Featuring Piero Bittolo Bon on alto sax, contrabass, reed/trumpet & electronics, Peter Evans on trumpet & piccolo trumpet, Simone Massaron on electric & acoustic guitars & lapsteel, Glauco Benedetti on tuba and Tommaso Cappellato on drums. You should be familiar with Mr. Bittolo Bon as he has can be found on a dozen+ discs from the El Gallo Rojo, Clean Feed and Long Song labels with Orange Room, Rollerball and A.I.R.E.. The same can be said for guitarist Simone Massaron, who is also found on several discs on Long Song and El Gallo Rojo. Drummer Cappellato has actually recorded with two Downtown units: the Minus One trio with Michael Blake and in Iron Dog with Sarah Bernstein and Stuart Popejoy. Downtown trumpet great, Peter Evans, gets consistent accolades for the many great situations he places himself within.
This disc is nearly 75 minutes long and I listened to the entire offering the other day: I remain immensely impressed. This disc sounds like it was improvised in the studio and the quintet had a good deal of time to explore different strategies or combinations. The one member I was not familiar with is the tuba player, Mr. Benedetti, who is consistently amazing, whether playing bass parts and interacting creatively with all members throughout. No one here seems to care about genres or styles so we never know which direction any piece will take. Hence, the alto sax, trumpet, guitar, tuba & drums are in constant flux switching combinations and interacting on several levels simultaneously. This is one of those discs that I had to keep reminding myself as to who it was since it keeping changing and ends up in all kinds of unexpected places. Mr. Massaron switches to acoustic guitar on one track, playing some bluesy licks while inserts occasional flurries of notes, speeding up and slowing down to add some equally bluesy refrains. An astonishing amount of surprises are in store for those brave enough to listen this entire lengthy epic.
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Bruce Lee Gallanter