Search - Various Artists :: Italian Instabile Festival

Maybe the best intro to this group and ...

greg taylor | Portland, Oregon United States | 09/27/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"to contemporary Italian jazz. One of the things that strikes even the casual explorer of the Italian jazz scene is how much of its history is represented by the Italian Instabile Orchestra.

This particular recording makes that point in the strongest possible fashion.

This recording contains highlights from a festival in Pisa, Italy in December of 1997 that was dedicated to the IIO. The CD features the full orchestra and many of the sub-groups that comprise it. For a listing of the personnel please see my review of the IIO's Live in Noce and Rive-de-Gier. The only change is that in this case the piano chair is held down by Umberto Petrin instead of Giorgio Gaslini.

Along with the full orchestra there is Eugenio Colombo doing his Rahsaan Roland Kirk thing, the Moers Brass Quintet (the three trombonists, the french horn and flute), a trumpet duet w/ Enrico Rava and Pino Minafra, Udu Calls (a duet between Danielle Cavallanti on bari sax and Tiziano Tononi on percussion), the Grupo Romano Free Jazz (this trio of Mario Schiano, Giancarlo Schiaffini and Bruno Tommaso was one of the first and finest Italian free jazz groups) and a duet with Vincenzo Mazzone on drums and Renato Geremia on violin, piano, tenor sax and anything else within reach at the time. But wait! There's more! Which is for y'all to discover.

This music is all over the place. Each of the members of the IIO is a leader and composer in their own right and all of them have been influenced by an astonishing variety of music. The CD comes with a 24 page booklet with a variety of critical comments by critics who were at the festival and band members.

If I had to chose one of my IIO CDs to introduce someone to this group this might be the one I would use. It truely conveys what is so unique about this group- that so many musical visionaries can be so generous as to give themselves over to the playing of each other's music. It also gives a small sense of the vitality of the Italian scene and where to go to start exploring it. Start out with Udu Calls (which the title of a CD by Daniele Cavallanti and Tiziano Tononi then go to Tononi's sprawling homage to Roland Kirk, We Did It, We Did It! and then to the Nexus Orchestra and then to Minafra's Sudori or Schiano's Sud and so forth. There is a huge scene over there of wonderous strength. Think of this great CD as your doorway.



"