NUANCES 4TET
River

Fy 7040

885016704025
Felmay Records
Italia

 

The first CD of an original quartet both in terms of instrumentation and sound. A group that started from the experiences of Piazzolla, Galliano and arrives to mix in an original formula jazz and folk music traditions. A sound that will the listeners of modern forms of jazz in the vein ECM as well as those who love the crossover between popular traditions (Italian) and other musical languages in the line of group as such as Trovesi / Coscia, Guiducci Gramelot Ensemble, Richard Galliano.


In the beginning (2002) the project was a trumpet and accordion duo formed by Luigi Faggi Grisoni and Giacomo Rotatori in which the space for the improvisation was very large, marked by the contrast between the lyricism of the trumpet and the rhythm of the accordion.
The language was not straight jazz but more based on pedals and ostinato. Interesting was also the combination of trumpet and accordion from the point of view of timbre, a sonority that sounded at the same time curios and out of time. The title of the concert was Variazioni sul Tango (Variations on Tango) and well represented the music performed: a combination of tunes by Astor Piazzolla and his European heir Richard Galliano.
Without abandoning anything of what just described, on the occasion of a concert that took place in 2007 as part of an exhibition dedicated to tango the duo enlarged to include Andrea Morandi (drums) and Roberto Gazzani (bass) and the positive feedback after the event meant that the duo became a quartet and should remain such. From the moment the group is structured in a quartet, as well as performing numerous concerts, both in Italy and abroad, it began to work on original tunes as it moved away from the tango genre and began to look for a more personal sound and repertoire.
The musicians that make up the quartet come from different musical environments: Giacomo Rotatori has numerous collaborations in chamber music including the Solisti della Scala; Luigi Faggi Grigioni plays trumpet with Band Olifante, has worked with Kenny Wheeler and is a regular member of the Raphael Gualazzi band; Andrea Morandi collaborated with Franco Cerri and with Frank Marocco; Roberto Gazzani with the Brazilian singer Selma Hernandes.
It 's probably thanks to the meeting of such different musical backgrounds adjacent but not overlapping that the NUANCES 4tet has dedicated long time to create a repertoire of original compositions and a personal sounds abandoning, for this CD, the interpretation and arrangement of other’s composers pieces. The long sessions of rehearsals and the various concerts of the four musicians has created that synergy that takes the personal moment of composition to the sharing of them with the other members of the group and then to the collective process of making of each tune a real group work.
Only exception on River an original interpretation of a famous Italian song, Io che amo solo te by Italian songwriter Sergio Endrigo that shows a romantic approach to the jazz sounds. It is a brief episode in a work where jazz is only mentioned in this and in Waltzestrasse. For the rest teh compositions have been thought and composed especially for this group of players and instruments and for their own sound.