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Rating: I admit it: I thought I would be bored, but this was one of the most beautiful - and increasingly rare - father-son evenings I've ever experienced. The Bergamo Jazz Festival, in fact, opened my eyes to a branch of music - jazz, of course - that was still practically unknown to me; besides the classic phrases like “in jazz, improvisation is very important” and “jazz guitarists are always virtuosos” repeated in every musical conversation and a few Miles Davis records, which the Old Man (my father) often plays in the car to brighten the hours spent in traffic on the highway, I had no knowledge of this crazy but equally magical musical genre. This event hosts internationally renowned musicians and is one of the rare events that attracts visitors from all over Italy to the orobic city - and perhaps also from some neighboring countries like France, Switzerland, and Austria - if you exclude the various events of the unfortunately ever more numerous “nightclub-pigsties” that attract more and more teenagers, whose psyche I presume has been irremediably deviated by mass trends.
Closing the digression, I am preparing to talk about the performances of this first evening of the Bergamo Jazz Festival (I had to, unfortunately, give up on the other two). After arriving on time at the always beautiful Teatro Donizetti, my father and I enter and immediately notice the impeccable organization and welcome; indeed, groups of staff welcomed the spectators, led them to their seats, and handed them the brochure containing information about the artists who were about to perform, the Chuco Valdés Quintet and the Gianluca Petrella Cosmic Band.
The first to perform is the Cuban quintet led by pianist Chuco Valdés, a son of art (Ramón “Bebo” Valdes is a legend of Cuban music) and one of the best pianists in the world. The show was engaging and exciting: astonishing how the five manage to blend the stylistic elements of classic jazz with the Caribbean rhythms of Cuba. Their performance was of the highest order. Bassist Labaro Rivero, providing a very solid rhythmic base, allowed drummer Juan Carlos Rojas and percussionist Yaroldy Abreu to launch into epileptic solos (and ones that my eyes struggled to follow due to the speed of execution), singer Mayra Valdés to use her very powerful voice to the fullest, and pianist Chuco Valdés, the star of the evening, to propose his typical, pyrotechnic evolutions on the keyboard which have earned him the title of “jazz legend”. One piece after another for an hour of cheerful, explosive, and rhythmically contagious Latin jazz.
After the interval, the Gianluca Petrella Cosmic Band takes the stage, one of the main exponents of Italian acid jazz. The sound is very different from the previous performance, being more psychedelic also due to the use of synthesizers. This, of course, does not mean it was a boring show. In fact, the band, composed of ten members and impeccably conducted by trombonist Gianluca Petrella, erects a true sound wall, originated mainly from the solos of the four wind instruments, taking advantage of the perfect rhythm created by piano, percussion, and double bass, which were not given room for solos. A minor flaw, in my opinion, was the sound of the guitar, excessively overshadowed by the four wind instruments and, for this reason, practically inaudible.
In conclusion, a great evening at Donizetti that opened my eyes to the crazy magic of jazz, which I (almost) totally ignored before (have mercy, I'm 16 years old :-)).
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