CD review: Claudio Angeleri – Music from the Castle of Crossed Destinies 2021: Video, CD cover

Produced by the Apulian label Dodicilune, distributed in Italy and abroad by IRD and in the best online stores by Believe Digital, Claudio Angeleri’s “Music from the castle of crossed destinies” is released on Tuesday 11 May. In the eight original songs, freely inspired by the short fantastic novel “The castle of crossed destinies” by Italo Calvino, and in the reinterpretation of “Round about midnight” by Thelonious Monk and Cootie Williams, the Lombard pianist and composer – on the second album with the Dodicilune after “Blues is more” in 2019 – he is joined by Giulio Visibelli (soprano sax, flute), Paola Milzani (vocals), Virginia Sutera (violin), Michele Gentilini (electric guitar), Marco Esposito (electric bass), Luca Bongiovanni ( drums, percussions) and, in the song “Two or three stories”, Gabriele Comeglio (alto sax).

After the previous experience with the show inspired by “The invisible cities”, one of the cult books of 20th century literature, Claudio Angeleri returns to confront Italo Calvino and in particular with his period of combinatorial writing. “In” The castle of crossed destinies “, Calvino’s first work written completely with this technique, the stories of the different characters who meet by chance in a castle after various vicissitudes, are determined by the combination of the fifteenth-century illuminated tarot cards”, explains the musician in the full-bodied booklet of the cd. «In the concluding note of the novel the writer reveals the open and evolving nature of the book which remains, in some ways, suspended and unfinished. In fact, the text had to contain a contemporary third part based on the same narrative machine. The idea was therefore to take up the challenge to develop new stories through the language of sounds and create that unfinished third part, through the musical story. The characters and places told by Calvino here are transformed through the combination of the 12 sounds both in the part composed at the table and in the improvised part by the seven musicians involved – eight with the addition of Gabriele Comeglio in a song “, he continues. “In addition to the sixteen tales that make up the Castle, eight for each part, I have composed eight more according to an absolutely subjective criterion, leaving room for the creative stimuli of the book, as Calvino says:” I have applied myself above all to looking at tarot cards carefully, with the eye of those who do not know what they are, and to draw suggestions and associations from them, to interpret them according to an imaginary iconology “. I therefore composed a counterpoint entrusting it to the different instruments that represent, due to their sonorous character, specific characters: the violin, the flute, the electric guitar (distorted), the voice, the piano, the bass (electric), the percussion ».

Born in 1956, Claudio Angeleri began studying piano with Aldo Sala, subsequently perfecting himself in Italy and in the United States with Mark Levine, Cedar Walton, Jaky Byard, graduating in Jazz Piano at the University of West London and obtaining the Grade 8 Keyboards certification at Trinity College London . At the same time he graduated in Architecture at the Milan Polytechnic. He has performed since 1974 participating, over the years, in the most important jazz festivals and international reviews: Umbria Jazz, Berlin, Luxembourg, Milan, Rome, Ravenna, Iseo, La Spezia, Cagliari, Sanremo, Vicenza, Ascona, Palermo, Mantua, Lugano, Reggio Emilia, Padua, Bergamo, Clusone, Bologna, Malta, Turin. In almost 50 years of career he has played and recorded, among others, with Gabriele Comeglio, Charlie Mariano, George Robert, Steve Lacy, Jerry Bergonzi, Bobby Watson, Franco Ambrosetti, Bob Mintzer, Bob Malach, George Garzone, Herb Pomeroy, Mike Richmond, John Riley, Kenny Wheeler, Marco Esposito, Gianluigi Trovesi, Gianpiero Prina, Tony Arco, Giulio Visibelli, Emilio Soana, Sarah Jane Morris, Franco Cerri, Massimo Urbani, Gianni Basso, Tony Scott, Heiri Kaenzig, Dave Schnitter, Martin Dietrich Wehner, Jesse Davis and Red Holloway. He has experimented with the dialogue between different disciplines – music, theater, dance, multimedia – creating different projects. Since 1987 he has directed the CDpM – Music Production Didactic Center of Bergamo and has an intense didactic activity. Info www.claudioangeleri.com

The Dodicilune label, founded by Gabriele Rampino and Maurizio Bizzochetti, has been active since 1996 and has a catalog of nearly 300 productions by Italian and foreign artists. Distributed in stores in Italy and abroad by IRD, Dodicilune discs can also be purchased online, listened to and downloaded on major platforms in the world thanks to Believe Digital.

1. The Knight
2. The Castle
3. Wood
4. Improvisation #4
5. Lovers
6. Twelve
7. Palomar
8. Two or Three Stories
9. Round About Midnight

Giulio Visibelli (soprano sax, flute), Paola Milzani (vocals), Virginia Sutera (violin), Michele Gentilini (electric guitar), Marco Esposito (electric bass), Luca Bongiovanni ( drums, percussion) and, in the song “Two or three stories”, Gabriele Comeglio (alto sax).