"Behind his fame as jazz's doomed youth - falling from James Dean glamour to an accidental early end - it is easy to forget that Chet Baker was an intuitively brilliant trumpet improviser in a 1950s Miles Davis manner, as these tracks from Rome in 1979-80 confirm. Baker is at his late-career best here - poised in construction, seductively plummy-toned, and full of fresh ideas. Apart from My Funny Valentine (sung by Baker in his mouthful-of-dough whisper) the engaging themes are by the classy Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi and saxist Maurizio Giammaco - embracing smoky ballads and luxuriously-voiced but melodically ingenious hard-bop. The fast Giammaco sometimes sounds in almost unseemly haste compared to the languid Baker, but the latter is captivatingly supple on the swinging Brown Cat Dance, leaning casually against the beat, and sounding as if he has enough ideas for twice the solo." (The Guardian).
"ESO is one of young Italy's newest constructs, a group dedicated to find the seam between free improvisation and structured new music that comes out of both classical and jazz, and ripping out the stitches. Everyone from the band members to Berthold Brecht is the impetus by which this large band travels down the highways of bent harmonics, angular scalar studies, modalities that have been turned inside out, and a prescient, seemingly eternally romantic lyricism throughout, marking their identity as an Italian. Often these offerings feel like folk songs that have been tempered by the distance and harshness of time, yet they are wrought with great tenderness and grace, no matter how dissonant the improvisations become. The singers are strong here. They carry the pastoral melodies and the fury of the maelstrom within their arms. This is Italian jazz with its own identity, completely removed from America's bear-like presence. Oh, how beautiful, how sad, how ingenious this all is." (Allmusic)
De eigenzinnige gitaristische kwaliteiten van de Frans-Vietnamese Nguyên Lê kwamen goed tot hun recht op zijn samenwerking met Eric Vloeimans, "Brutto Gusto". Hier blijkt 'het' ook te werken met een andere grote Europese trompettist: Paolo Fresu. Bassist is Furio Di Castri: Ook al iemand die met Vloeimans werkte, o.a. in een speciale Europese festivalband van hem en op Di Castri's "Zapping". Moderne jazz met een op een of andere manier typisch Europees karakter zijn het resultaat.
Op de meeste nummers van dit album van de Italiaanse drummer speelt John Scofield gitaar.
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