Import CD – AU9053 – Trentacinque – Simone Graziano Frontal

Notes

Italian pianist Simone Graziano’s third album “Trentacinque” (“thirtyfive”) is out on September 18 under Auand Records. It marks his second recording as a leader of his quintet, Frontal, featuring Gabriele Evangelista on double bass, Stefano Tamborrino on drums, David Binney on alto sax as well as the new entry Dan Kinzelman on tenor sax.
Many details hide under the title number: first of all, the years Graziano has spent around Florence, his native city, which is one of the main inspirations of this work. Nevertheless, “3” is the amount of his recordings so far and “5” indicates both the group members and the meter of most compositions.

Graziano’s tracks are made up of elaborated structures and improvisation, his ensemble looking back at long-term bands in traditional jazz, working on a signature collective sound.

The track list starts with the improvisation in B-Polar, analyzing bipolarity in music and expressing the wish to reconnect distant ends.
Following up is White Piano, a cold ballad highlighting Graziano’s classy approach. Unlike his previous album “Frontal” (2013), the Italian jazz pianist -who studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston – now adds rhythmic illusions deriving from electronic music, as in Falk The Bow, with upbeats and downbeats mixing up over and over.

A short divertissement on a groove, Give Me Some Options is pure improvisation, while the counterpoint on Window On A Better World underlines a polyphonic dialogue. As additional proofs of his powerful narrative writing, Blu Piano and Killcoal undergo different approaches in descriptive music. Intro K.B. unveils a taste for an unpredictable use of electronics, while Kamennaya Baba faces hip hop.

Graziano’s list of collaborations keeps growing, as, he has been working with the likes of Chris Speed, David Binney, Tim Berne, Gilad Atzmon and Paul McCandless over the past few years.

His debut album “Lightwalls” (Dodicilune, 2009) was included among the 100 best Italian jazz albums on Jazzit magazine, and Graziano himself was nominated as best rising star on Musica Jazz Magazine’s 2010 poll. “Frontal” (Auand Records, 2013), his second album, features Chris Speed, David Binney, Gabriele Evangelista and Stefano Tamborrino.