This 46th edition had US saxman Joe Lovano as guest artistic director again, while festival head Roberto Valentino ensured everything ran smoothly. The “Sounds of Joy” moniker, which audiences heard at the introduction of every concert from MC Lovano, originates from an album title of his. The shows took place in the uptown and downtown parts of the city, connected by seriously inclined cobblestone streets. The spectacular-looking Teatro Donizetti and Teatro Sociale, the great-sounding auditorium on Piazza della Libertà and the smaller-sized Teatro Sant’Andrea, Sala Piatti, Circolino offer varied listening spaces. The schedule had a fair share of forward-looking music on offer, whether composed or improvised, interspersed with mainline acts.
Day 1
The unavoidable delay when traveling low-cost from Toulouse meant missing the opening concert, a solo by piano great Aruan Ortiz . His work, both as a leader and sideman (in James Brandon Lewis’ Quartet) is among the most exciting on the scene. No Cub(an)ism on arrival then, but the evening started in dolce vita fashion with the sleek jazz of Italian pianist Antonio Faraò, who led a trio consisting of Ameen Saleem on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums. They quietly unfolded the repertoire of the Tributes album (Criss Cross Jazz). Faraò aims to bridge the straight-ahead and the open playing, the modern jazz of his influences (Hancock, Solal, Tyner, Evans, Corea) with earlier traditions. He has played with many of US big names, but retains some traits more often associated with European jazz. His every strike is assured yet relaxed, and he enjoys freely hovering over the foundations laid down by his partners. This is comfortable music, impervious to the ills of the world, instead opting to take a stroll through various states of well being, sometimes sparse and dreamy, sometimes animated but rarely losing its temper. Joe Lovano makes a guest musical appearance on soprano, noticeably invigorating the trio and bringing more warmth to the affair.
Day 2
The music began with quartet La Via del Ferro, whose members come from London, Rome, Paris and New Zealand. Each of them, we’re told, have their own careers as bandleaders, and reconvene occasionally with this project. The band lacks the kind of unity that can only come from steadily sharing the stage. On tenor sax, Alex Hitchcock convincingly navigates a line combining a lightness of touch with an attention-grabbing sound. He’s rather unsuccessfully trying to catch his colleagues’ eyes for interaction. The band often gets tangled up in repeating patterns that are closing possibilities rather than opening them. Most tunes follow a given path without deviation or surprise, and end in predictable overdrive. Drummer Myele Manzanza yields to speed intoxication and endangers the collective balance with his heavy-hitting showiness. Piano and synth player Maria Chiara Argirò seems to come from the pop, soundtrack and classical schools rather than the jazz world. Home embraces rock and a breakbeat-based tune follows. On electric bass, Michelangelo Scandroglio supports the proceedings to the best of his abilities.
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| Simoni:Teolis |
A happy discovery came in the form of Italian duo Simoni:Teolis aka Lorenzo Simoni on alto sax and Iacopo Teolis on trumpet, in the unlikely context of a fully operational chic restaurant. In this perilous instrumental association, the pair simultaneously tackle rhythm and melody, delivering solos and complementing each other. That takes some stamina and surefootedness, considering that the duo setting means a merciless exposure with nowhere to hide. The compositions include a suite recorded on Openings, and total improvisations. The duo resorts to fast, quasi be-bop playing without a rhythm section, makes use of extended techniques the next moment, and digs up a Sam Rivers track. Towards the end they play with more power, with growls on the flugelhorn and vocalizations on the saxophone. Ideas and sounds are well-chosen, not imitative of other players, making for a very satisfying listen.
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| Lux Quartet. Photo by Gianfranco Rota
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With powerhouse performer Myra Melford (piano), something is always going to happen. The co-led Lux Quartet (with drummer and longtime Melford colleague Allison Miller) plays the first concert of a mini-tour. The repertoire is culled from 2024’s Tomorrowland (which has Scott Colley on bass instead of Nick Dunston), one piece also appearing on Melford’s 2025 trio album Splash. Multi-sax player Dayna Stephens had previously been spotted in the Billy Hart Quartet. Curiously, he’s the one who seems to improvise the least. He’ll get more assertive on the encore, sporting an abrasive tone for the first time. Dunston’s potent and precise playing works wonders and his commitment to and empathy with the leaders’ compositions are remarkable. Solos are ever woven into the music’s fabric. A succession of eloquent duos and trios make up the bulk of the concert, the full quartet coming together only intermittently. This blend of modern straight-ahead and avant-jazz is met with huge applause from the full 1200-seats Donizetti.
The previous edition saw a trio of Danilo Pérez (piano & synth), John Patitucci (bass) and Adam Cruz (drums) delighting audiences with their playful approach. Two of them are back, this time with drummer Brian Blade, aka the Wayne Shorter Quartet in the genius’ later years. To pay tribute to their mentor, tenor Ravi Coltrane, whose name inevitably suggests a connection to another towering figure, was invited. A long and meandering first track sets the tone: the music spreads out slowly, its shapes blurry rather than clear-cut. Missing are Shorter’s sudden bursts of inspiration which propelled the band and audiences to higher spheres, and much of the set lacks that adventurous spirit – often a curse of supergroups. Lovano joining the band on soprano finally sees the music take off on a glorious version of Witch Hunt, leading Coltrane Jr. to awaken and give his all, his playing much improved. Similarly spurred on, the original trio plays with undeniable fire, making the last thirty minutes the best of an otherwise languishing set.
Day 3
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| Alexander Hawkins Dialect Quintet. Photo by Gianfranco Rota
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Alexander Hawkins (piano) has published record after record of original, mind-boggling music, never repeating a formula and likely never having one. This project is another worthwhile one to add to that list. The Dialect Quintet made its first public performance the year before in Novara, in less than adequate listening conditions. The band is back with a vengeance after that debut gig, this time benefiting from the friendly acoustics of the Città Bassa’s auditorium and able to present the full extent of their music. The quintet is made up of Bergamo-grown drummer Francesca Remigi, plus Camila Nebbia on tenor sax, Giacomo Zanus on electric guitar and Ferdinando Romano on bass. The sound is loud, the bass booming, yet each one is heard clearly. The feel is open and grooving at the same time. The hard-to-pin-down and sometimes befuddling pieces take some getting used to – much like Hawkins’s relationship to Henry Threadgill’s music before he “got” it – as he told us here. The Oxford pianist cultivates the unusual, the jagged and odd, the lesser-traveled roads, which he builds and expands upon. Solutions and resolutions are not the most obvious ones. The unstable compositions include Jason Yarde’s 'Thank you for Today', Jerome Cooper’s 'For the People', Leroy Jenkins’ 'Albert Ayler, his life was too short' and others penned by the leader. A composition shifts to hushed tones, with deliberate small actions from the guitar. It is hard to guess when the band members roam freely and when they reconnect to the script. A previously-heard melody (which you are unlikely to whistle in the shower) re-emerges from Nebbia’s sax, followed by a wayward piano excursion. The last piece remains on the threshold of silence, and Hawkins lets the last key stroke reach the end of its resonance and even allows a minute of silence after it. A brave and successful move that leads the audience to keep quiet and hold their breath.
Reporters are driven through somber, derelict industrial areas of the city to an unlikely venue directly adjacent to a youthful and noisy bar complete with techno music, which sounds hit the audience and band every time the door opens. Remote from the city landmarks, the warehouse is nonetheless full, the festival a major attraction to locals and visitors alike. A classically-shaped quartet (Maniscalco Trioplus Pietro Tonolo on tenor sax) is led by Brescia pianist Emanuele Maniscalco and includes all the elements that have defined jazz for decades. The acoustic combo (with Francesco Bordignon on bass and Oliver Laumann on drums) plays structured tunes, either composed by the pianist or covers ('House Party Starting' by Herbie Nichols, based on the version by Steve Lacy, Misha Mengelberg et al from Change of Season on the invaluable Soul Note label; ' Ad Infinitum' by Carla Bley, 'Stelle' by Roberto Soggetti, 'Reincarnation of a Lovebird' by Charles Mingus).
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| Enrico Rava. Photo by Gianfranco Rota
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Trumpeter and tonight mostly flugelhorn player Enrico Rava is no stranger to these pages. His name is an important one in European jazz in general and on the ECM label in particular. For the “Fearless Five,” he’s surrounded himself with young blood : Matteo Paggi (trombone), Francesco Diodati (guitar),Francesco Ponticelli (bass),and Evita Polidoro (drums), each oozing talent and ideas. The concert starts off with an electronics-fuelled, abstract, energetic and free romp. In the middle of the storm, Rava’s characteristic lyricism appears as the guiding lighthouse for the music to find its way to the shore. Obviously proud of his trombonist, Rava encourages him to take center stage. By contrast, the next piece exudes a slow and sad mood with a Latin tinge. It sings and successfully integrates the blues to its discourse. Rava excels in rapid flurries as when stating melody. He invites his old pal Lovano and they’re off to a touching flugelhorn/soprano duet, before the whole band joins in, the music then veering into a three-horned, hard-swinging piece.
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| The Cookers. Photo by Gianfranco Rota
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The Cookers are Eddie Henderson (tp), David Weiss (tp), Azar Lawrence (tenor sax), Donald Harrison (alto sax), George Cables (piano), Cecil McBee (bass) and Billy Hart (drums). Historically, McBee is heard on much-loved sessions by Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Charles Lloyd, Andrew Hill, Wayne Shorter, Sam Rivers, Charles Tolliver, Sunny Murray, John Tchicai, while Hart and Henderson were part of the most advanced electro-acoustic jazz band of its day (Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi), and Lawrence started out in the fusion era, under his own name, on Miles Davis’ searing Dark Magus and as a regular member of McCoy Tyner’s punchy mid-70s ensembles. Tonight’s music doesn’t hark back to those records at all, instead firmly focusing on the previous decade’s hard-bop, revived as early as the 1980s after the initial free jazz wave receded. 'Peacemaker' sounds familiar… I first heard it on the 1989 Black Saint album Unforeseen Blessings by The Leaders – an altogether different band from The Cookers, with only composer McBee as common denominator. Hart and Henderson would join that group’s last opus in 2006, and soldier on in The Cookers. The square compositions stand the test of time, the playing is strong and precise (with Azar Lawrence’s solos the most original and heartfelt), the septet often sounding like a big band. The well-honed set doesn’t appear as fundamentally different, however, than listening to a record, with everything happening according to plan. Hart is still a joy to watch and listen to, never quite repeating himself. Apart from the Freddie Hubbard-penned C.O.R.E., most the compositions are by Cables. The set represents a branch of the jazz tree that has remained aesthetically unchanged over the years, oblivious to the manifold evolutions of the genre, even while some band members participated in said evolutions.
Day 4
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| Jordina Millà and Barry Guy. Photo by Gianfranco Rota
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The morning concert is by Catalonia’s Jordina Millà (piano) and the UK’s Barry Guy (bass), who published two duet albums including Live in Munich reviewed by Sarah Grosser on this website. Guy moves with the agility of a judoka or dancer, his every gesture proceeding of a choreography that is as graceful as it is spontaneous. Figuratively and literally, he seems capable of flying, whether he throws his arms in the air, grabs objects from a table to use against the wood of the bass, inserts and manipulates metal bars behind the strings, or clowns around with a paintbrush on the grand piano’s lid. Millà is less keen on the pantomime and favors an impressionistic approach at first, before switching to extended techniques, getting up to play inside the piano, blocking the strings and rubbing erasers on them to wonderful result. The conversation proves intense and restrained, deep and light-hearted at the same time, a super sensitiveness at work, the slightest sound weighing in the argument, to the point where the breathing from the audience is louder than the sounds emitted by the artists. Guy’s instrument appears as a bottomless well of sonorous vibrations. For thirty uninterrupted minutes, the musicians are in a trance. After a bit of clapping they’re at it again, in contrasting fashion, the strings attacked with muscle and at breakneck speed. The friction, pinching and slapping are such that we’re clenching teeth and expecting a string to break. After which the duo reverts back to cloudless soundscapes, and, in a last stylistic rollercoaster, utters gurgly sounds on a short encore.
The clockwork piano duo of Tania Giannouli & Nik Bärtsch performs a similar set to their Mannheim’s “Enjoy Jazz” appearance in 2023. Stubborn cadences lock into each other with seemingly innate joint impulses, connections and thoughts transfers that have to come from thorough preparation and a finely tuned conception. It all seems as if the two musicians are extensions of the same mind. The unflinching execution is paramount to the achievement of this music, which, for all its accuracy, isn’t devoid of sentiment or flexibility. Some compositions linger in the mind, one a dark nursery rhyme.
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| Marc Ribot’s “Hurry Red Telephone”. Photo by Gianfranco Rota |
Guitar player-singer-songwriter Marc Ribot’s “Hurry Red Telephone” project was programmed in Hamburg last year, with a different line-up except from drummer Chad Taylor. Sebastian Steinberg replaces Hilliard Greene on bass, and Ava Mendoza is the guitar sparring-partner instead of Mary Halvorson. Mendoza appears as a better fit for this style, unless it was the sound mixing that had Halvorson seldom heard in Germany. This evening is the last of a 9-dates tour of Europe, before Ribot embarks on another tour to support his new solo album. After a wild entrance, Ribot calls Joe Lovano early on to join the band. The quartet is a tight unit and Lovano struggles to find a place. To his credit, he keeps trying for 30 minutes, much to the surprise of Ava Mendoza. After all, Lovano plays with some out-there cats now and then (earlier that day, he reminisced about playing with Milford Graves) and is as knowledgeable about free form jazz as he is of the more traditional forms. In this case, a common ground with the downtown punks cannot be found. This is sizzling free-rock translating Ayler’s vital scream to this day and age. The intensity never lags, and the best moment has Ribot and Mendoza hurling flashes of electric sounds at each other, in a remake of the current war*. An all-out release of legit anger, attuned to the daily shenanigans of US politics and the overwhelming amount of suffering in the world, with a call to resistance to the fascists-in-charge that is met with overwhelming cheers before Ribot ends the show with a heart-wrenching version of 'Goodbye Beautiful' aka ' Bella Ciao'. Ribot calls to “Resist, resist, resist”, as an answer to the incentive to “Fight, fight, fight” of sinister far-right character Steve Bannon.
The northern Italian city’s residents came out day after day to check the music on display, without prejudices and with an open mind, enjoying it often, other times not so much – the programming having something for everyone. The point and purpose of art is to give food for thought, offer unusual points of view, shake up certainties. While some concerts were on the entertainment side of things or outside of this blog’s subject matter (folk-soul-blues singer Liz Wright, peppy jazz diva Dianne Reeves, prog-noise macho trio Stick Men), the fest’s best acts led eager listeners through paths unknown.
*in the late nineteenth century, electricity pioneers and entrepreneurs Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse raced and fought to win the market to enlighten America and the world, with Nikola Tesla also chiming in.
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