Edition number 13 of the Festival, this time in full coincidence with The
Liberation Day (April 25th), the national holiday celebrating the 80th
anniversary of the victory against nazi-fascists troops that were still
occupying northern Italy. Torino and Piedmont were the fulcrum of the
partisans struggle and paid a tremendous price in terms of dead or tortured
people, mostly very young. As usual, the TJF took place in several
locations across the city. A snapshot of the concerts we attended, as
follows.
ENRICO RAVA – Fearless Five (Teatro Colosseo, April 23)
The old Maestro (85 years old) is back in his hometown when in 1956,
attending the Miles’s concert, had the epiphany that drove him to buy a
trumpet and become the legendary musician we know. Along his long career,
he used to give a chance to a lot of “rookies” (what a real Maestro should
always do…) and this time ain’t an exception: all members of the band,
Fearless Five, are around their 30s and, needless to say, fully deserve to
be Rava’s partners in crime for this stage of his endless sonic journey.
Matteo Paggi (trombone), Francesco Ponticelli (double bass), Francesco
Diodati (guitar) and Evita Polidoro (drums, vocal) deliver full cylinders
swing flavors, free escapades boosted by electronics, as well as
Abercrombie-esque guitar nuances, in a smooth circular, democratic and
mutual exchange with Enrico’s flugelhorn, still cristal and pristine like
fresh mountain water. They won Musica Jazz magazine’s 2025 poll, both as
best band and best record and the sold out theater (1500 seats) eventually
saluted those fearless souls with endless applause. No doubt, the
trumpeters (see also Wadada and McPhee) traded their souls at the Crossroad
for the Eternal Youth.
FERRAIUOLO/MIRABASSI – Disubbidire sempre (Educatorio della
Provvidenza, April 24)
Despite a solid classical upbringing, the duo of Fausto Ferraiuolo (piano)
and Gabriele Mirabassi (clarinet) pushes full speed ahead towards unusual
music territories, picking up and mixing genres, influences and styles,
leaving the comfort zone as soon as they can and forcing the audience to
listen to their music without too many landmarks and paradigms. They
emphasize the ludic subtext of their concert and the solid interplay, the
intertwined and overlapped musical textures are certainly joyful and
emotional, through a well working balance between composed structures and
free expression. “Disubbidire sempre” (“Disobey always”, a wonderful
project-title that alone was worth being there), aptly fits this ongoing
exploration of new and challenging musical paths.
CALIBRO 35 – Exploration (Teatro Colosseo, April 24)
Undisputed aces from Milano, self defined as “jazz robbers”, we owe them
the retro futuristic re-discovery of those soundtracks mined from the
inexhaustible goldmine of the 60’s and 70’s Italian B movies (if not C or
D…). While the films certainly didn’t leave a mark in the Cinema’s Holy
Book, totally different was their musical cotè. The likes of Piccioni,
Bakalov, Umiliani, Micalizzi, Ortolani, Martelli, Lesinar, just to name a
few and without considering Morricone, were off the scale, top notch
composers, ignored by the Kritiks and forgotten under the dust of time,
before, thanks to Easy Tempo and Soul Jazz collections, Tarantino’s
worshipping and the works of Mike Patton and John Zorn, they eventually
found a decent spotlight on their enormous class and talent. Calibro 35’s
blasting sound, through covering obscure pebbles or writing new material,
wonderfully able to avoid an algid and calligraphic coverage, deliver hot
and sweaty grooves, greasy blaxploitation lines that make you feel at the
wheel of Starsky & Hutch’s Gran Torino, screeching the tyres on today’s
L.A. freeways. The chemistry between the four musicians (Massimo
Martellotta guitar, synth; Enrico Gabrielli flute, saxophone, keyboards,
electronics; Fabio Rondanini drums; Roberto Dragonetti bass) after almost
20 years spent playing all over the globe, allows the rocket ship to fly
with a nitro booster, driving the screaming, ecstatic audience completely
nuts.
ZOE PIA – Eic eden inverted collective “Atlantidei” (Teatro Vittoria,
April 25)
Paraphrasing the theory of cognitive balance, according to which “the enemy
of my enemy is my friend”, we could say that anyone who plays with our
heroes will alway deserve the admission ticket. This is what happens with
Zoe Pia, the young musician (clarinet, launeddas, electronics) from
Sardinia who played a bunch of dates with Mats Gustafsson last year,
leaving behind a huge stream of positive reviews, thus making it mandatory
for us to attend her gig, the live debut of the project “Atlantidei”. Four
young percussionists (Mattia Pia, Nicola Ciccarelli, Paolo Nocentini, Carlo
Alberto Chittolina), from classical music upbringing, shake the venue to
its foundations, beating every kind of beatable instrument: bass, snare,
tom, cymbals, vibraphone, xylophone, marimbas, kettledrum, tambourine,
gong, even a plastic basin, building up a fascinating, polychrome, sonic
landscape in which Zoe is unrolling her amazing, tangled textures. The
outcome is never cacophonic or out of focus but rather lyrical and
compelling, thanks to a brave, emotional and uncompromising performance,
able to move the audience deeply. Such a free-ancestral voyage, starting
from the mythical Atlantide/Sardinia, finds its arrival station on the
Black Continent with the band leaving the stage muttering a litany called
“Africa”: no better way to end a really beautiful concert.
VIJAY IYER – Piano solo (Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi, April 25)
Piano solo is a peculiar beast, definitely not a couch pet and, to be
honest, not our super favorite cup of tea but given that: 1) we have a
super handy chance to see Iyer for the first time; 2) to skip such a gig
could leave a bitter wave of regrets for very long time; 3) our solo
records by Evans and Monk were worn out by thousands of listens, we head to
the Conservatorio Hall, fuelled with confidence and hope. A magnificent
grand piano placed beside the enormous, towering, ancient pipe organ, pride
of the prestigious musical institution, is welcoming the people for a sold
out gig. Not a typical jazz audience, we’d say, but, yes, you’re right,
what the hell is a “typical jazz audience”? Then Vijay enters the stage, a
slight bow and takes place on the piano. Dead silence, music, applause,
standing up, slight bow, dead silence, music, applause and so on, the same
ritual until the very end. Hyper virtuosity, crossed-handed playing,
mathematical progressions: is this jazz? Or is it classical music? Or are
our skills too weak and inadequate to understand what is it? Silly
questions, sure thing. The concert goes and so does the unease. Mental
flashbacks bring us back Breezy screaming at the audience “have hugs, have
drinks, make noise!”. Silly thoughts, sure things. Don’t get us wrong: no
blasphemy or disrespect towards a sheer, undisputed musical talent, just a
place light years beyond our idea of jazz. And music. Simple as that.
JAN BANG SEXTET – “Alighting” (Hiroshima mon Amour, April 25)
The Norwegian musician and producer, long time collaborator of the likes of
Hamid Drake, Jon Hassel and David Sylvian, founder of the Punkt Festival,
is coming to town with a project specifically composed for the Festival,
called “Alighting”, delivered by an ad hoc sextet of musicians, gathered on
stage for the very first time. Along with the band leader (voice, live
sampling), we find the astonishing turkish, Amsterdam-based Sanem Kalfa
(voice, cello); the Catalan Santi Careta (acoustic and electric guitar);
from Norway Mats Eilertsen (double bass) and Eivind Aarset (guitar,
electronics); on drums the “Enfant du Pays”, the mighty Michele Rabbia. No
boundaries, no walls, no tariffs, no gods, just a common language: the
music. Bang lends the voice to almost every song and his monochromatic
singing à la David Sylvian, smoothly matches the labyrinthic plots
beautifully drawn by such marvellous music partners. The suffused
atmospheres and the tinged, almost ambient, textures would have needed a
more intimate seating theater, maybe, while the legendary Hiroshima, an
all-stand-up venue with the boozer just a few meters from the stage, is
better suited for Cockney Rejects or Henry Rollins than for scandinavian
jazz, you bet, but everything went really well and the audience warmly
appreciated.
TONONI/CAVALLANTI – “Nexus plays Dolphy” (Casa Teatro Ragazzi, April
26)
Nexus is an open project put in place in 1981 by drummer Tiziano Tononi and
reedist Daniele Cavallanti that involved along the years the “Parterre des
Rois” of Italian jazz scene: Enrico Rava, Gabriele Mitelli, Gianluca
Trovesi; Pasquale Mirra, Silvia Bolognesi, to name a few. After around ten
records of original compositions, along with tributes to Ornette Coleman,
Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, Don Cherry, Roland Kirk, John Carter, John
Gilmore and Charles Mingus, this time, as a new chapter of their sonic
adventures, they decided to challenge one of the most vertical music walls:
Eric Dolphy. The master Roberto Ottaviano (soprano sax), Alessandro
Castelli (trombone), Emanuele Parrini (violin), Luca Gusella (vibraphone),
Andrea Grossi (double bass) are the climbing companions of Tononi and
Cavallanti, engaged in the almost impossible task of walking on thin ice,
avoiding to fall down in the crevasses of pale xerox copies or
disrespectful outcomes. And they win because they dare to dare: keeping the
Dolphian coordinates as untouchable cardinal points, they freely float
through the most impervious and tricky routes on the map. The engine runs
so perfectly oiled that even the violin (despite some pretty solid
counter-evidence, not a jazz device, sorry) sounds as a necessary tool. The
dedication of the final song to the people of Gaza is a commendable note for
this great combo. FYI, an official record of this tribute is available.
LAKECIA BENJAMIN – “Phoenix Reimagined” (Teatro Colosseo, April 28th)
If any Festival worthy of the name has (must have..) its moment of Glamour,
this was Lakecia’s gig, no doubt. The White House Inauguration, Obama’s
appreciation, The Late Night Shows, the covers of every music magazine from
Pocatello to Timbuktu, the nearly fatal car incident, her platforms and
golden lamè outfit, all helped to make mrs. Benjamin the Last Sensation in
Town, or, at least, one of them. Such a freight train of hype preceding her
arrival in Torino made us pretty cautious and suspicious but, as for any
snobbish preconception (that was ours), we were wrong, totally wrong.
Sublime class, enthusiastical verve, contagious involvement, unstoppable
positive mood, make the concert a 1000 Fahrenheit degrees live experience,
electrocuting the sold out venue. The musical palette is polychrome and
challenging: intense solos; credible street rhymes shot like an AK 47;
impeccable balance on the high tension wires of “My favorite thing”; a
leader always devoted to an ongoing and generous interplay with band
members. Needless to say, the level of the musicians on stage is worthy of
her: Elias Bailey and Dorian Phelps are the powerhouse rhythm section,
while the Corean John Chin paints on piano terrific textures à la Chick
Corea. The final encore, a thermonuclear rendition of Booker T’s “Green
Onions” blows off the roof, testifying that jazz is not and will never be a
rhetorical, academic exercise.
DUDU’ KOUATE 4TET – (Teatro Juvarra, April 30)
From the arrival on Sicilian shores as an immigrant from Senegal to become
the percussionist of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago: this simple sentence
could summarize the adventurous personal and artistic life of Dudù Quate,
the last musician we saw at this edition of the TJF. Kouate, coming from a
griot upbringing, spent his life collecting songs, musical sketches,
patterns and rituals from different African languages, then combined them
with contemporary languages, thus building a bridge between tradition and
innovation. Easy to say, much more difficult to realise, avoiding a
watered, undrinkable “fusion”, good for a dentist’s waiting room but not
for our Blog. The stage test dispels all doubts, fully accomplishing the
goal through a well focused deployment of ideas onto sounds, beautifully
delivered by Simon Sieger (piano, keyboards, trombone); Alan Keary
(electric bass, violin) and Zeynep Ayse Hatipoglu (cello), while Dudù,
beside voice, ngoni, water drum and talking drum, is committed to beating a
very wide range of tribal percussions. As he explained, the 4TET offers to
past and future sounds and voices the chance to be gathered together,
building up a moment of unity and brotherhood, according to the African
principle of Ubuntu: I am because we are. The collaboration with Moor
Mother will generate a record, scheduled for the beginning of 2026, and we
already tied a string around our finger.
