PAOLO RUSSO - Playground
Odradek Records: ODRCD535
Paolo Russo (composer, bandoneon, piano, synth, percussion). Recorded at Studio Odradek, Pescara -Montesilvana, Italy, 21st -25th October 2019
In his 17th album as leader, Russo, playing all the instruments, attempts to approach music making with the spontaneity of a child at play whilst drawing on all the intellectual and technical resources bequeathed to him during the course of a distiguished international career which began as a conservatory trained classical pianist.
To describe the seventeen pieces that make up his programme as a play-list would be most apposite because that is exactly what he is doing, playing, albeit purposefully, with sound elements and musical genres in a way that a child arranges coloured blocks, creating a series of vignettes that give full rein to his fertile musical imagination.
The bandoneon, having become his main instrument, tends to dominate the proceedings and imparts a flavour of the tango and Neapolitan street music to many of the pieces but there are also borrowings from other cultural sources as well as elements of brooding abstraction and melodic romanticism, none of which can be firmly nailed down as jazz but which will fascinate and charm music lovers prepared to engage with a maestro indulging himself.
Reviewed by Euan Dixon
Odradek Records: ODRCD535
Paolo Russo (composer, bandoneon, piano, synth, percussion). Recorded at Studio Odradek, Pescara -Montesilvana, Italy, 21st -25th October 2019
In his 17th album as leader, Russo, playing all the instruments, attempts to approach music making with the spontaneity of a child at play whilst drawing on all the intellectual and technical resources bequeathed to him during the course of a distiguished international career which began as a conservatory trained classical pianist.
To describe the seventeen pieces that make up his programme as a play-list would be most apposite because that is exactly what he is doing, playing, albeit purposefully, with sound elements and musical genres in a way that a child arranges coloured blocks, creating a series of vignettes that give full rein to his fertile musical imagination.
The bandoneon, having become his main instrument, tends to dominate the proceedings and imparts a flavour of the tango and Neapolitan street music to many of the pieces but there are also borrowings from other cultural sources as well as elements of brooding abstraction and melodic romanticism, none of which can be firmly nailed down as jazz but which will fascinate and charm music lovers prepared to engage with a maestro indulging himself.
Reviewed by Euan Dixon
