It is evident that the young Italian pianist Gioivanni Guidi is trying on this, his second album for ECM, to do something new and uniquely patterned, something that will not so much beat the band, as set the trio some mighty big challenges in improvisation.
You know very quickly that This is The Day is fresh and deeply creative because during initial listens you keep wondering where it’s going to go next. So it is often both fascinating and intriguing to listen to.
Though he might not see it this way himself, Guidi is seen as a protégé of Italian jazz's father figure, veteran trumpeter Enrico Rava, two of whose albums the young pianist has played on. City of Broken Dreams (2012) was this particular trio’s first album for ECM. Its liner notes recalls Rava‘s praise for both Guidi’s “limitless curiosity” as an improviser and his “relentless refinement” of touch and musical taste. Both these character traits are very much in evidence on what is mostly a fascinating, enriching new release.
Guidi’s two cohorts, the American double bass-player Thomas Morgan and the Portuguese drummer Joao Lobo, help Guidi, the mystic surfer ride the waves of his own trills and harmonic phrasings.
Moreover, it is mostly Guidi’s self-composed music on this new 13-track release. There are two covers, a perfectly serviceable read of Cuban songwriter Osvaldo Farrés' Quizas, Quizas, Quizas and a more adventurous exploration of I’m Through With Love.
So, to ride the wave, but then to just as quickly move on to the next wave, clusters of them, different colours, different tones, This appears to be the dynamic at work in Guidi’s compositions which at times seem dreamt up on the spot. There is a sense of oceanic presence about the best of the pieces, a feeling of spatial amplitude.
The longest track, Where They’d Lived - wonderful title that- - investigates a vein of nostalgia. It’s tender but reclusive too, and it runs to 10 minutes 39 seconds.
Other tracks have nothing to do with nostalgia, but attempt to live in a moment (of beauty). Bailia opens with a sound like the wind blowing while the final track, The Night It Rained Forever is quietly imperious and epic. Absorbing stuff.
Paddy Kehoe
