★Rearward
Lunar
Lunar is a journey into the magical freedom of Lorenzo Tucci and Luca Mannutza. Hardly ever happens in jazz music to be caught by a charming madness, a folly vein whose effect is so attractive as disarming. It’s not about listening to an improvvisati…
Metamorphosis
I think that the title of this album is perfectly congenial – ”Metamorphosis” as for “profound transformation in form and structure”. I have known and listened to Guido, born in 1935, for more than 40 years and consider myself as an expert of his imp…
The Round About
In today’s jazz scene it’s pretty much common knowledge that maintaining a stable group of working musicians is no small task. All too often economics dictate that in order to survive in the creative jungle, a working musician must keep his options o…
Strong Place
“Antonio knows how to exploit the dynamic qualities of the piano, and he honours the spaces between the notes. He’s achieved a truly timeless trio sound that really gives your imagination space to wander. His trio both play with empathy and unleash t…
The Golden Eight - Encore!
*2022 stock* This reissue is great news for the jazz-loving community. The multi-national Golden Eight ensemble assembled by Gigi Campi featured Kenny Clarke and Jimmy Woode (USA), Francy Boland and Chris Kellens (Belgium), Dusko Gojkovic (Yugoslavia…
Playing With The Trio
*2022 stock* “There is a two-fold pleasure in listening to the leader of a big band play in a trio setting. First, there is the satisfaction of hearing a voice that is normally in the background being brought to centre stage. As a composer and arrang…
Blue Train
*2022 stock* It all started with a scratchy, somewhat surfacenoisy tape early in 1966.There were a few Italian words scribbled on a piece of paper – and someone called Guido Manusardi playing a whole lot of piano. Well, Sweden is fairly used to Itali…
Quartetto Gianni Basso
*2022 stock* Gianni Basso represents one of the most solid institutions of the Italian jazz. He has been like this since the beginning, when he appeared in Milan after some years abroad. At that time he already had a long story behind him as an activ…
Mirrors
*2022 stock* There is a school of thought which maintains that it is something of a tragedy that Benny has had to earn his living and play his trade as an American emigre in Europe, far from the centre of major jazz activities in his native United St…
Reincarnation of a Lovebird
*2022 stock* The opinion of jazz musicians concerning Charles Mingus’ compositions and his protean musical world is that for a long time they represented an area that should be avoided or, at most, dealt with care. Just a few years after his death, o…
Jazz In Studio
*2022 stock* 2008 Release. This record is the fruit of five months of hard work in the recording studio, rehearsals and even sacrifices as told by Enrico Intra and I am obviously satisfied with it. But I sure don't want to consider it a goal. I feel …
Swing, Waltz, Swing
*2022 stock* Three – instead of – four this figure can mean a whole different world, when it comes to beats. Whereas the even number lets you march straight, turns right-angled, divides itself symmetrically, the odd rhythm goes around in circles and …
Lady Heavy Bottom's Waltz
*2022 stock* They called him the “Little Giant” long ago in Chicago – they still call him so. In order to understand why “Little” you have to see him – it’s enough to hear him to understand why “Giant”. But just to listen to him means missing out on …
Music For Small Hours
*2022 stock* Had it not been for the post-war migration of many top American jazz musicians to Europe, it is quite likely that the legendary Clarke-Boland Big Band might never have come into existence. As it happened, when Gigi Campi set up the first…
Off Limits
*2022 stock* Myths take a long time dying, especially in jazz where the ability to confuse fact and fantasy has marked several generations of both critics and listeners. Perhaps the great Buddy Bolden could be heard for 14 miles on a clear night, but…
November Girl
*2022 stock* One of consolations of the electronic age is that those great moments in music which once were ephemeral and irretrievable can be faithfully captured, preserved for all time and savoured over and over again. Thus, some of the great music…
Rearward in Italy
*2022 stock* It was a really great idea to search for pieces, with the taste of a collector, and to produce this compilation, with jazz pieces and pieces extracted from refined sound tracks which have a subtle and intelligent taste, among the product…
Abstraction
*2022 stock* Gianni Cazzola confesses that he would have never expected that an one of his albums from the late sixties would be re-discovered and re-issued. Thirty years after its release people are again talking about “Abstraction”. Recorded in Nov…
What's happening?
*2022 stock* Giorgio Azzolini was never a front man bt played with the best Italian musicians of the day, as well as American Expats going through like Chet Baker or Bobby Jaspar. Here he has a trio which is amazing for 1966 in that it combines fuild…
Crucial Moment
*2022 stock* «Crucial moment» the title assigned by Giorgio Azzolini. And as a fact, jazz in the past years has been going through a crucial, decisive period. On one side the conservation of traditional values of the language and its well-known inspi…