Chet Remembered Enrico Pieranunzi, Bert Joris & Frankfurt Radio Bigband

• 1 From E. To C. 07:25
• 2 Lost and Found 05:55
• 3 Chet 08:14
• 4 Soft Journey 06:45
• 5 Fairy Flowers 08:35
• 6 Night Bird 06:50
• 7 Echoes 07:20
• 8 Brown Cat Dance 06:08
• 9 The Real You 05:01
• Total Runtime 01:02:13

Info for Chet Remembered

This album has a very special meaning for me. Remembering Chet takes me back to 1979 when I first met him. That meeting would soon prove to be a turning point in my musical life. Playing together, sharing concerts or recording sessions with him allowed me to be in close contact with an artist of rare jazz experience who caused an enormous change in my playing. Many of the tunes on this album come from those important years of collaboration. Among them are Soft Journey, Fairy Flowers and Brown Cat Dance, which I composed expressly for Chet and which, like Night bird, are included in “Soft Journey”, recorded at the end of 1979, just after our first meeting. The opening track, From E. to C., as the title clearly suggests, is a dedication to Chet and also dates to our first period of collaboration, whereas Echoes was recorded later in 1987, as a part of “Silence,” a album under Charlie Haden’s name.

There is, however, much else that deserves to be highlighted on this CD. For instance, the fact that “Chet Remembered” was conceived and realized in tandem with Bert Joris, a wonderful trumpet player in whose playing there are clear traces of Chet’s style, reworked in a very personal way. I can say that, although we play different instruments, Chet’s influence has determined a sort of stylistic “brotherhood” in our approach to improvisation, an affinity that is one of the distinctive elements of this album. The dual role that Bert plays on this album also deserves to be emphasised. Along with Bert Joris as a great trumpet player, Bert Joris also in fact appears here as an outstanding arranger. His ability to work with the melodic cells of the pieces, making them the basis of unpredictable melodic-rhythmic developments, is fantastic. And I find his ability to take full advantage of the palette of colors offered by the big band very impressive. Among the countless, excellent examples of his latter quality I would like to highlight here the harmonisation and orchestration of the solo on Soft Journey, which Chet improvised on the 1979 album of the same name (track 4, between 2’03” and 3’43”). A typical, wonderfully melodic Chet solo that I personally transcribed a few hours after Chet had improvised and recorded it. After so many years, it is so nice to listen to this solo here in the lush, refined big band version set up by Bert. Definitely a fine way to remember and honour Chet’s improvisational mastery.

Of course, this tribute to our mutual mentor could not have been accomplished in such an original and effective way without the contribution of the magnificent HR Big Band and its musicians, to all of whom I’d like to address my sincerest thanks. The days spent with them in the Frankfurt studios while recording this album were most enjoyable and full of exciting musical moments.

A final special thanks to Challenge for enthusiastically accepting the release of this project that is designed to remember and celebrate the art of one of the purest talents in the history of jazz. (Enrico Pieranunzi)

Enrico Pieranunzi, piano
Bert Joris, trumpet
Frankfurt Radio Bigband

Enrico Pieranunzi
was born in Rome in 1949 and has for many years been among the most significant and well-known protagonists of the international jazz scene. A pianist, composer, and arranger, he has recorded more than 70 albums under his own name, ranging from piano solo to trio, from duo to quintet. He has collaborated, either live or in the studio, with Chet Baker, Lee Konitz, Paul Motian, Charlie Haden, Chris Potter, Marc Johnson, and Joey Baron. Pieranunzi has been named Artist of the Year three times by the Musica Jazz magazine critics’ poll (in 1989, 2003, 2008). He also won the French Django d’Or prize as “Best European Musician” in 1997 and the German Echo Jazz Award in 2014 as “Best International Keyboard Artist”. Pieranunzi has performed his music all over the world in the most prestigious international festivals, from Montréal to Copenhagen and Buenos Aires, from Berlin and Madrid to Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Beijing. For the past ten years, he has been playing more and more in the USA, and has taken part in the San Francisco and Spoleto (Charleston, South Carolina) festivals. He has also been regularly featured in the most important New York clubs, especially the Village Vanguard, where in July 2010 he recorded the album Live at the Village Vanguard with Marc Johnson and Paul Motian. This is the first album ever recorded by an Italian musician (and one of the very few by European musicians) in the legendary diamond shaped 7th Avenue venue. A second Live at the Village Vanguard, recorded in 2015 with Donny McCaslin, Scott Colley and Clarence Penn, will be released at the end of 2016. Enrico Pieranunzi has composed over 300 pieces, many of which have become standards performed and recorded by musicians all over the world (Night Bird, Don’t Forget the Poet, Fellini’s Waltz).

“Pieranunzi can swing – crisply and surely. But in those tempos, he remains his lyrical self. His music sings” (Nat Hentoff, 1990)

“Enrico Pieranunzi breathes new life into contemporary jazz” (Ray Spencer, Jazz Journal International, 1992)

“Remember the name, me, get lost in the music” (Josef Woodard, Jazz Times, 2000)

This album contains no booklet.