Franco Ambrosetti: Nora

Franco Ambrosetti's album is called simply Nora. Short and sweet, four letters, two syllables. But it could easily have been called "Franco Ambrosetti with Strings," as the Swiss flugelhornist & trumpeter follows the orchestral path of alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and his groundbreaking Charlie Parker With Strings (Verve, 1950), trumpeter Chet Baker's Chet Baker with Strings (Columbia, 1953) or trumpeter Clifford Brown's Clifford Brown with String (Verve, 1955).

Those early forays into orchestral jazz set the template of lush backdrops spread out to showcase the jazz chops of the artists who choose to go that way. The "With Strings" genre seems to have a Jovian gravitational pull for a good percentage of serious jazz players, Franco Ambrosetti being one of them.

For Nora he called in Grammy-winning pianist & composer Alan Broadbent for the arrangements, a magnificent 22-piece string orchestra and a jazz royalty rhythm section of guitarist John Scofield, bassist Scott Colley, pianist Uri Caine and drummer Peter Erskine, to help him craft a set of relaxed explorations of his original "Nora's Theme," the disc's opener, and a batch of covers, from Miles Davis' "All Blues" to the familiar "Autumn Leaves," and saxophonist John Coltane's "After The Rain."

Born in 1941, Ambrosetti is moving into his ninth decade with a taste for elegance and a feel for romance and the subdued majesty of deftly-arranged orchestral accompaniment. He is simply impeccable here with his horn work, its remarkable purity of tone and nuanced phrasing. His playing is measured and deliberative, allowing for the full immersive experience of the sweetness and lush beauty of strings, but also assertive enough to showcase his unerring and seemingly effortless ability to enhance the beauty of a familiar melody with his horn.

And a note on the sound; it is touted as a: "New 3D sound technology [that] will offer listeners a new sonic experience when they cue up Nora." It will indeed.

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