«Face to Face»: la grammatica dell’ascolto fra Ivano Icardi e Davide Liberti
«Face to Face» demanda alla dimensione più immediata del fare musica, due strumenti e due musicisti in rapporto diretto, una...
Culture
«Baratri d’Azzurro e Pozzi di Fuoco»: la materia inquieta dei Gat Osken
Un esordio che, già nella scelta del proprio immaginario, manifesta una precisa inclinazione verso l’indagine e lascia intravedere una concezione...
«Rumore Latino» di Fabrizio Bai: l’idioma latino nel jazz mediterraneo (Dodicilune, 2026)
Il «rumore latino» di Bai nasce da una precisa idea di pluralità musicale. Choro, candombe, tango, milonga, latin jazz e...
“Thelonious in Action”: Monk, Oblique Time, and the Art of Deviation (Riverside Records, 1958)
The ambient noise of the venue, the audience's reactions, the quartet's fluidity, and the sheer power of the performances all converge to convey...
Michael Mantler’s “Movies”: Eight Sonic Stills for an Imaginary Film
Mantler offers no narrative, and it is precisely this void that liberates the visionary faculties of the listener. The music assumes...
“Blue Prelude”: Marilena Paradisi and Natalino Marchetti: The Voice, the Bellows, and the Art of Variation (Losen Records, 2026)
Their encounter yields a form of chamber jazz in which complexity remains subservient to the listening experience and...
21st Jazz-Up Festival Viterbo, October 17 to November 15, 2026
Music, books, and major jazz figures between the Teatro San Leonardo and the Teatro dell’Unione // by Irma Sanders...
Profile of Rahsaan Roland Kirk: “Being able to play three saxophones with two hands, I should be able to play one saxophone with one hand”
The technical mastery demonstrated by Roland Kirk answered to a rigorous structural logic, aimed at transcending the physical limits of the...
“Domino”: Roland Kirk’s Polyphonic Encyclopedism in the Wake of the 1960s Avant-Garde
The sonic aura enveloping the entire work eludes the conventional categories of popularization, offering the musicologist a stratified text wherein...
“Awakenings” by Jordan Corda: Jazz Idiom between Geographical Dimension and Interior Inquiry (A.MA Records, 2026)
“Awakenings” presents itself as a project in which jazz composition, Sardinian cultural memory, and the experience of geographical mobility converge...
Padova Jazz Festival, 28th Edition: October 10 (Preview). From October 22 to November 8, 2026
// a Cura della Redazione // Amii Stewart e Dee Dee Bridgewater: due dive della black music incorniciano il cartellone...
FLUX – Flows of Creative Music, From October 18 to December 6 at PARC in Florence
Marc Ribot, Artifacts Trio, Mary Halvorson, Aruán Ortiz: international jazz luminaries meet Italian talent; the protagonists of...
Dangerous Encounters Trio with «Milonga do mar»: Three Voices, Plural Languages, a Singular Quest (Dodicilune, 2026)
«Milonga do mar» documents the inception of a recording journey that entrusts the plurality of musical origins and chamber dialectics...
Manas 3o – «Empty Roads After the Rain» (WoW Records, 2026)
// di Stefano Dentice // Da venerdì 25 settembre 2026, disponibile questo nuovo disco solo in formato digitale Pubblicato dall’etichetta...
Freddie Hubbard: Beyond the Ardour of Hard Bop, the Constructive Rigour and Acoustic Glazes of “The Rose Tattoo” (Baystate, 1983)
Far from constituting a mere exercise in nostalgia, the recording for the Baystate label demonstrates a remarkable structural rigor, wherein every progression...
Diego Allieri with “Equilibri Precari”: The Principle of Instability in Pianistic Writing
Allieri transforms instability into a creative opportunity, entrusting the piano with the task of rendering audible that which remains...
Dedicated to the Memory of Cassandra Wilson: “Traveling Miles”, 1999
Cassandra's profound voice does not proclaim absolute truths, nor does it foretell tragic future events like her mythological namesake...
Jimmy Giuffre’s “Free Fall”: The Dissolution of Meter and the Pure Physiognomy of Sound (Columbia, 1963)
The absence of a fixed tonal center allows the trio to achieve a consummate synthesis between the extemporaneity of the jazz gesture and...
Federico Rondolini's «Blooming»: Fragments of Light Within a Restless Sonic Matter (EMME Records, 2026)
The confrontation between jazz and rock unfolds through a selection of distinct methodologies, from the freedom of interplay to the primacy of the score,...
Ear Trio's «Earache»: Unprecedented Jazz Constellations (EMME Records, 2026)
“Earache” originated from a succession of intuitions that only subsequently found a unified design. Its distinctive quality lies...
Joe Wilder: A Multifaceted Musician, a Trumpet Bridging Two Eras
Solid academic training, far from stifling his original expressive urgency in jazz, disciplined his phrasing, endowing it with that formal clarity and that...
The Polygon of Fusion: Eclecticism and Percussive Dialectics in Tony Williams's «The Joy of Flying» (Columbia, 1979)
«The Joy of Flying» thus stands as an encyclopedic compendium of American instrumental modernism, a work in which the drums...
«Sonny Stitt Plays Arrangements from the Pen of Quincy Jones»: Evolution of Orchestral Dynamics (Roost Records, 1956)
The two sessions document a conception in which individual improvisation and collective composition preserve a mutual independence, with Quincy...
«La danza dei cervelli rotti» by the Matteo Addabbo Organ Trio: Fifteen Years Together, Between Irony and Rigor (Dodicilune, 2026)
Beneath the linguistic playfulness lies a precise awareness of the Organ Trio's accumulated experience, the necessity of preserving authentic interaction, and...
Mike Gibbs & Gary Burton with "In The Public Interest": The Orchestra as a Breeding Ground Rather Than a Mere Volume Multiplier (Polydor, 1974)
The answer materializes in the ensemble's timbral configuration, in the complexity of the expressive texture, and above all in the relationship between the writing of...
Sonny Rollins’ “No Problem”: The Tenor and the Slanted Light of the 1980s (Milestone Records, 1981)
Rollins seeks neither the formal vertigo nor the conceptual austerity of other eras in his career. He prefers a daily music, imbued with...
The Geometry of the Fragment and the Aesthetics of Silence. Paul Bley and Jesper Lundgaard: The Speculative Abstraction of the Extemporaneous Gesture in “Live” (SteepleChase, 1988)
The Canadian pianist, assisted by Jesper Lundgaard on double bass, shapes a musical design rooted in the deconstruction of thematic material, offering...
"Wayne Shorter: Il Messaggero degli Dèi" – The New Book by Francesco Cataldo Verrina (Kriterius Edizioni)
Although musicians of remarkable caliber continue to perpetuate the jazz-sapiens lineage today, the path, however jagged and...
Claudio Fasoli: My Instrument
...a painting is the painter's medium just as a book is the writer's; a house belongs to the architect just as...
Antonio Macchia 5tet: "Illusion" Between Rigor and Invention (Dodicilune, 2026)
Far more than a mere debut statement, “Illusion” reveals a musician deeply engaged with the relationship between compositional control and performative unpredictability....
Concert Review: Michael Rosen Quartet / The Spiritual Voice / John Coltrane Tribute. September 4, 2026
Across all tracks, one appreciates the extraordinary interplay among the musicians on stage, with a shared collective value, without...
Umbria Jazz 1988: Wayne Shorter and Carlos Santana in Perugia
The sonic texture woven by the two soloists did not unfold according to the conventions of traditional alternation between soloist and accompaniment,...
Tommaso Genovesi with "Guardando oltre": Reality Viewed from Another Perspective (Caligola Records, 2026)
“Guardando oltre” thus assumes the character of an open-ended inquiry, wherein jazz becomes a practice of listening and questioning,...
The Beatles, or Lennon or McCartney: Reflections on Ian Leslie's Volume "John + Paul"
There are moments of overt friction, particularly between the dissolution of The Beatles and the early successes of their solo careers (1970–1975):...
"Disubbidire sempre" by Fausto Ferraiuolo / Gabriele Mirabassi: The Art of Non-Conformity (Dodicilune, 2026)
True disobedience does not lie in denying a rule, but in refusing to allow any rule to become definitive. Ferraiuolo and...
Charles Mingus and His Relationship with Italy
// di Aldo Gradimento // Charles Mingus - Umbria Jazz Festival – 1974 Dopo il suo arrivo a Perugia, in...
Adam O’Farrill with “Elephant”: Between Tradition and Innovation
Each member renounces individual prominence to integrate into the molecular organization of the sound, sealing an album that deftly eludes the clichés of...
Cassandra Wilson Has Passed Away: The Southern Voice That Redefined the Boundaries of Jazz
Her voice, deep and unmistakable, never demanded that the repertoire conform to a predetermined mold: rather, it compelled it each time...
"Miniatures for Solo Vibraphone" by Vitantonio Gasparro: A Solitary Flight via Metallophone
Rather than declaring an aesthetic affiliation, Gasparro prefers to engage with the diverse possibilities of musical language. It is precisely this willingness to avoid establishing...
Bruno Centomo, "The Tigers and the Chess King: A Novel of Jazz and Destiny"
The King may become the sole survivor, the tiger may finally leave its cage, and the saxophonist may seek a voice of his own....
A Profile of Steve Swallow: Counterpuntal Textures and Chamber Abstraction in Modern Jazz
The syntactic balance of his insights, wherein complexity never abdicates melodic grace, continues to serve as an invaluable proving ground...
Chick Corea at Umbria Jazz: A Long-Standing Alliance with the Nonconformist Genius
The celebration of the fortieth anniversary of Umbria Jazz in the summer of 2013 found its focal point in an event conceived as an exclusive...
Keith Jarrett at Umbria Jazz: Between Canonization and Controversy
An artistic saga that began thirty-nine years earlier in the open-air squares of 1974 and concluded in 2013 at the Arena Santa Giuliana, which...
"Windflower" by Ayumi Tanaka, Thomas Morgan, Thomas Strønen: Restraint, Subtraction, and Detail (ECM Records, 2026)
"Windflower" seeks neither facile effect nor surprise for its own sake. Its strength stems rather from the three musicians' ability...
Extra Sauce with “The Untold Story Of”: A Grammar of Groove Beyond the Virtual (Emme Record Label, 2026)
The project's most accomplished dimension arises precisely from this ability to avoid a mere catalogue effect, bringing disparate musical languages into dialogue without...
“Human Mosaic” by Elimi: The Mosaic of Identities, Where Differences Become Music (EMME Records, 2026)
The human being emerges in all their multiplicity, traversed by desires, fears, conflicts, aspirations, and relational needs that cannot be reduced...
Soundscapes for Invisible Screens: Compositional Synthesis in Adriano Clemente's "Kaleidoscope"
This discographical journey establishes itself as a mature reflection on contemporary composition, in which the reference to an imaginary cinema ceases to be...
From Wednesday, September 2 to Tuesday, September 8: The Thirteenth Edition of Francavilla è Jazz
World-caliber artists featured at the Francavilla Fontana festival // by Stefano Dentice // Anticipation reaches unprecedented heights as the...
Year of grace 1987: Sting and Gil Evans at Umbria Jazz, against the backdrop of Miles Davis
The critical reception of the Perugia event by the national and international press revealed a profound hermeneutic divide, polarized between orthodoxy...
Enrico Rava's "L’Opera va": The Harmonic Redefinition of Melodrama (Label Bleu, 1993)
The corpus of selected arias demonstrates how Rava operated not through the mere superimposition of idioms, but via a conscious translation. // by...
Gil Evans's Debut at Umbria Jazz: It Was the Year of Grace 1974
The critical reception that the Italian and foreign specialized press accorded to the Gil Evans Orchestra's performance on July 29...
Gábor Szabó: Timbral Geometries and Balkan Drones, The Modal Deviation from African American Orthodoxy
European criticism, particularly from the German and British spheres, has consistently attempted to redress the oversight of American reviewers...
Domenico Caliri and the Art of Decantation: The Expressive Synthesis of "Quarto" (Caligola Records)
"Quarto" bears witness to the attainment of a full linguistic maturity, wherein Caliri's rigorous writing finds an ideal counterpoint...
Jan Garbarek: The Dawn of the Continental Sound and the Aesthetic Emancipation of European Jazz
Jan Garbarek's conceptual legacy stands at the center of contemporary music historiography as the founding act of an autonomous...
Giorgio Azzolini's "Crucial Moment" Feat. Enrico Rava: A Foundational Chapter of Italian Jazz
Contemporary listening ultimately allows us to recognize in "Crucial Moment" a particularly significant testament to the modernization of Italian jazz. The recording...
Gary Bartz: Bioharmonic Analysis, from Bebop to Hip-Hop
Through the synthesis of academic rigor and the truth of the street, Gary Bartz's oeuvre continues to reverberate in...
Focus on Michael Brecker: The White Mastiff of the Saxophone
Michael Brecker's linguistic legacy for contemporary generations demands sociological and musicological reflection, as his pedagogical influence...
Marcus Miller with We Want Miles! Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, July 20, 2026
Miles would have let them breathe, would have calibrated their contribution, would have, in certain instances, had them play more softly. The...
The Architecture of Breath: Carl Fontana and the Geometry of the Modern Trombone
The codification of the performance practice conventionally termed "doodle-tonguing" responded, within the trombonist's creative economy, to an urgent necessity for expressive survival...
The Grammar of the Unpredictable: Ralph Alessi and "A Sun That Never Sets" (ECM, 2026)
The brass instruments of Ralph and Joseph Alessi are not deployed according to the traditional model of the trumpet-trombone pairing meant to reinforce...
Marcello Tonolo with "Sillabari Mood": Music Beyond the Word (Caligola Records, 2026)
The value of the album lies above all in its capacity to transform a production originally conceived for the stage into a recorded work possessing...
Satoyama’s "Concrete Islands frammenti per metropoli sommerse": Urban Soundscapes and Concrete Archipelagos (Auand, 2026)
Far from being merely another chapter in Satoyama’s discography, "Concrete Islands" offers a profound reflection on the capacity of a work of art to...
Luca Zennaro with "Stua scura": The Dark Matter of Sound (Caligola Records, 2026)
The "stua scura" evoked by Zennaro ultimately finds a tangible counterpart within the music itself. Not merely an imaginary realm in...
When Word Meets Jazz: Fabioeledistanze with "Illune" (Dodicilune, 2026)
Fabio Nardulli delivers a conceptual work that invites the listener to dwell on the nuances of language and sound, restoring to...
Electroacoustic Frameworks and Collective Conduction: The Formal Syncretism of Ensemble Infini’s "Volume"
The album stands not only as a phonographic document of the highest artistic caliber, but also as a vital theoretical manifesto on...
The Passing of Francesco Guccini, the "Locomotive" of Italian Songwriting: Sixty Years Spanning Poetry, Literature, and Protest
Reducing Guccini to the role of a purely "political" singer-songwriter would diminish the true scope of his oeuvre. Protest was merely one facet of...
Beyond the Third Stream: The Structural Synthesis of Jazz and Cultivated Avant-Garde in David Occhipinti’s "Looking Glass"
A concept of profound intellectual inquiry, wherein David Occhipinti demonstrates a masterful command of twentieth-century avant-garde idioms and...
"Platanus": The Entropy of Silence in North American Electroacoustic Post-Improvisation
Silence operates not as a mere void, but as a liminal, entropic space within which the listener is invited to...
The Sung Word: The Poetic Exegesis of Alden Nowlan in Stranger Still’s "We Might Not Tell Everybody This" (All-Set! Records, 2026)
The harmonic architecture of the album unfolds along a dual trajectory, preserving the evocative purity of plainsong and Celtic roots, while...
SANT’ IN JAZZ Miles Davis Festival – I Can See Fo(u)r Miles. Santa Margherita Ligure, September 6–13, 2026
On the centenary of Miles Davis's birth, a week of music, art, and culture exploring the legacy of a seminal figure...
Miles Davis: Relationships with Musicians, Audience, Keith Jarrett, and The Köln Concert Born of a Davisian Suggestion
Miles Davis exercised leadership through subtraction rather than addition. He spoke sparingly, explained even less, relying instead on presence, posture, and...
Francesco Branciamore with "Old & New Dreams": When the Theme Becomes Narrative. The Piano as a Space for Musical Thought (Caligola Records, 2026)
The album firmly establishes the profile of a musician primarily devoted to the quality of musical thought, formal coherence, and the exploration of...
Between Jazz, Glances, and Silences: An Interview with Paola Bensi, Photographer of the In-Between
// di Valentina Voto // Paola Bensi è una fotografa milanese, che dalle sue prime esperienze in radio e in...
"Exercises in Metamorphosis": An Interview with John Vignola
I would be gratified if it were received as a conversion manual to Miles for those who have never listened to him with...
Musica Senza Confini 2026: Concerts and a Tribute to Camilleri Featuring a Special Guest, Inspector Fazio from Detective Montalbano
Following its opening segment in Tuoro sul Trasimeno, MSC 26 first arrives in the splendid Umbrian village of Monte Castello di...
Riccardo Zorzi's “Songs for My Daughter”: The Trio as a Dialogic Organism (Caligola Records, 2026)
Rather than leaning on virtuosic display, Riccardo Zorzi anchors his recording debut on the quality of mutual listening and the trust placed in...
Paolo Belli's Situation and His Withdrawal from the Public Scene Indirectly Impacts the Twelve Musicians of His Big Band, Leaving Them Out of Work
Abruptly stripped of their contracted engagements for the summer season, the orchestra members have found themselves excluded from revenue streams...
Bill Frisell's “Longa Manus” in the Evolution of Twentieth-Century Guitar and Beyond
The guitar sheds its percussive nature to take on a dimension akin to that of a bowed instrument...
Giordano Grossi's “In the Name of the Father, Daughters & Vino Bianco”: Between Cultural Roots and Contemporary Idiom (AlfaMusic, 2026)
“In the Name of the Father, Daughters & Vino Bianco” reveals a composer acutely aware of the relationship between personal experience and...
Enrico Intra's “In-Tra in Duo”: The Authority of Doubt Beyond the Cage of Language (Alfa Music, 2026)
The project's intrinsic worth unfolds precisely in the paradoxical mastery of the unexpected, capable of transmuting silence and deconstruction into...
Shorterian Regeneration, Structural Subtraction, and Plastic Silence in Gigi Sella & Paolo Vianello's “Infant Eyes” (Caligola Records, 2026)
The coherence running through the entire work demonstrates how improvisational practice can attain pinnacles of absolute syntactic poise without sacrificing...