GIORGIO GASLINI SESTETTO – Graffiti (2LP-1978)

Label: Dischi Della Quercia – 2Q 28005

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Italy / Released: 1978

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation, Avant-garde

Recorded at: Live al Teatro Lirico di Milano il 22 novembre 1977.

Engineer: Giuseppe Setaro

Cover Photos: Paola Mattioli

Sextett Photo: Laura Rizzi

G r a f f i t i

A1 - Black Out ........................................ 9:54

A2 - Soul Street ....................................... 7:58

B1 - Ballo Popolare Sui Navigli .............. 5:42

B2 - Black Night, Black Light ............... 12:25

C1 – Tastiere .......................................... 12:05

C2 - Mexico City Free ............................. 9:22

            -

D1 - Alle Fonti Del Jazz .......................... 8:15

D2 - La Ballata Del Pover Luisin ............ 8:47

Giorgio Gaslini – piano, electric piano, spinetta

Gianni Bedori – tenore and soprano sax

Gianluigi Trovesi – alto and soprano sax, bass clarinet

Paolo Damiani – double-bass

Gianni Cazzola – drums

Luis Agudo – percussions

In 1960 Gaslini wrote and recorded the music for Michelangelo Antonioni’s masterpiece La Notte. Five years later he made a record called Nuovi Sentimenti (New Feelings), with a band including Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Gato Barbieri, two bassists and two drummers: an early example of a European musician embracing the avant garde. Since then he has written and recorded music in just about every conceivable format, from solos and duos through a regular quartet that featured the fine Italian tenorist Gianni Bedori, to quintets, sextets, septets, octets and many kinds of  large ensemble; he has composed jazz pieces for his own big band and the Italian Instabile Orchestra, symphonies, choral pieces, ballet scores, and an opera called Colloquio per Malcolm X.

 Giorgio Gaslini

 Gianluigi Trovesi

...However, the most fully realised music is contained on the two albums devoted to a sextet he led in the late ’70s, with Bedori on tenor and soprano saxes, Gianluigi Trovesi on alto and soprano sax and bass clarinet, Paolo Damiani on double bass, Gianni Cazzola on drums and Luis Agudo on percussion. The first of them, dating from 1977, is called Free Actions and sounds today as fresh and compelling as any post-Coltrane jazz that was being played anywhere in the world at the time. Better than that: anyone listening to the brilliantly imaginative solos of Bedori and  Trovesi against an active, hard-swinging ostinato figure during the fifth and final movement of the suite from which the album takes its name might well find themselves thinking of the current Wayne Shorter Quartet, and concluding that the Italians are not shamed by such an exalted comparison, even though they were making their music almost three and a half decades ago.

The second sextet album, Graffiti, was recorded live in Milan the following year and is equally as good. Again it’s a suite, and one of the movements — called “Soul Street” — brilliantly captures the spirit of the Charles Mingus of East Coasting and Jazz Portraits. It’s also in this track that Gaslini’s piano solo demonstrates how well he can blend the free with the funky. Once again Bedori and Trovesi are outstanding throughout, while Damiani’s sinewy bass lines remind me of his British contemporary, the late, lamented Jeff Clyne...

My favorite album for this month. Enjoy!

If you find it, buy this album!