesting upbringing is here and here.

Why the "hidden world"? Rovatti recorded her first album as a leader in 2002 (For Rent, Apria Records) and has been releasing albums under her name every few years since. Directly before The Hidden World of Piloo came Brecker Plays Rovatti: Sacred Bond (Piloo Records, 2019), a family affair released just before the pandemic hit. She has not felt compelled to churn out annual releases to document her career, although she has been working steadily. Given the degree of work evident on the present release, this makes sense. This is no download-only EP. She gathered a stellar cast of guest artists for the project, including vocalists Kurt Elling, Fay Claassen, Niki Haris and Alma Naidu, all of whom deliver first-rate performances. The compositions, lyrics and arrangements are all her own. The album is available as a double LP or CD, accompanied by a glossy 16-page booklet with lyrics and photographs taken by Rovatti. She even designed and sewed the amazing brocade suit she wears in the cover photo.

Rovatti's well-crafted compositions and arrangements tend to fall on the funk-soul-R&B side of jazz, emphasizing danceable grooves and solid soloing from members of her core group: herself, Brecker, Simon Oslender on organ and piano, bassist Claus Fischer, drummer Tim Dudek and percussionist Cafe Da Silva, with—among other notable guest artists—guitarists Tom Guarna, Barry Finnerty, Dean Brown, Guilherme Monteiro and Larry Saltzman. Her subtly distinctive string arrangements feed the grooves as well, as expertly performed (and conducted) by violinist Meg Okura, with Tomoko Akaboshi on second violin, Judith Insell on viola, cellist Rubin Kodheli and double bassist Jeffrey Carey.

"Hey You (Scintilla of Sonder)" captures that moment when one is among strangers on a train and wonders about their lives, their dreams, joys, disappointments. Claasen does a terrific job with the tune in all respects, inhabiting the frame of mind and executing the demanding melody. Rovatti's vocal melodies are intricate and seem to want to extend in both directions. Strings—often in pizzicato—evoke the unknown passengers in her orchestration, a refreshing timbral and textural choice in this context. In a searching tenor solo with a ruminative virtuosity, Rovatti evokes the inner lives of the people she observes. "Make Up Girl," by contrast, is an instrumental tune with a buoyant melody, a groove fueled by a distinctive bass line and engaging solos from Rovatti on soprano and Brecker on muted trumpet. And as she shows in "Red August" and elsewhere, Rovatti is decidedly at home on tenor with a funky groove of her own devising. Her compositions contain formal and harmonic changes that serve the ethos of the piece and encourage expressive freedom.

Among a number of fine tracks on the album, "Done Deal," the ultimate cut, is the knockout. (See YouTube, bottom of this page.) The lyric casts Elling and Haris in the roles of man and God, respectively. Both singers are more than up to the task, as they demonstrate in portrayals that are dead on: wickedly funny, self-aware and musical. It is the tale a man who has a meeting with his maker at the Golden Gate. It is not his time, as it turns out, and the deity ends up admonishing him to go back, to go on living, fix what he can and be thankful for what he has. It was a dream. As he awakens, the voice of the divine being blends into that of his wife, reminding him to take out the trash and buy cat food. Rovatti's tenor serves as the man's inner voice, talking back. Likewise, Finnerty's guitar supports the words of the goddess during his solo turn. Rovatti sneaks back in on the final section, gradually increasing in intensity, in full wail by the end. The piece is robust and full of little surprises, with a theatricality fueled by a gospel-inflected groove at the outset and a form that includes sudden modulations and changes in feel, aligning with abrupt turns in the narrative. Rovatti's rangy melodies heighten the drama. The composition and performance have just the right combination of gravitas and humor.

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