TOMMASO STARACE - The Power Of Three
Music Centre BA 420
Tommaso Starace - alto & soprano saxophones; Jim Watson - piano; Lawrence Cottle - bass guitar
Since graduating from Birmingham Conservatoire and Guildhall, Milanese saxophonist and composer Starace has established a reputation as a versatile bandleader in a range of projects that showcase his ability to maintain a high level of creative musicianship while directly engaging the listener with his melodic accessibility. It’s a path that has made him a firm favourite with promoters and audiences, and this well-judged latest project should fit right in. It’s a live-in-the-studio recording, with the players set up face-to-face without headphones or separation in the Chapel Arts Gallery in Cheltenham and working through a repertoire of modern jazz standards, latin and funk material with excursions into the works of Ennio Morricone, Italian pop star Pino Daniele perennial favourite Stevie Wonder, and a single original by Starace himself. The trio are admirable balanced: session legend Lawrence Cottle is solid and swinging, with a smooth full tone that enables him to take beautifully structured guitaristic solos high up the neck when required, notably on Corea’s fusion staple ‘Got A Match’. His pop sensibility combines perfectly with Jim Watson, another accomplished jazzer who’s equally at home on a pop session as playing the 606 with Dave O Higgins (with whom Starace has co-led a project). His solo on ‘This Here’ is a thing of beauty, concise and artfully paced, and he quietly excels on the gentle original ‘Nina’ written by Starace for his niece. Starace himself displays his clear warm tone on both alto and soprano and blends his mastery of bop language with a direct, romantic melodicism and touches of Sanborn-style funk when required. This is not music that is intended to challenge or push at the boundaries, but rather to comfort and delight: it should find a ready response from Starace’s audience in these trying times.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
Music Centre BA 420
Tommaso Starace - alto & soprano saxophones; Jim Watson - piano; Lawrence Cottle - bass guitar
Since graduating from Birmingham Conservatoire and Guildhall, Milanese saxophonist and composer Starace has established a reputation as a versatile bandleader in a range of projects that showcase his ability to maintain a high level of creative musicianship while directly engaging the listener with his melodic accessibility. It’s a path that has made him a firm favourite with promoters and audiences, and this well-judged latest project should fit right in. It’s a live-in-the-studio recording, with the players set up face-to-face without headphones or separation in the Chapel Arts Gallery in Cheltenham and working through a repertoire of modern jazz standards, latin and funk material with excursions into the works of Ennio Morricone, Italian pop star Pino Daniele perennial favourite Stevie Wonder, and a single original by Starace himself. The trio are admirable balanced: session legend Lawrence Cottle is solid and swinging, with a smooth full tone that enables him to take beautifully structured guitaristic solos high up the neck when required, notably on Corea’s fusion staple ‘Got A Match’. His pop sensibility combines perfectly with Jim Watson, another accomplished jazzer who’s equally at home on a pop session as playing the 606 with Dave O Higgins (with whom Starace has co-led a project). His solo on ‘This Here’ is a thing of beauty, concise and artfully paced, and he quietly excels on the gentle original ‘Nina’ written by Starace for his niece. Starace himself displays his clear warm tone on both alto and soprano and blends his mastery of bop language with a direct, romantic melodicism and touches of Sanborn-style funk when required. This is not music that is intended to challenge or push at the boundaries, but rather to comfort and delight: it should find a ready response from Starace’s audience in these trying times.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
