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Italian Jazz
This week we take a look at Italian Jazz with a selection of music from a variety of great players with the main focus being on pianist Enrico Pieranunzi Playlist Enrico Pieranunzi “Amarcord" from Fellini Jazz (C.A.M. Jazz) 00:00 Sebastiano Meloni “Nocturne" from Pictures of a Quartet (Slam Productions) 07:44 Carla Marciano Quartet “Handshake" from Stream of Consciousness (Alfa Music) 12:46 Paolo Pavan “Screw Up" from Black Hand (Self-released) 22:29 Salvatore Tranchini “Sad Day" from Faces (Red Records) ...
read moreEnrico Pieranunzi / Thomas Fonnesbæk: Blue Waltz - Live at Gustavs
The best thing about a live recording is that it captures music made in the moment at a particular time and place. Indeed, when Italian pianist, Enrico Pieranunzi and Danish bassist, Thomas Fonnesbæk teamed up for two evenings of live recording at Gustav's Bistro, nobody could know how special it would be. In fact, Pieranunzi had played at Gustav's before and connoisseurs of Copenhagen Jazz Festival would know that the restaurant was a special spot for hearing music in tandem ...
read moreEnrico Pieranunzi: New Spring - Live At The Village Vanguard
Pianist Enrico Pieranunzi's latest offering, New Spring --Live At The Village Vanguard ties together, in different ways, two previous CAM Jazz releases. The most recent is the studio album Proximity featuring saxophonist Donny McCaslin (who also plays in the live album) in a bass-less quartet. The earlier album is Live At The Village Vanguard with drummer Paul Motian and bassist Marc Johnson, and is one of Motian's last recordings before his death. Thus, New Spring, recorded over two ...
read moreEnrico Pieranunzi: Proximity
Enrico Pieranunzi is the senior statesman of mainstream jazz piano in Italy. His recording career goes back to 1975, with more than forty albums on such labels as Soul Note, Enja, Egea and currently CAM Jazz. His music is romantic, lyrical mainstream using lush arrangements and harmonies. The current group could be termed his “American" quartet, with saxophonist Donny McCaslin (on tenor and soprano saxophones), stylistically wide-ranging trumpeter Ralph Alessi (on trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn) and bassist Matt Penman bringing ...
read moreEnrico Pieranunzi, Marc Johnson, Joey Baron: Play Morricone 1 & 2
Film lovers all over the world recognize Ennio Morricone as one of the best score composers of all time. His music has been used in more than 500 movies and TV shows. About 60 of them have won Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTA awards and other honors. Enrico Pieranunzi, Marc Johnson and Joey Baron started a trio in 1984 and one of their most interesting projects has been to create and record jazz arrangements for some of Ennio Morricone's ...
read moreEnrico Pieranunzi: Live at the Village Vanguard
Italian jazz pianist Enrico Pieranunzi, with his melodic romanticism and wondrous sense of harmony, deepened by by his classical training, gets compared often and aptly to the legendary and game-changing pianist Bill Evans (1929-1980). While Pieranunzi's style is more gregarious, and less introspective than that of Evans--and often more abstract--he does share with the late piano icon a penchant for the mode of the interactive trio. In the case of Live at the Village Vanguard, the comparison can be pushed ...
read moreEnrico Pieranunzi: Permutation
Italy's jazz piano poet, Enrico Pieranunzi, records with his “American Trio"--bassist Scott Colley and drummer Antonio Sanchez--on Permutation, a collection of original Pieranunzi compositions that concentrate on percussive motifs and rhythmic variations. Pieranunzi's résumé is long and varied, and Permutation shows the pianist has no plans in slowing down his musical explorations.For all of the impressive composition on the disc, it is Pieranunzi's evening ballad, “Within the House of Night," that illustrates the composer's firm grasp of the ...
read moreEnrico Pieranunzi with Marc Johnson and Paul Motian at the Village Vanguard
Enrico Pieranunzi TrioThe Village VanguardNew York, NYJuly 9, 2010 The first full week of July 2010 was a hot one for New York City, marked by record- setting temperatures, sweat-choked subways, and scorched sidewalks. But it also saw a rare appearance by Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi on this side of the Atlantic, at the venerable Village Vanguard, alongside two other master players in Marc Johnson on bass and Paul Motian on drums.
read moreEnrico Pieranunzi / Marc Johnson / Joey Baron: Dream Dance
Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi's music is often said to incorporate European classicism, suggesting seriousness and, perhaps, a staid erudition to those who haven't heard him.Pieranunzi has fronted a trio with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron since 1984. While not a working band like Keith Jarrett's enduring Standards Trio, Pieranunzi's recordings and tours over the past quarter century have engendered a joyously telepathic interplay, running with the Bill Evans piano trio approach of three way equality.
read moreEnrico Pieranunzi: Enrico Pieranunzi Plays Domenico Scarlatti
Italian jazz pianist Enrico Pieranunzi uses a very liberal interpretation of the allegro notation when interpreting the tempi of several of the sonatas on Enrico Pieranunzi Plays Domenico Scarlatti. This is evident right off the bat with the opening Sonata in E Major, K. 531. Allegro is defined as “fast and bright." Okay: well, jack that “fast and bright" up to the amphetamine pace of “very fast and lively" (Vivacissimo) or “extremely fast" (Prestissimo) and that tempo description might approximate ...
read moreEnrico Pieranunzi / Marc Johnson / Joey Baron: Dream Dance
Focusing on all-original material, pianist Enrico Pieranunzi's Dream Dance proves that when there's the right chemistry, a group can retain it throughout the years, even if reconvening only occasionally. While not a regular working unit like Keith Jarrett's enduring Standards Trio with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette, Pieranunzi's trio with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron has been together almost as long. And while Jarrett continues to explore long-form interpretations of standards, Pieranunzi combines plenty of original ...
read moreEnrico Pieranunzi: As Never Before & Yellow and Blue Suites
Among pianists working in the harmonic tradition of the late Bill Evans, Enrico Pieranunzi has achieved a rare individuality, bringing unrivaled senses of line and sheer sonority to the style. Along with the advanced harmonic language, the Italian pianist belongs to a native bel canto tradition that extends to classical pianists as brilliant as Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and Maurizio Pollini and film composers like Nino Rota and Enrico Morricone. As leader of the Space Jazz Trio in the 1970s, he ...
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