Maurizio Giammarco - Only Human (2020)

The saxophonist Maurizio Giammarco presented his new work entitled Only Human at the Teatro Studio Borgna on 11 January in the context of the Recording Studio, the review that gives the public the opportunity to attend the live recording of the records produced by the label Park Of Music Records.

The title of the album Only Human is inspired by the concept of alienation of modern man caused by the new means of communication that replace our personal relationships "absorbed in ecstatic contemplation of the alleged infallibility of his technological toys," as written in the concert program in to which the titles of the ten songs in the lineup are followed by short texts signed by Maurizio Giammarco himself, as he explains to us "I am of the opinion that it is better to give as much information as possible to the public in a concise manner. The songs I write in some way they reflect an idea or a suggestion, which however are very labile. "

The disc is the second recorded with the Syncotribe project, with the pianist Luca Mannutza and the drummer Enrico Morello, "the first entitled So to Speak" tells us Maurizio Giammarco "was in trio with the organ, made up of my original compositions with a somewhat crossover direction, not in the most common sense of the term, but in that of finding different paths where influences of various kinds converge, screened by my personal tastes and my musical culture. This is a different formation, the presence of two other musicians offers me a much more varied detail of possibility. "

The addition of the guitar played by Paolo Zou and the double bass played by Matteo Bortone allowed the saxophonist to open up to new sounds and timbres compared to the previous work "The criterion of choice is musical, to make use of musicians who in my opinion work for a project in particular: Luca Mannutza is one of the few pianists in Italy who has a spectacular technique with a deep knowledge of jazz together with a quick reading of the score and in addition he also plays the organ. Enrico Morello and Matteo Bortone are a very close rhythm playing together also in other groups. Enrico Morello is a drummer like few in Italy, not only in terms of technical ability but above all for his mentality, he plays in the style of American drummers who still boast a certain degree of superiority over the European counterpart Paolo Zou is a young guitarist graduated from Saint Louis College of Music, leader of the Dumbo Station group formed by n three other guys with whom he plays very updated music. I got interested in him because he plays the guitar differently than jazz guitarists usually do, using the effects and the full potential of the instrument. "

Only Human is a multifaceted work in which Maurizio Giammarco expands his personal perspective by looking with increasing interest at the compositional aspect of his musical research, regardless of the purely developed on the saxophone "I simply try to trace a path with my compositions, with the songs at the service of my way of playing, the two aspects are always connected. More than experimentation, I look for a path, a compositional identity that diversifies based on my deep knowledge of jazz, listening to the rock I grew up with and listening to a lot of contemporary music from around the twentieth century and to modern composers. " A vision that transpires from the tracks of the disc presented in concert starting from the song that gives the title to the disc "I was actually writing something for a work that was not realized, this idea took shape in the song with an initial phrase of the guitar, almost a kind of folk, then when I finished the piece I decided to call it "Only Human." I was looking for a title that would give this idea of ​​land, of anchored to the Earth and the counterculture of a few decades ago, and then I said 'yes this title is fine for the whole record. ' In the following piece "Fiction-ado" instead the basses of the chords are not the main notes of the chord as often happens, so a polytonality effect is created, the bassist plays in one key and the soloist improvises in another, this happens at various points in the song but not in all "and continues" the song entitled Stangetzin comes from a phrase within the melody that reminded me of Stan Getz; the title "Stangetzin" was provisional but then remained because the mood tended to lyric of the piece eventually goes in that direction. He is a point of reference for any tenor saxophonist, even if the jazz figures for me are all important: Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Lester Young, Bud Freeman, Dexter Gordon etc., they are all musicians who tell their story through music. "

The last song divided into two episodes "Blues Today Part I -II" is the ending you do not expect, the trait d'union between the various expressive souls of the entire project, as the saxophonist tells us "the two songs come from passion for contemporary music and blues with which I grew up, but it is also a controversial piece, a metaphor for how a certain cultural data has been lost, "and continues" the second part of the piece is a semi-aleatory score in which the musicians fit in with specific interventions but with approximate durations. Within this path the four musicians, except the drummer, have three famous blues phrases each in twelve different tones, which emerge in a situation of chaos in which they are They are the only ones that have an idiomatic connotation, the rest are abstract sounds within a situation in which there is no time, harmony and serial rule of musical exposure, present instead in the first par te which, unlike the second, is completely written with a total chromatism technique that does not follow a classic twelve-tone serial sequence. "

The format proposed by Parco della Musica Records is certainly an opportunity to immerse the audience in an intimate atmosphere which, as Maurizio Giammarco himself explains, "allows you to play alongside other musicians, something that does not happen in the studio, and also the place has great acoustics. "