30 – Opus Two
30 Opus Two
Piero Gaddi Quartet feat. Bjorn Sølli
An overwhelming balance of form and meaning in the interweaving of music jazz, rock, cultured and Mediterranean folk traditions.
Thirtieth production for nusica.org, a cultural association that promotes and supports innovative artists. The new work by Piero Gaddi Quartet feat. Bjørn Solli due out on June 18, 2024. The album is anticipated by the release of the single Il tempo volato, available from June 14.
It is situated in the interstices, in the space where it is possible to converge multiple suggestions, the latest work by Piero Gaddi Quartet to be released on June 18 June for the music label nusica.org.
An album, Opus Two, placed in continuity with the previous Opus One (2020) whose premises, ideas and sounds it develops. The natural continuation is also represented by the continuation of the same lineup, kept unchanged by Gaddi in order to ensure pliability in the compositional process.
In the four years of experience gained together, the group, with the contribution of guitarist Bjørn Solli, has become an instrument capable of plumbing, expand and deepen the ideas behind the compositional material. A quintet marked by an extraordinary quality of sound, an intensity in execution aimed at engaging the listener.
It is a music, that of Piero Gaddi Quartet feat. Bjørn Solli that evokes different landscapes and multiple sensations by trying to exploit the entire palette timbre and dynamics at its disposal. A crossover that inaugurates connections between different genres and cultures, in constant balance between experimentation and tradition.
In this perspective, the compositional work enacted in Opus Two aims to give birth to gradually developing sonic organisms in unconventional ways, in the use of communicative codes – intellectual and emotional – recognizable by the listener, in a continuous path of ‘immersion’ and knowledge.
Each piece has its own story because it is thought of as a living organism, autonomous, with rules of its own. For this reason, sometimes traces are preserved of the song form, but more often the construction of the piece tends to depart from it to take different paths, leaving the generative material to the choice of its own evolution.
The nine tracks comprising the album thus appear to be pieces of a mosaic iridescent, tracks with evocative titles (Transeunte; The Linchetto; In quiet; The rain; Bye bye Boris; Rose of France; Inverse; The Law; Time Flew) called to compose a mix of suggestions and motifs untethered from mere contentism in a hypnotic journey to the border between genres.
Piero Gaddi | piano
Fabrizio Desideri | clarinet, soprano saxophone
Andrea Beninati | cello, drums
Filippo Pedol | double bass
Bjørn Solli | guitar
All pieces are by Piero Gaddi with the exception of La legge, by Fabrizio Desideri
Piero Gaddi has played at many Italian festivals, in France, Germany, Norway, Spain, Poland, Mozambique. Among others with Ivan Mazuze, Mike Turk, Bjorn Vidar Solli, Flavio Boltro, Paolo Fresu, Tom Lorenz, Paolino Dalla Porta, Alessandro Fabbri, Fabio Morgera, Pietro Tonolo, Marco Micheli, Marco Tamburini, Hans Mathisen, Guy Sion, Per Mathisen, Francesco Ponticelli, Bernardo Guerra, Raciel Torres, Mirco Guerrini, Deborah Davis, Ruben Chaviano, Alfred Kramer, Francesco Petreni, Stelio Mondlane, Adam Lemańczyk, Scott Hamilton.
A classically trained pianist, he perfected his skills at Siena Jazz and later graduated in jazz at the Livorno Conservatory with honors. marks. He also holds a degree in musicology from the D.A.M.S. in Bologna with top grades. He currently coordinates the jazz department at the La Spezia conservatory where he holds the chair of jazz piano. He has taught at the Conservatory of Lucca and for 15 years jazz piano at the conservatory of Livorno. A multifaceted artist, in 1998 he founded the quartet Inter Nosper for which he composes original pieces and with which he performs at numerous festivals and records two CDs (“Por Rufina Amaya” and “Figures in the Background”). He then performs in France in Cannes. He accompanies some excellent soloists such as. Karima Ammar, Federica Gennai, Petra Magoni, Michela Lombardi. In 2006 and 2008 he plays in Munich with different ensembles.
In trio with Fabrizio Desideri and Paolino Dalla Porta he has a collaboration on original repertoires that he presents in some national festivals. He plays some years in duo with Cuban violinist Ruben Chaviano original and traditional pieces using elements of Latin American music, cultured music and jazz. In 2007 he founded the Jubilum Jazz Chorus in which he reworks the repertoire liturgical, pop and rock in a jazz-gospel key. He wins with the choir the First Absolute Prize at the International Competition of Asti in 2012 and the First Absolute Prize at the competition “Riviera Etrusca” in 2017. He records two CDs for “Vinyl” (“Amazing Grace” and “Jubilum Jazz Christmas”). In 2018 with the JJC he is invited to perform at the institute of Italian culture in Cologne. In 2014 he participates in C.R.I.G., a collective with which he reworks and rearranges in a jazz key songs from Garfagnana’s popular culture and performs in some festivals (Bargajazz, Anfiteatro jazz, Massarosa jazzfest);a CD was released at the end of 2015 along with a book published by “Effigi.” With Fabrizio Desideri he has a project for piano and clarinet dedicated to Latin American music “Por una cabeza” that he presents in some festivals Italy. In 2018 he forms the Desideri-Gaddi quartet in which the following also appear. Francesco Petreni and Filippo Pedol with whom he plays in various festivals.
He plays in Ivan Mazuze’s Italian quartet with Francesco Ponticelli and Bernardo Guerra since 2019. In December 2019, he is invited to play in Africa at the “Mozambique Music Meeting” in Maputo with the African quintet of saxophonist Ivan Mazuze. In 2020 he founds the Piero Gaddi Quartet with which he plays original music together with Fabrizio Desideri, Filippo Pedol and Andrea Beninati. With the group in the same year he made his debut at Pisa Jazz and recorded “Opus One” (Vinile Records) hosting Norwegian guitarist Bjorn Solli. He plays with the quartet with guest Solli in some important jazz festivals including “Spejazz,” a jazz festival in La Spezia, at “Trentino jazz” in Trento and Chiavari Jazz. He has a duo project, between acoustic and electric, with the great trumpeter Flavio Boltro. In 2022 he is invited to Poland, to Bydgoszcz, where he plays his music with Adam Lemańczyk, Antoni Olszewski and Mateusz Krawczyk in the great hall of the Akademia Muzyczna. In Norway, in November 2022 he plays at the Haerverk café and the Italian Institute of Culture with his quintet and at the Grand Café in Oslo in a duo with Bjorn Solli.
He plays at the Drammen Theater (Norway) with Per and Hans Mathisen. He plays at the Conservatory of La Coruna with Roberto Somoza
Opus Two
01. Transeunte: Subject to the law of becoming. All of us, in every single moment, are something slightly different. Even when we cease to live, we become. The thematic elements of this composition continuously change and transform. Sometimes they are the main theme, then they become accompanying elements, unpredictably. The musical tempo is also extremely unstable: initially, it is in 7/4, then it unfolds using as many as seven different meters.
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02. Il Linchetto: This is a gnome, an elf often described in the popular stories of Lucca. It is not excessively dangerous but certainly mischievous and malicious. It loves to play pranks and hates being discovered. No one has ever managed to see it, except fleetingly. The brief theme, with its edgy and unpredictable character, fits well with this figure that haunts the villages and forests of Garfagnana.
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03. In quieto: A piece with many nuances, moving like a slow bolero. The introduction has a vaguely French flavor. The main theme is lyrical and the harmony feels suspended. A moment of tranquility tinged with restlessness. At the end, it briefly turns into a tango before fading away.
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04. La pioggia: The entire composition springs from an 11/8 guitar riff. From the arrival of the downpour to the end of the storm. The central part with the sax solo is polymetric.
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05. Bye bye Boris: The piece stems from a great love for early 20th-century Russian music, especially Prokofiev and Shostakovich. It tends to evoke scenes and landscapes related to the Cold War. I wrote it a few months before the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began.
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06. Rosa di Francia: A choro inspired by the love that binds two of my daughters (Rosa and Francesca). A dialectical and indissoluble bond.
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07. Inverso: Reality and its reflection are the basis of the composition. From the midpoint onwards, the theme becomes its inverse: a technique where the intervals between sounds trace an exactly opposite line, similar to an image reflected in water. The harmony amplifies the thoughtful and static atmosphere of the piece.
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08. La legge: It is a piece that has traversed at least two dimensions: the oneiric and the “real” one. The dream story, dated April 5, 2023, reads: “we are in the studio’s control room and we are listening to a piece with a verse that harmonically ascends in tone starting from the IV degree, in portions of 2 bars, and resolves in a phrase on the I degree (octave)…” Upon waking, it was not difficult to put on paper what was just heard in the dream, and the addition of conceptual modifications due to the waking state was inevitable. The piece, once forgotten, came back to life exactly a year later and the dreamed scene repeated itself identically in the here and now. It is inspired by the law of seven or “law of the octave”.
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09. Il tempo volato: The piece has a cyclical structure. It is built starting from the thematic element of the piano, to which the other group members gradually add. Towards the end of the sax solo, there is a background quote from Coltrane, as the harmonic logic of the piece derives from the mastery of this American composer and improviser.
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