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Rating: When one feels sad and is suffering from something, they react in different ways.
Many people (myself included) listen to music, trying to forget the pain by losing themselves among the notes of a song that comforts us, reassures us, recharges us with energy and the desire to react. Some listen to Baglioni (masochists who add physical suffering to the moral one), some to the Sex Pistols (!), and some to jazz. I listen to jazz.
Django is a jazz record, of that jazz so jazz that there is no other way to define it.
Legend has it that the Modern Jazz Quartet was a group composed of four people who could barely stand each other and never stopped arguing. But if instead of arguing they started playing, well, then something great always happened.
Django is a record born between '53 and '55 and today benefits from the fantastic 20-bit remastering with the Sony Super Bit Mapping system.
It opens with the title track, dedicated by Lewis (the group's pianist) to the memory of the gypsy-French guitarist who died in '53. The theme of this song is developed in a pyramidal form typical of Lewis' compositional method.
The record continues with a composition by Dizzy Gillespie and is subsequently followed by a suite of four movements, created as a demonstration of drummer Kenny Clarke's skill on his instrument but evolved into a moment of free expression for all the members.
Track number six is an old acquaintance, one of the jazz world's standards, the famous "Autumn in New York," played with great aesthetic taste (in this song I love Milt Jackson with his vibraphone), followed by a composition by Gershwin titled "But not for me" which I don't find particularly captivating.
"Milano" is the finale of the album. And here a lot of calm is needed! A lot of calm! This song, although factually accredited to Lewis in composition, is actually Jackson's response to Lewis himself. Built like a typical American ballad, it is dedicated to a city in which the jazz spirit was spreading to the extent of becoming one of the most active centers of the European scene.
Milano is truly a song that brings peace to the listener's spirit. And that's what I seek when I'm sad.
If you want to get close to jazz, this album is a good start.
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