CD review: Paolo Russo Trio – Overland 2019: Video, CD cover

A journey across Italian flavours, classical tones, Nordic landscapes, free improvisations, with a distant echo of Argentinean tango.

For Italian jazz artist Paolo Russo, Overland encapsulates his love of travel: relaxed, spacious, allowing time to absorb an array of atmospheres. This is reflected musically on this album in Russo’s evocations of specific places – a Norwegian fjord, a Brazilian village, the Danish countryside, South American cities, the Adriatic coast – which are communicated in combination with his emotional responses to those journeys. The result is jazz of kaleidoscopic colours, conjuring up the spirit of adventure to create a vivid sense of place and time.

Paolo Russo is a versatile musician who plays an array of instruments on this album: bandoneon, piano, and synthesizers. He is joined by artists who, like Russo himself, are all well-established on the international jazz scene: Swedish double bassist Thommy Andersson and fellow Italian Marcello Di Leonardo on drums, with guest appearances from saxophonist Fabrizio Mandolini and percussionist Bruno Marcozzi.

1. Nobil son e fatal
2. Ruinen
3. Filastrocca
4. Kinsarvik
5. O golfinho azul
6. Riviera
7. Rita
8. Carioca Dream
9. The Chant
10. Overland

Paolo Russo – bandoneon, piano, synthesizer
Thommy Andersson – double bass
Marcello Di Leonardo – drums
Bruno Marcozzi – percussion
Fabrizio Mandolini – saxophone