Simone Zanchini: The Music Of Nino Rota

"I'm a musician who plays accordeon, not an accordeonist who plays jazz," says Simone Zanchini, proud of a distinction that is substantiated by Nino—his 25th album in the 20 years since his recording debut. Using vast resources drawn from the panoply of music he's studied, discovered, invented and developed for his too often stereotyped and maligned but in truth magnificent instrument, Zanchini embraces and transforms half a dozen already complexly compelling works of the great Italian soundtrack composer Nino Rota, brilliantly arranged by Jörg Achim Keller for the Frankfurt Radio Big Band.

Listeners may rightly be impressed by the audacious virtuosity of the entire project, but will most likely first and foremost be swept away by the expressive manifestations of sound this accordeon-playing musician improvises from the center of a bracingly contemporary concerto. We have here the final performance of a program Zanchini repeated, with David Grottschreiber conducting stable personnel, eight or nine times over two years without loss of interest or enthusiasm. Kudos to recording engineer Axel Gutzler for capturing even the subtle bass and drums interplay within the large ensemble's live concert mix, as well as Zanchini's uniquely low timbres and high register nuances.

The bearded, now 46-year-old Zanchini's interest in this repertoire is due partly to his upbringing near Rimini, the port on the northeast coast of Italy's boot where Federico Fellini was born and raised—Nino Rota being Fellini's perfect musical hand. "Fellini has the capacity to grab the secret juice of my culture and area, the peoples' traditional folk attitudes," Zanchini says. "We took Nino Rota's melodies as a starting point from which to create something completely different, modern and jazzy."

Rota's themes (and not just those from his Fellini films) open readily to updated re-interpretation, but as the bearded, now 46-year-old Zanchini tells it, his attraction to the accordeon could be out of Fellini's Amarcord. "The instrument has always been in my life, from the very beginning," he says. "My grandpa and aunt played accordeons at our family picnics in the countryside on Saturdays. I asked for a toy one at age seven."

Zanchini plays a hand-crafted Octavianelli instrument of his own design which, he explains, "doesn't sound traditionally 'accordeonistic' at all. It's deeper, darker, and full of harmonics," the reedy and beady edges of tones that give them character. The opening cadenza of "Speak Softly" (also known as "Love Theme from The Godfather," although Rota's theme was written for and heard in the 1958 film "Fortunella") introduces what Zanchini's arrived at through his decades of focus on the three keyboard octaves, 60 bass and chord buttons, and bellows. His right hand scurries atop a droning chord and bass pitches, morphing into a lyrical if not "accordeonistic" reading of the song. The rhythm section kicks in and Zanchini's right darts even more fleetly as horns swell—not subsuming but inciting him. Soprano saxophonist Heinz-Dieter Saurborn blows, expanding on Zanchini's lead, and the two spar. Then the accordeon frames a series of drum breaks with overtone clusters that ramp up to the track's end. One wonders: "Can he top that?"

Yes, he can—each piece on Nino unpacks pleasures and surprises. Zanchini swings heartily on "parlami di me" ("Speak of Me" from Fellini's 8 ½), complemented by Martin Scales' tasty guitar bits before relaxing into a sweet blend with the 18-piece ensemble. On "La Dolce Vita" (from Fellini's critique of 1960's Roman elites), he passes the conventionally read motif to the band, tosses off dazzling variations, and shifts to squeaks over the orchestra's Mingus-like dissonances and Steffen Webbers' tenor sax solo. Here arranger Keller, a highly accomplished and honored composer, radio orchestra director and drummer, scored brass-against-reeds sophistication a la Thad Jones; elsewhere his backdrops resemble Gil Evans' subtle voicings; throughout he's generously given space to soloists other than Zanchini, who complement him.

All these elements appear in "la passarella di Addio," at more than 20 minutes in length the album centerpiece and a feast in itself (as is the finale from 8 ½ for which it was written). As Zanchini demonstrates his masterful independence of movement—"I can play polyphonically, left and right hands, with ease," he notes—and creative imagination, multiple dimensions and shifting perspectives arise about him, jelling as alternatingly tight and woozy settings. Keller (and conductor David Grottschreiber, of course) mix reeds and winds, trumpets, flugelhorns and trombones prismatically, and Zanchini rises up with gloriously freely phrasing leading to a big, bad, circusy, perhaps crazy but yet original and beguiling end. He may add a touch of digital delay or reverb in his unaccompanied final minutes, when two accordeons seem to be involved, and maybe a flute or tuba, too—but the artistry is Zanchini's, Keller's and the musicians.' Bravo!

After that, Zanchini's extended solo introduction to "A Time for Us" (Rota's theme for Franco Zeffrelini's Romeo and Juliet) presents his most transparent amalgamation of wide-ranging experiences, influences and ideas. "My musical education was special," the accordeonist says. "I started with the folk music, then went through the serious classical academic studying"—in 1997 he was the first graduate of the Gioachino Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro with a degree in classical accordion—"and simultaneously studied jazz and the avant-garde. I've had periods of playing radical improvisation, free music—I've always been interested in that. I've stirred everything together. I've always tried to find my own way, my own style."

Liner Notes copyright © 2024 Howard Mandel.

The Music Of Nino Rota can be purchased here.

Contact Howard Mandel at All About Jazz.
Howard is a Chicago-born writer, editor, author, arts reporter for National Public Radio, consultant and videographer. Visit Howard at howardmandel.com.

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