Enzo Pietropaoli
Orange Park

Enzo Pietropaoli, a shy and reserved musician, a wise accompanist, and an imaginative soloist, for years was Enrico Pieranunzi’s bassist, the Italian pianist who has best gathered and treasured the lessons of the late Bill Evans. At the same time, he cultivated an "electric" side as the bassist of Lingomania. These two parallel experiences culminated in '89 with his first solo album, "Orange Park".

Here Pietropaoli brings together his Lingomania colleagues, with Maurizio Giammarco on tenor and soprano sax, Umberto Fiorentino on guitar, Roberto Gatto on drums. The role of the pianist is divided between two exquisite musicians, the aforementioned Pieranunzi and Danilo Rea; the latter also handles the most exquisitely electronic part of the music, often wrapping the themes in a cloud of synthesized sounds, functional and never invasive. As a second wind voice, there is another top-notch star, the trumpeter Paolo Fresu.

A children's choir introduces the first theme, the playful "Orange Park," with a rhythm that may remind some of Weather Report's works. Fresu, after playing around with a very filtered trumpet, excellently counterpointed by Giammarco on sax, gives way to a crooked and delightful solo by Rea, reminiscent of playful childhood tunes and at the same time rich with "stride" echoes.

The next track, the very romantic "Ramon," played on a subtle sequencer loop, gives Pietropaoli a chance to demonstrate his total mastery of his instrument in an exquisite, almost guitar-like solo, played on the high strings of the 5-string bass. Then Pieranunzi enters, and it's pure magic... Followed by Fiorentino in a very thoughtful solo, which moderates his phrasing with a very effective use of pauses.

The quartet of "Reverse Bop" is utterly convincing, a theme that is both oblique and gritty, where executional rigor and improvisational fantasy chase each other perfectly, with Fiorentino resolving the accompaniment in a completely contrapuntal way, dispensing brief "sharp" guitar lines during Giammarco's decidedly hard-bop solo.

A moment in total solitude with a reinterpretation of Steve Swallow's "Hullo Bolinas" (the only non-original track of the album), and the complete band resumes in "La Piazza," a melancholic and almost "Felliniesque" theme in its stride. A beautiful moment for the two voices of Fresu and Giammarco, who show they can listen to each other very well, and then the spotlight is all on Pieranunzi, who delivers probably the best solo of the album.

"Good Bye Chet" is a very lyrical piece, particularly dear to the bassist and recorded in various versions throughout his career. Here the theme is introduced by plucking on the double bass, doubled by the voice, on a bed of electronic sounds. The solo part is entrusted to Danilo Rea, who once again demonstrates his ability to deliver solos oscillating between originality and passion.

The album concludes with "Dogs," the track that perhaps adheres most to the fusion style; the theme is pleasant, albeit not very original, with Giammarco switching to soprano sax. Of interest is Fiorentino's solo, extremely controlled on this record, never a note out of place.

Ultimately, once again, it is a joy for me to see how musicians from our homeland have been able to produce works of such quality: an album that bids farewell to the "electric jazz" Italian experience but at the same time writes one of its most beautiful pages.