MASSIMILIANO COCLITE 4TET - Strange People
Oradek ORDCD521
Massimiliano Coclite: piano; Stefano Cantini: saxophone; Ares Tavolazzi: bass; Marcello di Leonardo: drums
Coclite has built a career as a singer, composer and pianist, and it is in the latter two roles that he presents this CD. He began his musical career as a classical pianist, often working with orchestras, and only came to jazz in 2000. In places he retains the delicacy of his classical training, but there are also some beautifully selected chord progressions and solos that demonstrate how deeply he has assimilated the jazz idiom. His compositions are given additional depth by Cantini’s lyrical sax playing.
In the liner notes, Coclite says ‘I did not initially write the songs with the sax in mind, but this instrument, together with the piano, seemed to me the most suitable choice to represent my music.’ There is certainly a delightful connection between piano and sax in this performance. Both players seem to mine the same depth of experience that Coclite writes of in the liner notes when he was composing these pieces alone in Berlin. Each of the tunes feels as if it is illustrating a story. Indeed, the opening track, ‘The Gloom’, has, in the liner notes several possible interpretations – a pair of tango dancers, or a search outside on a dark, rainy night, or waiting at a crossroads for someone who doesn’t show, or of a man who ‘taking off his shoes…decides for the first time to enter the city of crystal’. Oddly enough, as a listener, each of these stories seems, at various times during the pieces6 minutes, to be entirely in keeping with the music.
Following this opening, the next two tracks, ‘Dreaming to run’ and ‘The man with the hat’ are tunes that showcase each of the players in the quartet in upbeat tunes that have plenty of panache in their rhythms and space for the musicians to develop their own sounds through solos and ensemble playing. The title track comes in at track 7, around 2/3 through the set. It is a tender ballad that, in its phrasing, you could imagine fitting Italian lyrics to a love song – despite it being called ‘strange people’ (perhaps the lyrics would have the wry, bittersweet humour of a Randy Newman song).
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Oradek ORDCD521
Massimiliano Coclite: piano; Stefano Cantini: saxophone; Ares Tavolazzi: bass; Marcello di Leonardo: drums
Coclite has built a career as a singer, composer and pianist, and it is in the latter two roles that he presents this CD. He began his musical career as a classical pianist, often working with orchestras, and only came to jazz in 2000. In places he retains the delicacy of his classical training, but there are also some beautifully selected chord progressions and solos that demonstrate how deeply he has assimilated the jazz idiom. His compositions are given additional depth by Cantini’s lyrical sax playing.
In the liner notes, Coclite says ‘I did not initially write the songs with the sax in mind, but this instrument, together with the piano, seemed to me the most suitable choice to represent my music.’ There is certainly a delightful connection between piano and sax in this performance. Both players seem to mine the same depth of experience that Coclite writes of in the liner notes when he was composing these pieces alone in Berlin. Each of the tunes feels as if it is illustrating a story. Indeed, the opening track, ‘The Gloom’, has, in the liner notes several possible interpretations – a pair of tango dancers, or a search outside on a dark, rainy night, or waiting at a crossroads for someone who doesn’t show, or of a man who ‘taking off his shoes…decides for the first time to enter the city of crystal’. Oddly enough, as a listener, each of these stories seems, at various times during the pieces6 minutes, to be entirely in keeping with the music.
Following this opening, the next two tracks, ‘Dreaming to run’ and ‘The man with the hat’ are tunes that showcase each of the players in the quartet in upbeat tunes that have plenty of panache in their rhythms and space for the musicians to develop their own sounds through solos and ensemble playing. The title track comes in at track 7, around 2/3 through the set. It is a tender ballad that, in its phrasing, you could imagine fitting Italian lyrics to a love song – despite it being called ‘strange people’ (perhaps the lyrics would have the wry, bittersweet humour of a Randy Newman song).
Reviewed by Chris Baber
