Mono Jazz Jazz | Fusion 4 Items

Long time hard to find and long awaited reissue of Chet Baker’s last studio album. Lyrical, poignant, it shows Chet Baker at his best. Included the original version of Elvis Costello’s “Almost Blue”. Which has become an all-time classic masterpiece in Chet’s repertoire, also heard on the “Let’s Get lost” soundtrack. HQ re-matsering

‘the Congregation - Jazz Alliance International’ compilation is the latest offering from Mono Jazz label. Compiled by Massimiliano ‘Jazzcat’ Conti - a DJ, broadcaster and internationally respected selector with over 150,000 followers on Mixcloud - and featuring liner notes by Paul Bradshaw (from the iconic ‘Straight no Chaser’ magazine), ‘the Congregation’ is an innovative, largely contemporary selection of tracks that they feel is representative of the current era - a true manifesto of the international jazz scene of the present days. The release was received with great enthusiasm by some of the leading DJs and music critics of the scene – from the UK, to Germany, to Japan – getting early radio support by Patrick Forge (nts), Colin Curtis (Hitmix Radio), Kevin Beadle (twr), Rainer Trüby (Compost Records), Shuya Okino (Kyoto Jazz Massive), Raffaele Costantino (Rai Radio 2), Ilya Rasskazov (Headz.FM), Michael Rütten (Soul Searching), David Patterson (jfsr), Simon Harrison (Basic Soul) & more. Built around a near mythical, unreleased song by Japanese producer Yellowtail featuring legendary beat generation jazz singer Mark Murphy, the selection of tunes contained in this album ventures far and wide. Soulful offerings by Anthony Joseph and Jimetta Rose & The Voices of Creation, percussive and spiritual renditions by the likes of Malcolm Strachan, Right Tempo’s own Francesco Sotgiu and Nicola Conte, Latin-flavoured explorations by Mexican giant Tino Contreras and Acid Jazz’s signed Mama Terra and a hip-hop spiced cut by Portuguese producer Azar Azar are some of the many moods that can be found in ‘the Congregation’.

This extraordinary album, which we are re-issuing on the occasion of RT 30 (the celebration of Right Tempo's thirty years of activity), is a tribute to the great Trinidadian pianist Sonnie Taylor who in these recordings, accompanied by the singer Bunnie Foy, expresses all his musical nature connected to Africa and the spiritual roots of jazz music. Many of you will recall Mayfra Combo, well, the leader of that seminal soul jazz ensemble was Sonnie Taylor. “I'm a Harlem Flower” sais Bunnie “I was born right in Harlem, where I've listened to an infinite number of popular songs of all kinds since I was a child. That's why I learned to sing spirituals, blues, classic and modern jazz pieces by Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerlad, and even calypso and African music. These are things that are all equally familiar to me. On this record, for example, I interpret a Gershwin medley but also Go Down Moses which is spiritual, Uelelé which is an Angolan piece and Way-O Comin' home which comes from the Caribbean”. Her real name is Shirley, but the nickname - which in Italian means bunny - grew up with her. She arrived in Italy in 1968 after a very flattering career start, during which she collaborated with famous names such as Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane. When she decided to settle in Milan she had already been to France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and North Africa. Sonnie Taylor, the distinguished pianist and organist who leads the nine recordings contained herein, is a native of Trinidad. He has performed in England, Spain and Italy with a rhythm and blues ensemble. He currently leads a quintet that plays Afro-Cuban music. For about a year he has been working with Bunnie Foy on her concert tours.

“Francesco Sotgiu has forged a unique and very swinging project of songs. WIth a quintet consisting of Luigi Bonafede on piano, Emanuele Cisi and Riccardo Luppi on woodwinds, Salvatore Maiore on bass, Francesco on drums, and with special guest Paolo Fresu on trumpet to cap off this heartfelt collection. There is also a nice diversity of groups within this larger collection. A nice trio piece called “Calm” featuring Paolo Birro sitting in with Marco Micheli and Francesco. And one called “Lotus Blossom” where Francesco shows his considerable skills and soul on violin. But the bulk of the material is straight ahead jazz and is totally swinging and soulful, proving that jazz has no borders and is a worldwide language to wich Francesco has added to that tradition with this project and all the great voices he has included here. Bravo maestro.” This is the comment of Gil Goldstein, American accordion player who won 5 Grammies and collaborated with giants such as Gil Evans, Wayne Shorter and Michel Petrucciani. This record was recorded in the middle of the pandemic times and most of the work for preparing this record took place via the telephone: the selection of the songs on paper, the exchange of ideas on arrangements, staff and instruments, a sort of "phone rehearsal" of the structure of the songs, with the choice of a solo; everything else, everything that will happen in the recording sessions, is the result of a controlled improvisation, a jam session masterfully captured in the studio through the use of well-positioned ribbon microphones. This is why "passing", literally "passing" or "crossing": because the musicians have gone through listening to these songs as teenagers, and find themselves today, as a mature meeting of old friends who create an informal game made of nostalgic fun, great personality, confrontation and deep spirituality. In the classic Caravan by Ellington and Tizol or Afro Blue by Mongo Santamaria, Coltrane toning, the latin accent of the rhythm section supports the interpretation of the theme and the interplay in the solos between the soprano and tenor saxophones by Cisi & Luppi, and the piano by Bonafede. A certain elegance in the execution distinguishes pieces such as Duke Ellington's Sound OF Love, yet another tribute by Mingus to the Duke, with a calibrated solo on the double bass of Maiore and the flute by Luppi, the immortal Take Five by Paul Desmond, with the highlighted soprano by Cisi, Wishes, 7th Street and the eponymous Passing, all pieces composed by Sotgiu, characterized by the precise medium / fast drive of the drums and a certain "cinematic" taste of the main themes. In songs such as Black Bats AND Poles, composed by trumpeter Jack Walrath for the Mingus orchestra, and in Stranatole, an original piece in which Sotgiu writes a theme of Monk’s influence and enjoys overturning the traditional "anatole jazz” structure, the quintet opts for an effective hard bop language, with exciting moments of dazzling virtuosity in Bonafede's solo, while in Coltrane's Wise ONE and McCoy Tyner's Ballad FOR Aisha we enter a modal, mystical and ceremonial jazz, of a cosmic depth, which seems to hover in the sweet volume of the great hall of the recording studio. These are truly magnificent interpretations. A special separate mention for two classics such as MY Foolish Heart by Victor Young, performed in trio by Sotgiu, Maiore and the unmistakable trumpet by Paolo Fresu, and the (unfortunately very short) Lotus Blossom by Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington, which in the piano-violin duo of Birro and Sotgiu, in a minute gives a suspended momentary magic, sums up the roots of African-American jazz music, and also referencing an old fashioned Italian musical sensitivity, typical of Nino Rota's music for Federico Fellini’s films.