High Five: Jazz Desire (CD)

High Five

CD

CD (Compact Disc)

Conventional CD, playable with all CD players and computer drives, but also with most SACD or multiplayers.

deliverable within one week (if available from supplier)

Current price: EUR 12.99

Shipping (United States of America): EUR 19.90

Label:: Via Veneto
Item number:: 5755239
UPC/EAN:: 8013358200475
Release date:: 30.5.2018

Product Information

Second album for the High Five, young reality but already well established in the Italian jazz scene. The band compisition, its first appearance in 2002, has suffered only a change, for unfortunate reasons: the very talented pianist Julian Oliver Mazzariello, who many will remember for the extraordinary touch and uncommon talent as composer, has now left the business for health's problems.

He has been replaced by the Sardinian pianist Luca Mannutza (with stylistic qualities obviously different but equally worthy of note), which qualities album are well in this illustrates also signing two compositions, one of which, Free, highlights a particular lyricism, delicate and evocative. Let's get then to the album, whose songs have been inspired by a short stay in a buen retiro of Salerno, in October 2003: stylistically continues on the path of the New Hard Bop, already begun with the first album; but musically the material reveals that the five »young lions« have grown and matured, not only about years but especially for the musical experiences made: the quintet holds a large number of concerts throughout Italy, with episodes becoming more frequent in France that it contributes greatly for the feelings among musicians and the creation of internal balance always different and new.

In fact, the album, the songs reveal a harmonic and melodic construction particularly elaborate, and a very articulated structure that develops in different directions and always unpredictable, as if the musicians had internalized the lessons of the Hard Bop and then take a road absolutely personal. The track list is very homogeneous - every musician, except the drummer, signs a couple of compositions - and opens with the beautiful song of Daniele Scannapieco Conversation, which also closes the album, presented in this case, in the guise of double remix made by DJ Nicola Conte (who, you know, very frequents jazz and has been working with the members of the quintet, making use of their contribution to their musical creations).

The second piece is a tribute to a cult piece of rock history: Another One Bites the Dust of group-icon Queen; not a cover, but a rewrite that finds and highlights, thanks to the play of references of the winds, the swing inherent in the song in the original version. Among the other songs will highlight, in our view, Dubai, hard bop signed by Fabrizio Bosso - who also designed the exquisite ballad Wide Green Eyes -, and The Drivers, signed by Pietro Ciancaglini; but it has to be evaluated as a whole this album of the quintet, that does not disprove the expectations that had been created two years ago, when publishing the first album, but offers the public a work mature and aware, animated by a high inner energy and ideas while respecting the tradition, which is rather rare, today, in the crowded Italian jazz scene.