CD review: Massimo Vescovi Trio – Salvo Imprevisti 2022։ Video, CD cover

A work by a guitar trio recorded by Italian guitarist Massimo Vescovi with bass player Carlo Bavetta and drummer Marco Zanori.

It is a masterpiece that breathes new life into a song that reflects the American jazz tradition and the taste of Northern Europe with a unique voice, and develops an interplay with the trio members.

Leaving behind crystallized swing and blues forms, the trio reconstruct new tensions and improvisational spaces.

Vibrant, sometimes intense, sometimes dreamy… always surprising music is born, inviting the audience on a wonderful musical journey.

Difficult to say. Perhaps the thing I loved most about this record was the good feeling of being able to do something more concrete with my passion after 12 years of abstinence.  A result that would have been impossible to achieve without a number of positive factors. First of all: having met Carlo Bavetta, a young double bass player recommended to me by a common colleague for his skill, and having found Marco Zanoli whom I have known for over 25 years and with whom I had already collaborated on my first album “Luci e Ombre “of 2005. Two fantastic artists for preparation and originality, willing to meet even just for the pleasure of playing together, to work on music with absolute passion and dedication, to dig into the substance of the same to create a special alchemy between the instruments. Second: the regularity of our meetings that allowed us to refine listening, dialogue, interplay, musical breath, essential elements for the music I had in mind. Third: more practical, but no less important, a place of my own where I can work together on music with consistency and continuity. The natural consequence of all this was the birth of the desire to transform our musical encounters into a real laboratory where to design a record work.  As with my previous albums also this time, feeling the need to create original music, I immersed myself in my deepest musical world, the harmonic one. Always fascinated by the infinite mechanisms that regulate it, my compositions often arise from simple concatenations of chords that I gradually try to extend until arriving at a draft that I consider complete. The choice of rhythm, style and melody often comes later, almost as a natural consequence of what has already been established at the harmonic level. The precious collaboration, the research of the details, the advice and the musicality of Carlo and Marco have helped to stimulate and perfect my compositional effort by putting into practice the drafting of the eleven pieces you find in this work. I am currently still working to advertise the CD in order to be able to find concerts and maybe sell some physical copies. I would summarize it like this: the intellect in music are all the rules, the harmonic, melodic and rhythmic concatenation that can be learned in one’s own course of study; the soul, on the other hand, is inspiration, genius, sensitivity, singing, something that flies above all the rules. Playing jazz for me is trying to keep these two essential elements in the right balance;  which is often not easy …. – an interview with me said Massimo Vescovi.

Massimo Vescovi Trio – Barring unforeseen events – Constantly in search of an expressiveness detached from the guitar clichés applied to jazz, Massimo Vescovi has managed to reinvent himself through an absolutely personal language and to collect a series of original compositions in a delicate balance between the Afro-American tradition and northern suggestions European.

The debut album “Lights and Shadows” in quartet with the pianist Stefano Battaglia was followed by two delicate, dreamy new collections: “Foam” and “Whistle this” music conceived and developed from time to time in trio and quintet.

Today, with a new fantastic trio together with the double bass player Carlo Bavetta and the drummer Marco Zanoli, Vescovi gives life to his new project “Salvo Imprevisti”.

The result of an intense collective work of study and research that has given new life to the compositional vein of the leader, the Massimo Vescovi Trio offers a repertoire that abandons the mainstream of the infinite and wonderful repertoire of American standards, dedicating itself to completely original compositions.

With the aim of discovering and following ever new paths, leaving behind the safety and crystallized forms of swing and blues, the group recalibrates the phrasing on new tensions and new improvisational spaces often characterized by harmonic and rhythmic paths that are not at all obvious.

The result is a vibrant, intense, sometimes dreamy but always surprising music capable of enchanting the audience by accompanying them on a wonderful journey.

1. Always Ahead (04:20)
2. La Pantera Blu (07:29)
3. 11 11 (05:07)
4. You and Me (05:33)
5. Happy Hour (05:45)
6. Armando (04:33)
7. The Soul of Trees (06:22)
8. Salvo imprevisti (04:02)
9. Com’e’ profondo il bar (07:06)
10. La cicala (04:15)
11. Triangle Samba (04:45)

Massimo Vescovi : Guitars
Marco Zanoli : Drums
Carlo Bavetta : Double bass

New CD – 2022 – Buy from here