Gianluigi Trovesi Round About Weill CD

Personnel: Gianluigi Trovesi (piccolo, alto clarinet); Gianni Coscia (accordion).
Recording information: Radio Studio Drs, Zurich, Switzerland (07/2004).
Photographer: Roberto Masotti.
Translators: Burkhart Kroeber; Alastair McEwen.
Arrangers: Gianluigi Trovesi; Gianni Coscia.
Even though the clarinetist Gianluigi Trovesi is a prominent figure in Italian jazz avant-garde circles, this generous selection of Kurt Weill themes is a straightforward yet urbane rendition of that composer's always contemporary-sounding music. The able accordion accompaniment by Gianni Coscia also lends the session an old-school cabaret ambience, which is just about essential for a successful realization of Weill's work these days. The playing is fresh and tart, however, with many of the melodies excerpted from the large-scale MAHAGONNY so they are not overly familiar. Actually, the prevalence of the accordion brings the sound even closer in feel to the Nuevo Tango of Astor Piazzolla, blending with the clarinet's similar timbre for a surprisingly intriguing sound throughout the disc. Highlight: a klezmer-like treatment of "Alabama Song" followed by a slow and sweet rhapsodic variation on that celebrated theme.
The great Italian mischief makers Gianluigi Trovesi and Gianni Coscia -- playing clarinets and accordion, respectively -- are back with more of their irreverent, genre-dissolving duets. Listeners were last surprised and often delighted by them in 1999 when the duo issued In Cerca di Cibo on ECM, a release featuring liner notes by none other than the great novelist, linguist, and cultural theoretician Umberto Eco. One can guess by the title what the duo's on about this time. Using the great composer's wonderful score to The City of Mahagonny as a framework, they lyrically and provocatively reinterpret Weill through the disparate veils of jazz, Italian folk styles, and vanguard and formal classical musics. Weill is clearly a starting point, and his pieces are played if not with reverence then at least with great zeal as well as technique and harmonic invention. There are a number of original improvisations and other tunes interspersed in the sequence as well, giving the entire proceeding a dreamy, nostalgic, street fair feel, where Weill's cabaret-loving ghost is evoked, dressed in party clothes, and celebrated and toasted by our two instrument-wielding perpetrators. Once more, Eco drops in with his pen for the enlightenment of those who are scratching their heads, but his text asks as many questions as it answers -- much like the delightful, humorous, and gorgeously performed music here. Round About Weill is all but unclassifiable, except in terms of its excellence. ~ Thom Jurek