Giorgio Gaslini

Urban Griot documents Giorgio Gaslini with his Proxima Centauri Orchestra, the large ensemble the pianist and composer formed around the turn of the millennium, in two concerts. The title suite, Guantanamera and Because The Night were recorded live on June 18, 2002 at the Palazzo Ducale in Sassuolo, near Modena. Odissey comes from the Teatro della Società in Lecco on September 21, 2001. The suite is dedicated to Giampiero Prina, and the album came out on Soul Note in 2003.

Gaslini leads from the piano a band of three trumpets, French horn, two trombones and tuba, reeds and flutes from Riccardo Luppi, Achille Succi and Alle Benassi, baritone saxophone, vibraphone and marimba from Daniele Di Gregorio, bassist Roberto Bonati and drummer Vittorio Marinoni. Urban Griot runs about seventeen minutes in nine short sections, a sequence of cities with titles such as La Città Tecnologica, La Città Dell'Oro, La Città Ebbra, La Città Degli Ultimi and La Città Della Vita, broken by two episodes called Giampi Racconta. The label describes it as a cityscape of poetic and musical proportions, ending with an odyssey back to a mythical, metaphorical home. Then come two songs from outside jazz, the Cuban Guantanamera and Because The Night by Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith, before Odissey, a single composition of more than 28 minutes. The concerts were mixed by Luppi at Tala Studio in Milan in September 2002, and Art Lange wrote the English liner notes.

Soul Note CD 121470-2, first released in 2003.