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Do not say that in Italy there is a shortage of projects and ideas, because that would be a great lie. Of course, you have to look beyond your own nose, which is moreover clogged with the dreamlike visions of the various idle tributes that can circulate or of unmistakable groups from America and surroundings that are stationed in Italy to fatten up the personal economies of musicians who smell of fruit.
Italy is a creative country, made up of people who are damned around their dreams. And they produce beautiful dishes, as in the case of Salvatore Pennisi, an electronic engineer, university professor in love with computer automatisms and jazz, who accompanies another expert in computer programming, but also a talented guitarist: Giuseppe Mirabella .
Pennisi promotes the idea, the symbol: to make Afro-American music coexist with grain salis , the innate sense for the all-Italian melody and the electronic grain.
And relaunches, putting on the plate a concept that makes your skin crawl every time you talk about it: the brain drain, from Italy in general and from Sicily in particular. And, in this way, he brings together a team of Sicilian talents, some who have remained in place and others who have freed themselves from the harpoons of the public, and even private, narrow-mindedness of our beloved homeland. Dino Rubino , Orazio Maugeri , Giuseppe Asero belong to the first lineage , while Marco Panascia, originally from Catania, resides in New York, Giuseppe Vasapolli, from Sicily (San Cataldo), has found the welcome he deserves in Los Angeles and Massimo Alioto is Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan. Here is the "train of the brain", taken with regret by the artists and also, as we all know, by many other realities engaged on different fronts.
The project deserves as much attention as the music the record plays.
Pennisi here does not devote himself to any "traditional" instrument, yet he is the star performer from the compositional point of view, reassured by the valuable arrangements of Mirabella, who also autographs three pieces.
Electronics is the background to elegant themes and at times creeps in, as in the mainstream mid-tempo mesh, tinged with cool, of " Standalone ", with the beautiful counterpoint of the winds and marked by the melodic speech, appropriately balanced and perfectly speed controlled, of Mirabella's guitar. Maugeri's alto sax dominates, with its strong chromatic phrases that underline the eponymous track, punctuated and prodded by the pressing bass lines of Panascia, to make room for the harmonic frankness outlined by Dino Rubino . " Before The Tragedy " is the song that, first of all, releases the most electronic fires that underlie the shrill Ruby trumpet, prelude to the cantabile "".
Lights focused on Giuseppe Vasapolli in " Everywhere You'll Be ", dreamy, but made lucid by a thick solipsistic performance, with discreet syncopations and a play on nuances. The electronics are the masters in the incipit of " Melting Pot ", creating the right tension for a piece innervated on the strings of Mirabella, the arabesque drums of Alioto and the horns to paint scenarios from everywhere. " Swinginerring ", whose musical content is in the name, sways on technological bursts. " The anniversary"it has that appeal that only beautiful soundtracks can have, those jeweled to the right point. And the diadems are worn by Rubino who works meticulously on the timbre, to counterbalance a crepuscular base dotted by Panascia, Vasapolli and Alioto.
" Father's Memory ", with a post-vintage flavor, closes an album that is the perfect soundscape of a long train journey.
Alceste Ayroldi for Jazzitalia
http://www.jazzitalia.net/recensioni/braintrain.asp#.YSy8Ho4zaM8
