Jim Hall
Concierto

Sometimes you rest on your laurels. Sometimes you believe you have understood everything, bought, downloaded, and heard everything, and thus can teach and recommend to everyone. Then you discover that in your enormous record collection, the result of an infinite number of pre-emule sacrifices and a thousand renunciations, one of the most beautiful and perfect albums in the history of jazz was missing. It was missing because, as often happens, you fall in love with a particular instrument, a musician, or a somewhat preconceived way of conceiving jazz. For example, in my case as in that of a thousand others, you fall in love with saxophonists, particularly Trane, Bean, Lester, Dexter, and many others. Then comes the all-consuming and mind-boggling moment of Miles, when the whole world seems to begin and end there. Then you face free jazz and learn to like it. Then fusion, appreciating the rhythm and the studied and cunning scholarship of its protagonists. Then perhaps, older and more disillusioned, you listen to the voice and trumpet of Louis and understand its infinite and mature greatness, which was inconceivable at twenty. But jazz guitar, no. At least in my case. And to think that I have more guitars at home than shoes. But jazz guitar always smelled of nerdiness, of little trimmings, of intricate patterns. Sure...: there's Wes, no doubt about it. And Joe Pass and Jim Hall and many others. But one has always listened to them with a hint of snobbishness, as if real jazz lay elsewhere.

Then it happens that you go to FNAC on a melancholic, pre-Christmas afternoon in Turin and buy this Concierto. Just like that, out of inertia and because you almost didn't know what else to buy. Then you get home, in the foggy province of my almost-lowlands, and put it in the player. And a pure magic begins. The kind experienced a while ago with Trane's A Love Supreme or with his Giant Steps, or being Round About Midnight with Monk or Miles. Here everything spins perfectly. The rhythmic-harmonic section is entrusted to six incredibly skilled hands: those of Roland Hanna on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Steve Gadd on drums. It’s the very precise presence of this last one that makes me think that the record might not be that old...: I read. 16 and 23 April 1975. Strange...: and yet in that decade, other styles prevailed... . I keep listening, expecting a decline, something trite, a free glance-catching hit, a fusion flair. Nothing. Always better. Classic but with a very modern rhythmic setup, given especially by Gadd. In short. Perfection. The kind that you rarely encounter, but when you see it, you recognize it and know it is Her. And the credit is certainly not solely that of the main performer, here graced with an ecstasy of phrasing, in my opinion, almost never reached before or after, but also of the two supporting artists. And we are not talking about just any two fools...: we are talking about Paul Desmond and Chet Baker. So talented, present, and impeccable that the album could easily have been under the name of the trio. Chet is simply perfect: his sense of silence and the sad purity of his note are as always, but he too is in an exceptional state of grace. Desmond is Desmond. The marvelous nerd of white jazz, that baroque and incoherently minimalist builder who has given us some of the best emotions white jazz has been able to offer. A great school for alto saxophone. A likable teacher. A unique character. All, of course, recorded superbly.

The tracklist ranges from great classics by Ellington and Porter to the compositions of the guitar-playing "master of the house." But the album's absolute pinnacle is the minimalist and splendid version of the well-known "Concierto De Aranjuez". Almost twenty minutes of pure ecstasy. I have, like everyone, other versions of the "concierto." Above all, that of Segovia and the very famous one of Miles with the Gil Evans Orchestra. Well...: this has absolutely nothing to envy and I believe nothing more can be added.