snobb Since the introduction of the term "third stream" in the early 60s, there were many recordings released trying to combine jazz and classical music, with mixed success. Way too often the two genres crossover sounded like classic compositions adaptating to more modern sound by adding jazzy rhythms and arrangements, or contrarily - moving jazz bands to the music hall and extracting from their music groove and joy, leaving bloodless sterile compositions.

There still have been some successful examples of the concept, and Italian reedist Andrea Morelli's "Diffrazione" is one of them. Taking twelve compositions, written by two grands of the transition era from classic music era to modern days, Frenchman Eric Satie and American Duke Ellington. He adapted them for modern chamber sax/flute - piano duo with great success.

Eric Satie, French composer known from his compositions for piano, written in the end of the 19th century, isn't all that often cited by jazz musicians. Recognized as an avant-garde composer of sorts by his contemporaries, Satie wrote many short pieces where he rejected the classic idea of musical development, building the basis for coming soon minimalism, but still leaving a lot of romanticism elements in it.

"Diffrazione" contains eight short Satie pieces (mostly all popular "Gnossiennes","Gymnopedies" plus "Sarabande" and "Je te veux", all written between 1887 and 1913), all played by the duo of Andrea and Italian pianist Silvia Belfiore. All of them are musical pieces of exceptional beauty, sounding slightly melancholic but without nostalgia, with an excellent level of emotional taste. Warm and deep chamber sound brings the listener to characteristic atmosphere of European salon on the edge of nineteen and twenties centuries, leaving the old world for soon coming modern one, with all its expectations and troubles.

The album content's other half - five Ellington songs (written between 1928 and 1967). They are ambassadors of a new world here - more rhythmical, obviously less related with old-European classic legacy, and - much more optimistic. Still, adopted for chamber duo, Ellington songs sound softer, better rounded and with many emotional colors, more common for European music.

Placed in the album's program as almost always interchanging, Satie and Ellington musical compositions always differ by their mood, but surprisingly well fit, balancing each other. Altogether, they build that fragile form of jazz and classic crossover which balances on the edge between two genres never crossing the borders and producing music of new quality.

On the album's closer - Ellington's "Angelica" - duo is extended to trio, adding drummer Alessandro Garau. This gives more rhythmic qualities to the composition, which is quite playful itself, and perfectly closes the program on joyful, optimistic note.

Album's title "Diffrazione" means "diffraction", or deviation of waves from main trajectory (the effect, first observed by Italian Francesco Maria Grimaldi, by the way). On Morelli "Diffrazione" the listener can observe the deviation from classical and jazz main trajectories with an elegance and big respect to the source.

You don't need to be a fan of jazz or classics, or both, you don't even need to know all this music terms and tags - this is the music for everyone, excellent combination of taste and master ship.

snobb You don't need to speak Italian to understand what Both People album's opener is about. "La danza dell'elefante" composed by sax player Andrea Morelli and played with lot of enthusiasm by this Sardinian quintet will make dancing even elephants.

Three sax players (alto,soprano/tenor and baritone)plus muscular rhythm section consisting of electric bassist and rock-heavy drummer just released an excellent album covering some jazz epochs, from free-bop to eclectic crossover of avant-garde jazz and rock of nowadays.

Already mentioned above "Elephant Dance" is catchy tuneful song where three saxists playing unison push music ahead as if they are trying to bypass groovy rhythm section. Perfectly recorded,with crispy and spacey warm sound, this composition is a real hit and I am sure it will stay in your head for the rest of the day.

"Rhythm no changes" changes the intensity of sound towards more loose and relaxed modern free-bop where three saxes soloing against each other build beautiful and surprisingly accessible sound castles over anchoring bassist and drummer interplay.

"Playing is a little bit like fishing" sounds as partially dreamy (but way not sleepy) collective improvisation where is enough space not only for reedists' but for drummer and bassist soloing as well. Still it's a groovy bass which controls the music from being chaotic or loose. As a result we got quite a graceful composition of fragile beauty - really not very casual case speaking about free improvisations.

"Spring time" demonstrates more complex structure with regular rhythm changes and lot of sax free soloing, probably first albums song dedicated more to listener's head than his heart.

"Host ones" is a shortest album's composition and it fits well to be paired with the opener as "elephant ballet" second action's possible soundtrack.

Alto sax player Fabio Delvò another album's composition (after "Spring Time") - "Flying over the ocean" - is down tempo complex structure's one, with lot of space for soloing of each quintet member.

"Amazing (Sahel's crossing)" - a collective improvisation which closes the album - it's a down tempo composition with touch of sadness and North African scent from last few seconds soloing bass.It's understandable final - whole album is announced as "a recording project against the rampant racism of this historical period", and the Sahel is a transition zone between Sudan and Arabic Africa, former French colonies and one of the hot areas in Africa.

Add excellent sound recording and mix plus CD's box paper cover's high quality of printing, voilà - you have a great album, another good example of what is known as "best from Italy".

paperoga58 Take a classical and heterodox pianist, author of singular research on African cultured music, with a curriculum of over five hundred concerts and about fifteen discs in the studio and live. Add an imaginative and evocative saxophonist of equally long course with a lasting interest in modal jazz of African-American character. You will have in your hands Black Lands: A Tribute to Africa, disc entirely designed, made and produced in Sardinia, released last June of this 2018. Silvia Belfiore at the piano and Andrea Morelli at the winds deliver a beautiful and unusual record, very far from a long theory of jazz productions of great technical and compositional qualities but with reiterated and commercially reliable contents. We were talking about cultured African music, that is of music intentionally left in writing by contemporary composers of the continent. Works that find their roots in the oral and musical traditions otherwise not noted, exempt from aesthetic extemporaneousness and related to specific ritual and social circumstances of work, nomadism, marriage, death. The field research and the interpretations of Silvia Belfiore therefore go to compose the entire structure of absolute formal and executive rigor on which Andrea Morelli inserts his infinite melodic textures of improvisations and steps of scale.

The genesis of the title attributed to the album is passed by a denotative Mysterious Adventure to a more representative Black Landscapes, finally arriving at the now known Black Lands. And of purely black territories it is in fact, without the possibility of misunderstanding with western artistic interference except for the mere coming from Belfiore and Morelli from the island of Sardinia. An amazing work of a strongly identity nature, Black Lands consists of ten pieces executed at high level without interruption, qualified by an intense rhythmic component that finds its apex in the splendid Ukom on scores for talking drums by Nigerian Joshua Uzoigwe and in rhythms chasing broken Herero Wedding Dance on music by the Ghanese Fred Onovwerosuoke. In the album there are also three tributes: to Duke Ellington (Fleurette Africaine) to Abdullah Ibrahim (The Wedding) and John Cage (Mysterious Adventure), with the intimate final cameo of Andrea Morelli dedicated to Asmara, his city of choice and frequent returns, to close this latest production unexpected and of great value. Vanni Boni

Prendete una pianista classica e eterodossa, autrice di singolari ricerche sulla musica colta africana, con un curriculum di oltre cinquecento concerti e una quindicina tra dischi in studio e dal vivo. Aggiungete un sassofonista immaginifico e evocativo d’altrettanto lungo corso con un duraturo interesse per il jazz modale di impronta afro-americana. Avrete tra le mani Black Lands: A Tribute to Africa, disco interamente pensato, realizzato e prodotto in Sardegna, uscito lo scorso mese di giugno di questo 2018. Silvia Belfiore al pianoforte e Andrea Morelli ai fiati consegnano un disco bellissimo e inusuale, ben discosto da una lunga teoria di produzioni jazzistiche di grandi qualità tecniche e compositive ma dai contenuti reiterati e commercialmente affidabili. Dicevamo di musica africana colta, ossia di musica lasciata volutamente in forma scritta da compositori contemporanei del continente. Opere che trovano le proprie radici nelle tradizioni orali e musicali altrimenti non annotate, esenti da estemporaneità estetizzanti e correlate a specifiche circostanze rituali e sociali di lavoro, nomadismo, matrimonio, morte. Le ricerche sul campo e le interpretazioni di Silvia Belfiore vanno dunque a comporre l’intera struttura di assoluto rigore formale e esecutivo sulla quale Andrea Morelli inserisce le proprie infinite trame melodiche di improvvisazioni e salti di scala.

La genesi del titolo attribuito al disco è transitata da un denotativo Mysterious Adventure a un più rappresentativo Black Landscapes, approdando infine al Black Lands ora conosciuto. E di territori puramente neri infatti si tratta, senza possibilità di equivoco con interferenze artistiche occidentali eccezion fatta per il mero provenire di Belfiore e Morelli dall’isola di Sardegna. Opera sorprendente, di natura fortemente identitaria, Black Lands è costituito da dieci pezzi eseguiti ad elevato livello senza soluzione di continuità, qualificati da un’intensa componente ritmica che trova il suo apice nello splendido Ukom su partiture per talking drums del nigeriano Joshua Uzoigwe e nei ritmi a inseguirsi spezzati di Herero Wedding Dance su musiche del ghanese Fred Onovwerosuoke. Nel disco anche tre omaggi: a Duke Ellington (Fleurette Africaine) ad Abdullah Ibrahim (The Wedding) e John Cage (Mysterious Adventure), con l’intimo cameo finale di Andrea Morelli dedicato ad Asmara, sua città di elezione e di frequenti ritorni, a chiudere questa recentissima produzione inattesa e di gran pregio. Vanni Boni

paperoga58 On Andrea Morelli's new album, "Waves", three close-knit musicians explore the expressive possibilities offered by the sax trio. If the starting point of the Hard Up Trio is solid hard bop, then these nine tracks show us how Andrea Morelli, Massimo Spano and Alessandro Garau can move the barycentre towards different directions. First of all, there is the groove of opener, "Australopithecus", and the slightly Caribbean reflections of "Waves". Then a quick ex cursus in the radical seasons with the thoughtful "Calma Platta", and the articulated path of "Rithim no Change". There is also the pressing step of "Toledo", and the more metropolitan and nervous dimension on "Sync", plus the calm and intimate blues of "Internal Space". A ballad, "Solitude", is interpreted with fluid intensity and then the final and fast "Jungle Bells", on with which the trio gets closer to the atmosphere of bop.

The sound spectrum is widened by the choice of the three saxophones used by Morelli: above all tenor, and then soprano and sopranino: in this way, the songs take obviously different accents, while maintaining a background coherence that animates the whole album and comes from the aesthetic foundations chosen by the trio. The jazz of the fifties and early sixties, are Andrea's heroes and his logic, the vocabulary of sound and the substance of language: the references to Monk, Rollins, Ornette Coleman or Wayne Shorter - but also to Horace Silver and Dizzy Gillespie and, of course, to many other musicians of those seasons - is filtered through the agile formula of the sax trio and through the always convincing interplay between the three musicians."Waves" is part of the traditions of jazz: Morelli, Spano and Garau let us understand how they have listened and analyzed the records of the jazz greats and have deepened and developed their own way of interpreting from a comparison - fertile and not merely imitative - with the notes and the spirit of those works. - Fabio Ciminiera

Tre musicisti affiatati esplorano le possibilità espressive offerte dal sax trio. Se il punto di partenza dell'Hard Up Trio è un solido hard bop, le nove tracce ci mostrano come Andrea Morelli, Massimo Spano e Alessandro Garau spostino il baricentro verso direzioni diverse. Innanzitutto, il groove dell'apertura di Australopithecus e i riflessi lievemente caraibici di Waves, un veloce ex cursus nelle stagioni radicali con la riflessiva Calma Piatta e con il percorso articolato di Rhythm no Changes, il passo incalzante di Toledo e la dimensione più metropolitana e nervosa di Sync, il blues pacato e intimo di Internal Space, una ballata, Solitude, interpretata con disposizione fluida e intensa e la conclusiva e veloce Jungle Bells, con cui il trio si riavvicina alle atmosfere del bop.

Lo spettro sonoro viene ampliato dalla scelta dei tre sassofoni utilizzati da Morelli: tenore, soprattutto, e poi soprano e sopranino: in questo modo, i brani prendono accenti ovviamente diversi, pur mantenendo una coerenza di fondo che anima tutto il disco e proviene dal riferimento continuo alle fondamenta estetiche scelte dal trio. Il jazz degli anni Cinquanta e dell'inizio degli anni Sessanta, i suoi eroi e le sue logiche, il vocabolario sonoro e la sostanza del linguaggio: il riferimento ai vari Monk, Rollins, Ornette Coleman o Wayne Shorter - ma anche ad Horace Silver e Dizzy Gillespie e, naturalmente, a molti altri musicisti di quelle stagioni - viene filtrato attraverso la formula agile del sax trio e attraverso l'interplay sempre convincente tra i tre musicisti. Pur senza rinunciare al proprio punto di vista, Waves si colloca nell'alveo delle tradizioni del jazz: Morelli, Spano e Garau lasciano capire come abbiano ascoltato e sviscerato i dischi dei grandi del jazz e abbiano approfondito e sviluppato il loro modo di interpretare a partire da un confronto - fertile e non meramente imitativo - con le note e con lo spirito di quei lavori. - Fabio Ciminera