A melody you never heard before takes you back to a place where you have never been. Immediately, from the first notes of Traveller’s Ways, you as the listener feel that wondrous combination of familiarity and astonishment. On this magnificent album, Somsen, Pieranunzi and Mirabassi create music that feels like coming home and at the same time leads to numerous unknown destinations you have never visited before.

Pianist Enrico Pieranunzi and arranger Michele Corcella complete offer a beautifully orchestrated collection of John Lewis’s best.

In the specific field of jazz/classical music crossover, the 1920s were crucial. They gave us one of the first, absolutely extraordinary, works of the genre: the famous “Rhapsody in Blue.” John Lewis moved in the same direction as Gershwin, but from a very different vision and experience. Indeed, Lewis was an excellent jazz pianist, but above all Lewis, besides being a great jazz player, was deeply in love with the music of Bach and from the earliest years of his career onward made the blues/Bach pair the banner of his artistic life. It is to this musical conception and to the compositional art of John Lewis that, a little more than two decades after his passing, “Blues and Bach” wishes to pay tribute. His tunes have been reworked and orchestrated for the occasion with an ensemble that, in some ways, is itself a crossover within a crossover (jazz trio plus string quintet and woodwind quintet).

REVIEWS:

If jazz is by now a respectable genre, it’s partly thanks to John Lewis. Never knowingly overwrought, this American pianist had his roots in classical music, bebop, and the Birth of the Cool. A Bach devotee, he incorporated fugue and counterpoint into his work. Here two Italians, the pianist Enrico Pieranunzi and the arranger Michele Corcella, complete the journey with a beautifully orchestrated collection of Lewis’s best.

Pieranunzi is one of Europe’s great jazz pianists, greatly influenced by Bill Evans. His luminous tone and elegant, linear phrasing is a superb foil to the warmth of Corcella’s arrangements. On Vendome, the most Bach-like piece, Pieranunzi slips easily between frisky fugue and sophisticated swing as the strings scurry alongside. On Django the violins handle the baroque counterpoint as the trio dig into a down and dirty blues. 

Some wonderful sound pictures are drawn on Skating in Central Park: a Satie-like figure falls like snow and the piano waltzes over the drummer Mauro Beggio’s powdery brushes. Woodwinds swirl and strings sparkle. By contrast, Spanish Steps and Jasmine Tree are proper workouts with lively trio improvisation slotting into complex orchestral structures. Strings often weigh down a jazz group — here they make it more exciting.

Two bittersweet ballads were surely included for sentimental reasons. The Italians handle Lewis’s Milano gently, the piano wandering easily through a shifting chamber-music cityscape. Lewis didn’t write Autumn in New York (it’s by Vernon Duke), but his band the Modern Jazz Quartet recorded it and was formed in NYC. Pieranunzi swaggers along as skyscrapers of sound stretch upwards around him. Classic classical jazz.

-- London Times (Chris Pearson)

Acclaimed Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi is at the zenith of his career and has now joined forces with the legendary French drummer André Ceccarelli and the acrobatic Danish double bass player Thomas Fonnesbæk. This new trio encounter combines three of the very best European jazz stars and makes for an album played with dramatic coherence - a seldom sight when three major personalities meet. Something Tomorrow is available on Storyville Records.
Playing with Fonnesbæk seems to give wings to Pieranunzi, the two men listen and talk to each other like two accomplices, who meet again after a long absence. Fonnesbæk enjoys this intuitive game, where they listen intensely to each other, propose another tempo or a new melody. And they can count on the rhythmic precision and great musicality of André Ceccarelli, one of Pieranunzi’s favorite drummers.
Pieranunzi is one of, if not the most, popular European pianist, likely due to a unique combination of influences, from his formative years in classical and Italian music to his collaborations with iconic film composer Ennio Morricone and output with the likes of Chet Baker and Lee Konitz. Pieranunzi never renounces bold and elegant music, for he is a poet of black and white. In the breath of his piano, there is a reflexive expression, a harmonic treatment full of subtleties. A lush romanticism lies deep at the heart of his music, when he lets his hands dance on the keys.
Thomas Fonnesbæk is a formidable bassist with an astonishing technique. He impresses with his virtuosity and harmonic choices, and his bass lines inspire both Pieranunzi and Ceccarelli. Not only is Fonnesbæk one of Pieranunzi’s favorite collaborators, he has also recorded and toured with musicians such as Monty Alexander, Aaron Parks, Sinne Eeg, Lars Jansson and many others.
Drummer André Ceccarelli is one of the most important figures on the European jazz scene. He has not only played with Pieranunzi in many other musical constellations, but also with giants like Enrico Rava and Chick Corea, and popular music stars like Sting, Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner. Here, Ceccarelli expresses his joy by a rare delicacy of touch in a performance with no discordant element. It is quite frankly evident that the trio enjoys the musical company of each other making ‘Something Tomorrow’ an important milestone in the career of a pianist, who never ceases to amaze us.

IN CONVERSATION: ENRICO PIERANUNZI ON VOYAGE IN TIME

Voyage in time (a suite in nine movements) is conceived in the likeness of the suites of dances typical of the Baroque era. Some titles (Minuet, Courante, Pavane) may surprise the listener who associates our names with Jazz music. It is certainly true that our three previous albums were all Jazz albums. However, this fourth encounter - our second album for Challenge Records, after Common View (2020) - is a completely different recording, both in terms of line-up and material. The movements, composed by Jasper and arranged together during our recording session, reflect our shared love of classical music and combine classical forms with a very open improvisational approach. The result is a sort of journey back and forth between the musical languages of our time and of times past. A very special Voyage In Time, in fact, in which you are all invited to take part.

REVIEW:

Somsen has written a nine-part suite in which the two bring their musical storytelling to sparkle along the formal lines of baroque dances... Everything else is illustrious art of playing, is a fine feeling for the breath of the counterpart.

-- Jazzthing

Acclaimed Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi is at the zenith of his career and has now joined forces with the legendary French drummer André Ceccarelli and the acrobatic Danish double bass player Thomas Fonnesbæk. This new trio encounter combines three of the very best European jazz stars and makes for an album played with dramatic coherence. Something Tomorrow is available on Storyville Records.

Playing with Fonnesbæk seems to give wings to Pieranunzi, the two men listen and talk to each other like two accomplices, who meet again after a long absence. Fonnesbæk enjoys this intuitive game, where they listen intensely to each other, propose another tempo or a new melody. And they can count on the rhythmic precision and great musicality of André Ceccarelli, one of Pieranunzi’s favorite drummers.

Enrico Pieranunzi is one of, if not the most, popular European pianist, likely due to a unique combination of influences, from his formative years in classical and Italian music to his collaborations with iconic film composer Ennio Morricone and output with the likes of Chet Baker and Lee Konitz. Pieranunzi never renounces bold and elegant music, for he is a poet of black and white. In the breath of his piano, there is a reflexive expression, a harmonic treatment full of subtleties. A lush romanticism lies deep at the heart of his music, when he lets his hands dance on the keys. Thomas Fonnesbæk is a formidable bassist with an astonishing technique. He impresses with his virtuosity and harmonic choices, and his bass lines inspire both Pieranunzi and Ceccarelli. Drummer André Ceccarelli is one of the most important figures on the European jazz scene. He has not only played with Pieranunzi in many other musical constellations, but also with giants like Enrico Rava and Chick Corea.

"Every time I listen to the very first tones of Afterglow, I get struck immediately, as if by a force of nature. Suddenly, I am part of a natural phenomenon, that manifests right in front of me. At that very moment, everything else in the world doesn't seem to matter that much. There's only you and the musical synergy of two masterminds, who put their hearts and souls in every detail of their private conversation. Exactly the same feeling hit me over and over, when audio engineer Floren Van Stichel and I were part of the creation of Afterglow, in September2018. The sheer beauty of the music by Enrico Pieranunzi and Bert Joris was present at every single moment. The only thing Floren and I had to do was listen. We simply guarded the entire process. While performing together, Enrico once said: "Sometimes, the moment you don't play adds more significance to the things you do play". The same thing applies to being a producer. Being present was just enough. Nature took it's course and Afterglow saw the light of day." (Jasper Somsen)