This is Roberto’s new solo piano CD.
Blues clues(the only Magris composition on this CD)A cascade of blue notes going down different passages…hints of Africa… and Eastern European folk music, and free jazz too…like shards of broken multi-coloured glass.
Reverend du bop (a Hill composition) Warm like sunlight on a mediterranean seascape… notes like bird flight floating on a hot wind out of Africa … high above Europe bringing summer warmth to the far north.
Bemsha Swing(Monk) Roberto pays tribute to Monk (who opened doors for so many musicians) .Building onto the subtle blues feel… swirling whirlpools of black and blue…a feeling of 1940s New York… jazzmen playing a new serenade.
Laverne(Hill) a beautiful peace …. music sparkling from the piano…. a man and woman in love … slow dancing … lost in their own world.
The time of the world is at hand(Gault)… a ballet dancer moving to the rhythm of subtle blues…. who would have thought of such a thing… a ballet for the blues….something different, something nobody counted on.
A flower is a lonesome thing(Strayhorn)There is an Ellington majesty to this …. visions of early 20th century Harlem… a New York state of mind. Ellington on the cutting edge of jazz from dixie to Coltrane.
Lets cool one (Monk) Like an early cubist painting improvising off what was conventional…showing visual clues. Pablo Picasso listened to some touring Afro American musicians improvising… and cubism started taking shape in his head. He was doing a painting of women in a brothel… then he took a solo and never looked back.
Lonely town(Bernstein)The harsh New York cityscape is softened by a spring rain falling from grey skies. A hard gritty city cloaked with a feeling of romance.
The saga of Harrison Crabfeathers(Kuhn)An opera in the subway ….a ballet in the Alley…. an orchestral performance of New York street life.
Roberto Magris brings together all the strands of influences that made him what he is as a musician.
GT
