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Dream Big

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Enrico Valanzuolo

Label: GleAM Records
Released: 2022
Duration: 00:32:33
Views: 392

Tracks

01. Introduction. Song for L.; 02. Portrait of Kaisariani; 03. Dream Big; 04. 200Km; 05. Quebec;

Personnel

Album Description

"Enrico has a sound spinning in his head. It’s difficult to explain, for those who don’t play the trumpet, the essential importance of the sound> thought equation. There are only 5 pieces of this interesting work but enough to say how the mental process is correct. The rest is aesthetic. As important as this is, what matters is the direct relationship between thought and sound. This turns into a pathos that is vocal and an emotion shared with his magnificent traveling companions. Dream Big is one of the many dreams we need, now more than ever". Paolo Fresu GleAM Records is proud to announce the release of Dream Big, the debut album of Italian trumpet player and composer Enrico Valanzulo and his Quintet, available on CD and digital download / streaming from 25 March 2022. At the basis of the work of the Quintet there is first of all the search for new sounds, influenced by the suggestions of Northern European Jazz but with a proud Neapolitan connotation. Strong melodies and incisive arrangements never taken for granted take the listener towards substantially emotional paths, where silences and sounds penetrate in the direction of elsewhere not yet mapped, but whose cartography is always entrusted to the improvisation of the quintet. The theme of the trip is without a doubt the leitmotif of the entire album, and it matters little whether it refers to real or only dreamed trips, lived experiences or distant places, at least on paper. Dream Big, title of one of the tracks that gives the name to the entire album, is, more than a concept, the philosophy that permeates the idea of the leader’s journey. It is the wish to fly high, crossing the boundaries of the family, the columns of Hercules that each of us poses day after day, to search for that new path, beat that rough road that would normally be avoided, because it is there that hides a greater emotion, a greater joy. And so Dream Big - a stimulus and omen to oneself even before to others - is a concept deeply linked to a persistent idea of elsewhere. Big dreams fly far away. Enrico Valanzuolo Quintet consists of Enrico Valanzuolo on trumpet, Francesco Fabiani on guitars, Eunice Petito on piano, Aldo Capasso on bass and Eugenio Fabiani on drums. Introduction. Song For L. As the title suggests, this wants to be a real introduction to the album, proposing, as a preview, the sounds and ideas that the listener will meet in the next tracks of the album. Dominated by a drum solo that develops throughout the performance of the song, Introduction presents a very short theme performed by the rest of the band, a moment en passant within a broader discourse carried out by the drummer, on which the other instruments rest without necessarily imposing themselves. The idea behind this song was to symbolize the life of every single human being, represented in this case by the actual theme played by the quintet. As beautiful as the latter may be, rich in experiences and joys, it is bound to run out sooner or later. But the life of the individual rests on something pre- existing, which was there before his arrival and surely there will be after. A microstory within a macrohistory. Portrait of Kaisariani Kaisariani is the name of a district of Athens, formerly of popular extraction (it was originally a small town, founded by refugees from Asia Minor in Greece), now basically a residential neighborhood quite close to the pulsating center of the city. It is an area of Athens that is not very touristy and mainly frequented by residents. It is the leader’s home every time he travels to Greece. The song is undoubtedly the most "free" moment of the album, especially since a large amount of arrangement has been deliberately left to the free interpretation of the individual members of the band, so as to allow a fresh and spontaneous performance, that led in unexpected directions and conclusions not necessarily imposed by the arranger. Dream Big Dream Big gives the name to the entire album, as well as being the first single released by the band. The title, (which literally could be translated as "dream big") was born at the end of a masterclass held in Naples by some young but brilliant musicians of the American scene. On the occasion of one of these days, the musician who lectured - the Israeli saxophonist and resident in Los Angeles, Daniel Rotem - concluded his speech with a prophetic "Dream Big!". From that moment on this purpose, which I have always interpreted as a wish, became the driving force never to be satisfied, always looking for that path less safe, probably more impervious, because that’s where there’s hope for an authentic and rewarding product. From these days of masterclass was born Dream Big, a simple song, initially close to the sounds of Northern Europe but that soon moves towards a completely different language. 200km It is the only track on the album not composed by Enrico Valanzuolo, but by the band’s double bass player, Aldo Capasso. 200km presents itself as a piece stylistically more distant from the other contents in the album, with a wide use of blues sounds and with a choice, in terms of arrangement but also of mixing, more daring. It is also the only piece in which the pianist Eunice Petito does not play the piano, but a digital keyboard. Quebec In this last piece the theme of the journey recurs once again. It is a song composed around the end of 2017, returning from a trip to the enchanted region of Quebec, in Eastern Canada. Quebec was born as something clear and recognizable that follows the groove traced by a certain type of modern Jazz and European, from which, it must be said, the quintet drew with full hands. What is interesting though is that during the course of the song the latter undergoes a substantial evolution, and the sound of the ballad gives way to something completely different. The whole song is intended as a kind of Suite, with sections also widely different from each other, but still share a common theme, a thread of discorsive unity, which in any case crosses the entire album.