Michel Petrucciani
Promenade with Duke

A Little Prince Strolling with a Duke. 

No, it's not a scene from some period film, but it's the essence of the record itself.

A fabulous stroll starring one of the Princes of European and world Jazz, dealing with some of the famous pieces born from the pen of the court of the Duke of American and world Jazz. Michel Petrucciani, with no rhetoric whatsoever, was a living life lesson even before a musical one. Proof that in the face of passion and tenacity, even physical diversity becomes a detail, and perhaps even a resource, paradoxically. The first time I saw photos and videos of Petrucciani, a feeling of human compassion took over my thoughts of the moment. As if to say: "What will he do, poor thing, in those conditions?".

But who was Michel, a sideshow freak? A circus attraction? How stupid...

I felt a great sense of pity for myself, after just a few of his notes were enough to capture me. Those first few notes put Petrucciani under the light of the Greats, the Giants of Music, him being so small. That was a great lesson, because I drew two significant teachings: one doesn't need a big body to possess a big heart and a great soul, and one doesn't need big hands to master an instrument, without the slightest hesitation. Strolls Michel, in that New York of 1993. He gifts splendid chromatic contrasts, in this wonderful journey of solo piano: him, his Steinway, the Duke, the colors of music and nothing else. Even a simple yet brilliant artwork brings water to Michel's colorful mill. A stroll that precisely places itself at the end of Summer and beginning of Autumn, with the fantastic chromatic contrasts that follow this time of the year.

Petrucciani's European sensibility plays a crucial role, both in technique and conceptuality, extroverted yet at the same time introverted. Michel's class is crystal clear, a delicate blend of European Romanticism and hot swing American: as if Jelly Roll Morton were playing Chopin. Wise idea to alternate the tracklist, now with a hot mood now with a refined, European-scented accent. A decisive "Caravan" (UH!) opens this stroll, which easily indicates the path that Michel will take. The classic and swing accents find perfect cohesion in "Caravan", somewhat summarizing the record and Petrucciani himself.

In this alternation of American swing bursts with reflective European classicisms, pieces like the famous "Take the A Train" come to life, a showpiece also for Dave Brubeck. Pieces like "Lush Life", where Petrucciani's European romanticism perhaps finds the album's highest expression. His European poetic strokes of Jazz remind me of another pianist... a haunting Luca Flores, in the grooves of the soul a tormented sequence of emotions. "Hidden Joy" truly reminds me of him: Michel, Luca, and the Duke, a Piano Trio among the stars. An intimate, emotional, and intense "In a Sentimental Mood" manages to deliver one of the record's emotionally highest points. On the other hand, a sumptuous and acrobatic "C-Jam Blues" delivers swing, swing, swing, and even more felt, pushed to the limit by Michel's frenzy.

The record is also dedicated to Gilda Buttà, wife, Muse, pianist, Sicilian, the one who can boast of being the preferred interpreter of Ennio Morricone. This stroll manages to smell of Paris and New York, two cities that have much in common when the autumn suggestions can caress them with Jazz notes; but this record is not Jazz, it's Michel Petrucciani reinventing the Duke and pages of splendid 20th-century American music.

Tout simplement.