Jim Rotondi & Dena DeRose: Out of the Past

Although trumpeter Jim Rotondi and pianist-singer Dena DeRose had wanted to record together for years, life always seemed to get in the way. Finally, when they were both on faculty at the University for Music and Dramatic Arts in Graz, Austria, Rotondi decided to make it happen. He booked a studio in Vienna, enlisted the services of esteemed Austrian bassist Danny Ziemann (his studio) and drummer Mario Gonzi, and on June 23, 2024, the quartet recorded Out of the Past. Barely two weeks later Rotondi was dead, the victim of a heart attack less than two months before his 62nd birthday. As the album had been on a back burner, so to speak, for more than three decades, it was released posthumously as a final tribute to Rotondi's remarkable talents.

DeRose sings on five of the album's nine numbers and plays piano on all of them, while Rotondi has center stage to himself on the other four, playing open on three, muted on Nat King Cole's chart-topping hit, "Walkin' My Baby Back Home"—and muted again (underscoring DeRose's snappy vocal) on the fast-paced finale, Jule Styne and Leo Robin's "You Say You Care." The other instrumentals are "Out of the Past," "It's Too Late" and Rotondi's "Blues for Axel."

The group opens with the seldom-heard "Blue Gardenia," which may seem an unusual choice but works well. "Out of the Past" is next, followed by the relatively better-known "Charade," from the 1963 film of that name that starred Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. DeRose later sings on Harry Warren and Mack Gordon's "The More I See You" and Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer's "Moon River," the last from another Hepburn film, Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Rotondi's choice of sidemen is impressive, as Ziemann and Gonzi carry out their assignments with tact and assurance. Rotondi and DeRose work well together, as one would envision from such seasoned pros, and solo as well as ever, which is quite well indeed. While it would have been nice to hear Rotondi on his own, Out of the Past with DeRose is the next best thing; it is disheartening, however, to note that Rotondi's unique instrumental voice, one that was greatly admired by jazz fans the world over, will be heard no more. RIP, Jim.