CD review: Paolo Fresu – Legacy – 2024: Video, CD cover

Even when music is notated relatively precisely, as in music, a performer must make many decisions because the notation does not accurately indicate all elements of the music.

The process of deciding how to perform music that has been previously composed and notated is called “interpretation.” The interpretations of the same piece of music by different performers can be very different in terms of the tempos chosen, the style of playing or singing, or the phrasing of the melodies.

Composers and songwriters who perform their own music interpret their songs just as much as those who perform the music of others. The standard selections and techniques present at a particular time and place are called performance practice, while interpretation is generally understood to be the individual choices of a performer.

I started making music at a young age and music became my life. […] ‘Legacy’ is therefore a memory that should be shared. A legacy for the future and a commitment to myself and those who will come after me, – Paolo Fresu.

This PAOLO FRESU is not only a great jazz trumpeter, but with his passion for playing and his high level of skill he manages to sound like the worthy heir to his sources of inspiration MILES DAVIS and CHET BAKER – and to continue to blow this legacy out into the world with his trumpet in 2024. In addition, the trumpeter, who is celebrating his 40th stage anniversary, has long been given the honor of enriching rock music with his instrument and his ecstatic playing style, so that he even plays the trumpet on PETER GABRIEL’s latest studio double album “i/o”.

But this “Legacy” album (consisting of 3 CDs) and “(Next) Legacy” album (consisting of 3 strictly hand-numbered limited LPs of 1000) have nothing to do with the Fresu rock attitude, but are firmly rooted in jazz – and now some may even look and listen in shock. Because the music collected on these opulent anniversary editions is actually pure improvisation. And what improvisations – they prove what an incredible musician lies behind PAOLO FRESU and the musical comrades who accompany him.

But perhaps we should first take a closer look at the Italian trumpeter: The 63-year-old Italian composer, jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player, whose playing style is quite rightly compared to that of MILES DAVIS (especially during his 1950s era), is the winner of numerous awards, is also a professor and director of various Italian and international institutions, and has also performed worldwide with the most important names in Afro-American music over the past 30 years. He has participated in well over 350 recordings to date – many under his own name, such as “Food” which was recently created in collaboration with OMAR SOSA… or the magnificent soundtrack album “Tango Macondo”, whereby he always strives to combine the most diverse musical styles such as jazz, world music, contemporary and old music in the best Davis spirit.

Fresu is also the artistic director of the Berchidda Festival Time In Jazz and has been a lecturer at the jazz seminars in Nuoro (Sardinia) for 25 years. He is also involved in the production of numerous multimedia projects, works with actors, dancers, painters, sculptors and poets and writes music for film, documentaries, videos, ballets and theatre pieces.

Anyone who has been so deeply rooted in the music business for so long and so intensively, and who has also earned his spurs as a jazz trumpeter and consistently perseveres, also leaves behind masterful work – like Fresu, who formulates his principle of perseverance inside the four-winged digipak of “Legacy” using an African proverb: “If the roots are deep enough, there is no reason to fear the wind.”

CD1

1. ANTRACITE (3:18)
2. MAGENTA (3:25)
3. FUCSIA (5:25)
4. UOVO DI PETTIROSSO (4:48)
5. ZAFFIRO (6:16)
6. TANNO (3:59)
7. ORO (3:34)
8. ISABELLA (3:59)
9. CIANO (2:19)
10. BLU (5:14)
11. ROSSO TIZIANO (7:24)
12. SOLIDAGO (4:35)
13. L’AMANTE BUGIARDO (4:17)
14. QUAL COR TRADISTI (4:59)

CD2

1. MANDARINO (3:49)
2. NERO (5:52)
3. FOGLIA DI TÈ (4:44)
4. OLIVINA (3:55)
5. GLIGIO (4:59)
6. RUBINO (2:49)
7. SCARLATTO (3:49)
8. VERMIGLIO (7:22)
9. AMARANTO (5:31)
10. BIANCO (1:24)
11. ÉCRU (3:46)
12. INDACO (8:41)
13. MY MAN’S GONE NOW (4:32)
14. TU SI ‘NA COSA GRANDE (5:02)

CD3

1. ACQUAMARINA (2:58)
2. KAKI (6:13)
3. PLATINO (5:09)
4. MAGNOLIA (6:09)
5. LAMPONE (3:25)
6. GIADA (7:50)
7. ELIOTROPO (4:01)
8. ZAFFERANO (3:30)
9. RAME (1:27)
10. TENNÉ (4:41)
11. PRUGNA (3:05)
12. CARBONE (4:22)
13. ONLY WOMEN BLEED (5:05)
14. SONO ANDATI? FINGEVO DI DORMIRE (4:58)

Paolo Fresu: trumpet
Tino Tracanna: saxophone
Roberto Cipelli: piano
Attilio Zanchi: bass
Ettore Fioravanti: drums