Soft Journey
Animali Diurni
Brown Cat dance
Night Bird
Fairly Flowers
My Funny Valentine
Enrico Pieranuzi and Chet Baker first met in 1979 when
they played at a club in Rome and soon agreed to make a recording
together. It was apparently well received on its first appearance
but had little distribution. In the early 1990s it was re-released
as a CD but the company went belly-up and so, once again, wide release
was denied it. Let’s hope that this is third time lucky because it’s
a good set, recorded in December 1979 and January 1980.
Baker was clearly sympathetic to Pieranuzi’s quartet
and the latter’s original compositions, along with one by the tenor
saxist Maurizio Giammarco, are idiomatic and well suited to the visitor’s
plangent styling. The opener and title track is a gentle swinger,
neatly arranged. On the saxophonist’s song, Animali Diurni
Baker sings, whilst the saxist plays lyrically behind him; Baker’s
ethereal playing and later wordless vocals, as well as the articulate
piano solo elevate this number way beyond the merely gestural. Brown
Cat Dance is an angular boppish theme with choruses democratically
parcelled out before the theme’s concluding restatement. Baker’s solo
is one of the disc’s high points, a splendid example of lyrical phrasing
and expert time.
I suppose it was inevitable that we should get My
Funny Valentine but this duet for Baker and Pieranuzi
is still a fine one, not least for Baker’s typically haunting, haunted
other-worldly vocals. He is probably at his best on the trumpet in
Night Bird, where he takes a solo of swinging fluency and tonal
beauty. And on the last track, Fairy Flowers, we hear that
famously muted, tremulous fragility at work.
It’s always tempting to bring out these particular
words to describe Baker – ethereal, fragile, and the like – but that’s
how he plays. The contrast between Baker and Maurizio Giammarco’s
much busier saxophone is actually fruitful not destructive. A fine
set then.
Jonathan Woolf
CD Reviews
EGEA
SCA 140 [42:06]
