Enrico Pieranunzi Fellini jazz

[brownie]

The Italian label Camjazz has released Fellini Jazz, a new album by the excellent pianist Enrico Pieranunzi.

Pieranunzi has surrounded himself with Kenny Wheeler, Chris Potter, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian to play his arrangements of mostly Nino Rota compositions for the films of Federico Fellini.

A nostalgia-filled imaginatively played album. Highly-recommended.

[A Lark Ascending]

I have my eye on that one!

[Guest Chaney]

I don't have the Rota album but I do have and can recommend:

Not the most challenging listen but very pretty and well done.

[JSngry]

Also recommended is the Hal Wilner produced Amarcord Nino Rota.

Rota's themes have a "happy melancholy" that is not at all at odds with a "jazz esthetic". Good stuff to work with/from.

[A Lark Ascending]

A Wilner I don't know (I swear by his Disney record...an all time favourite. Sun Ra and 'Elephants on Parade'...outstanding!).

If you don't know it track down Pieranunzi's 'Plays the Music of Wayne Shorter.' Exquisite.

Another recording in similar vein:

Sat listening to this on my walkman on a hot day last year in the amphitheatre in Verona.

Edited November 13, 2003 by Bev Stapleton

[A Lark Ascending]

Here's another worth your time:

A million miles away from standard hard bop. Piano, bass, clarinet with a very Italian feel. You could imagine some of the themes as operatic arias.

Reminds me a little of the chamber music of people like Poulenc - with a jazzier edge.

Edited November 15, 2003 by Bev Stapleton

[Gordokae]

Tho pricey. . . . .just received from Japan. . . . . the trio playing Morricone II.

Great stuff.

Gordon