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Critic's Review
Glenn Astarita, All Music Guide
Accordionist/composer Gianni Coscia employs the Orchestra da Camera di Nembro Enea Salmeggia to coincide with his jazz-based septet featuring woodwind great Gianluigi Trovesi. Simply put, this effort signifies Coscia's growing importance in jazz and third stream-type initiatives, although he is not a household name in the United States. Few contemporary jazz artists can boast such a fine track record when combining orchestral arrangements with swiftly executed jazz frameworks. They meld lush and rather heavenly themes on the opening piece, titled "L'Orchestra del Cuore." Here, the orchestra provides accenting choruses amid interlacing tapestries of sound to complement the septet's Mediterranean-style motifs and brisk sense of swing, as the ensemble unifies mood-evoking passages with silky smooth arrangements via a series of seamlessly developed transformations. Coscia and his bandmates triumphantly morph traditional jazz values with flights of the imagination, as Trovesi's distinguishable clarinet and sax work comes to the forefront throughout. Nonetheless, the striking aspect of this production relates to how it all seems to fall into place, in a natural sort of way. Chalk it up to the musicians' effortless execution of the material and Coscia's deeply focused artistic faculties. Zestfully recommended.
