Qualche giorno fa ho postato la notizia dei concerti di Enrico al Village Vanguard, un evento e non solo per lanciare il nuovo album, frutto delle registrazioni fatte nello stesso storico locale nel 2010 con il grandissimo batterista Paul Motian ed il contrabbassista Marc Johnson, ma anche perchè nelle serate newyorkesi il pianista romano era accompagnato dallo stesso Johnson e dal batterista Joe La Barbera, cioè i componenti dell'ultimo trio di Bill Evans che al Village ha suonato e registrato innumerevoli volte.Ma come è andata e come è stato accolto Pieranunzi dal pubblico del Village ? A raccontarcelo è Nate Chinen sulle pagine del New York Times che riporto integralmente, link compresi : One thing musicians often say about playing at the
Village Vanguard, New York’s oldest extant jazz club, is that you have to make your peace with the ghosts in the room. What that means has less to do with the spirit realm than with the specters of historical memory shaped by famous recordings and firsthand experiences, and made all the more immediate by the photographic portraits on the wall.The italian pianist
Enrico Pieranunzi has surely considered these issues, given his deep admiration for Bill Evans, who was about as closely associated with this club as anyone. But it’s likely that the connection rings clearer than usual this week as
he works alongside the bassist Marc Johnson and the drummer Joe La Barbera, otherwise known as the surviving members of
Evans’s last trio.If you know that group, you probably know its brilliant, springy work on “Turn Out the Stars,” a six-CD boxed set recorded at the Village Vanguard in 1980 — a few months before Evans died, at 51 — and eventually released (
on Nonesuch, in 1996) to breathless critical acclaim. And if you know those recordings, you might have had a hard time pushing them to the back of your mind during a performance this week.But Mr. Pieranunzi, 63, is savvy enough to work with that knowledge, bending it to his purposes. He didn’t overstuff his first set on Wednesday night with songs from the Evans repertory, but neither did he try to obscure that pianist’s influence. His opening tune, “
Autumn Song,” was an original with a strong whiff of the Evans style — those feathery harmonies, that nifty rhythmic modulation — and right away Mr. Johnson and Mr. La Barbera sounded almost exactly as they did in the same room more than 30 years ago.This yielded a mildly disorienting sensation that persisted through the second tune, a coolly Evanescent waltz called “The Mood Is Good.” But what followed — “Ornettement,” for Ornette Coleman — handily broke the spell. Mr. Pieranunzi adopted a flintier, more percussive attack, and his partners edged into tougher and more irresolute territory, swinging intrepidly for a while before settling into a pop-gospel backbeat groove.Mr. Johnson and Mr. La Barbera are still effortlessly effective as a rhythm team, and each delivered smart and punchy solo commentary. Mr. Johnson was the trio’s most consistently engaging improviser, bounding across the full register of his instrument; he was also its linchpin, the person with whom both of the other players have ample history.Gradually the set took on its own character; by the time it arrived at a Nino Rota-esque original called “Fellini’s Waltz,” there was no doubting that Mr. Pieranunzi was in control.Which may have been all the assurance he needed to tip his hat: first with a spare but sumptuous interpretation of “
These Foolish Things,” and finally, during the encore, with
“Solar,” one of the jazz standards Evans explored often in his final years. It was tackled here with emphatic license, even if it ultimately felt like an offering.Fonte:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/06/arts/music/the-enrico-pieranunzi-trio-at-the-village-vanguard.html?_r=0