Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Enzo Pietropaoli: The Princess

3

Enzo Pietropaoli: The Princess

By

View read count
Enzo Pietropaoli: The Princess
It can be risky for jazz musicians to play pop songs. They have to navigate the memories that each composition holds for the listener while also making the music distinctive and personal. Miles Davis could do it with Michael Jackson's "Human Nature" and Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time," and of course Sonny Rollins can make any popular song his own. Add to that list, Enzo Pietropaoli. The bassist has been exploring popular music with his quartet, which has released three volumes of Yatra (Via Vento Jazz). Here he gets more intimate with a piano trio session, performing mostly slow tempos and meditative pieces.

His trio has the same lineup as the Yatra quartet, minus trumpeter Fulvio Sigurta. It comprises pianist Julian Mazzariello, drummer Alessandro Paternesi, and Pietropaoli on double bass. The seven covers and three original tracks on The Princess invite a type of nostalgia, not for the way it was, but for the sense of possibility those particular songs spurred in us when we heard the originals. Take Brian Wilson's "God Only Knows." Played at an achingly decelerated pace, the trio teases out the unsung lyric to great effect, making the Beach Boys into the most romantic band ever. Not your era? Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam wrote "The End," and the trio performs it with the same magic. The formula is consistent here. Pietropaoli has a knack for diving deeper into pop music to reawaken the message. Bob Dylan's warning call "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" is reiterated with Mazzariello's very simple piano lines and Paternesi's brushes. Where an act like The Bad Plus tends toward the overelaborate cover song, this trio favors the understated. Even when they travel back to 1932 for Cole Porter's "Night And Day," there is no hint of saccharine. Just the most gentle swing. Of the three Pietropaoli originals, "Supereroa" is the one composition that reroutes the trio into an up-tempo (think Ahmad Jamal) swing. The title track opens with a bass solo, before walking the same territory as the cover tunes. It's begging for someone (anyone?) to write some lyrics.

Track Listing

Jealous Guy; A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall; Night and Day; Scaleno Beat; Father Son; The Princess; Supereroa; Philadelphia; The End; God Only Knows.

Personnel

Enzo Pietropaoli: double bass; Julian Mazzariello: piano; Alessandro Paternesi: drums.

Album information

Title: The Princess | Year Released: 2017 | Record Label: Via Veneto Jazz

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.