Blue Note Club in Milan. This venue has been involved in the Jazz Blues EU program since the beginning; during the pandemic it changed management, with a new setup of the service in the room and above all of the artistic programming.
In this last regard, I must say that the change was definitely for the better. Alongside highly popular events that serve to support a private initiative with considerable structural costs (it has 300 seats, and its size and comfort often amazes many American jazzmen), dates with high-level international jazz groups appear more and more frequently: just mention the concert of Vijay Iyer’s trio on October 9th.
High-quality dates that have also always been rewarded by a full room: we hope that repeated successes will encourage us to dare even more.
The ‘new’ Blue Note has therefore become the second pillar of the Festival, alongside Jazz Blues EU in the most demanding proposals from an economic and organizational point of view, essential to provide a complete picture of the heart of the contemporary scene, especially American.
Christian McBride with Benny Green and Gregory Hutchinson
The most fitting example is that of the evening of November 1st with Christian McBride, an absolute champion of the acoustic bass, but who in recent years has increasingly emerged as a leader of original and well-established groups.
The evening was also marked by a pilgrimage to one’s roots: in this case the great bassist Ray Brown, mentor to McBride, and ultimately leader of pianist Benny Green and drummer Gregory Hutchinson. The tone was lighter than the previous occasions with Ottaviano and Frisell, the joy of playing and recalling prevailed: it was a sort of concert-conversation, in which each of the three musicians brought his own contribution of knowledge, both on the person and on Brown’s music.
One of the most beautiful things about Ray, is 1976, note the partners
And so we learned that in addition to being a veteran of many seasons of modern jazz, Ray was also a profound connoisseur of the music industry (in view of the opening of the first Blue Note in New York, the managers asked for his advice, McBride firmly emphasizes).
Even less obvious was the evocation of Brown’s talents as an arranger, who had so much skill and creativity to get his hands on the scores of a true genius of the ‘charts’ like Neal Hefti. And with this common thread it was possible to give continuity and homogeneity to a setlist full of modern standards revised by Ray’s pen, and re-proposed with verve and brilliance by the trio. On this side, Green’s incisive and dynamic piano playing stood out; Hutchinson’s drumming was so exuberant that it overshadowed McBride’s full-bodied bass a little.
An instrument that I would have liked to hear a little more in evidence for the beauty of its sound and the loose ductility of its phrasing, but evidently the great McBride is a democratic leader and not very jealous of his indisputable supremacy. In any case, time flies and you leave with a smile on your lips, which doesn’t happen that often.
The tribute to Ray Brown, in an edition that sees Karriem Riggins in place of Hutchinson on drums. Here too, Rollins appears, evidently one of McBride’s ‘crushes’
The atmosphere of the appointment with Joe Lovano’s Tapestry trio is different. Unlike McBride’s somewhat occasional one, this combo is cemented by a long common militia and by three studio sessions for ECM starting in 2019. Lovano is now a familiar figure for the Italian public, and will become even more so thanks to his current artistic direction of Bergamo Jazz.
Tapestry is a delicate creature whose rarefied and airy music requires total understanding and telepathic dialogue between three musicians who each give a different face to the trio. Compared to the last album ‘Our Daily Bread’, I had two main curiosities: that for Marylin Crispell’s piano, and to verify the trio’s ability to shake off a certain cold atmosphere of the recording (we are still in the ECM house after all…).
The Tapestry in a beautiful shot by Bart Babinsky, which recalls Lovano’s curious passion for an assorted set of small percussions, which compete in subtlety with Castaldi’s elusive drumming
The entire trio together is rare, more frequent dialogues between the members, and also windows of solo expression. The underlying key to the group’s music is the space that inhabits it, and which at the same time enhances its subtle and precious voices.
