Ida Lupino was a known Hollywood actress who died in 1995 at the age of 78. The album title, however, alludes only indirectly on the actress, but directly on the homonymous composition by Carla Bley from 1964 in honor of the actress. Over the years, Ida Lupino has become a kind of jazz classic that has seen some cover versions, the most recent on the album Ida Lupino as a heavily modified version of the original. Unusually, the trombone - fabulously made ring by Gianluca Petrella, a member of the Enrico Rava Quintet - plays the role of the double bass in the classical cast of the jazz quartet in strong contrast to a clarinet or bass clarinet, blown by Louis Sclavis instead of the far widely used saxophone. The ensemble is completed by a pianoforte player, the American Giovanni Guidi, also an Enrico Rava man, and a percussionist, the Frenchman Gerald Cleaver. The combination of tuba / clarinet within the framework of the quartet, together with the refined arrangement on one side and the partly free improvisation on the other side, provide for a sheer exotic mood rich of tone-colors with surprising twists that keep the listener under suspense throughout the album.
According to the topic, the mood in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is quite calm, indeed quite leisurely, with a sporadically set piano chorus and pulsating bongo defining a tense rhythmic ground noise, over which the Tuba tells what we are talking about when we are about love talk. An entry into the album worth listening to. There is more rhythmical life brought into Just Tell Me Who It Was by the piano and percussion acting on a par, with the clarinet and the tuba in the dialogue trying to explore who it was, who talked about love. Obviously, a mysterious goal in front of the eyes at Jeronimo all the instruments of the quartet breathlessly attempt to reach this goal. If this attempt is successful, remains quite open. After a hesitant start without a melody instrument, the bass clarinet intones the catchy song Ida Lupino and soon finds support from the piano and the tuba, which varies the song later on briefly, before it fades away quietly. With a calmly flowing cover version of Per i morti di Reggio Emilia, the quartet pays tribute to the Turinese songwriter Fausto Amodei, who wrote this protest song in 1960 after the crushing of demonstrations against the regional government causing numerous deaths and injuries.
Gato! The longest title of the album is dedicated to the genus Felidae, the cat. The tuba gives the cat. Whoever is so blessed with such an animal realizes that connoisseurs of the special characteristics of the claw-embattled furry feline friends - from gentle change to the hissing rejection of unwanted affection - are up and about here. The earth in La Terra experiences its appreciation more innocently. No More Calypso? is, as might be otherwise, a farewell to the Kalypso. Rouge Lust gives the quartet an opportunity to present a fourfold solo performance, while Things We Never Planned is reserved to piano, drums and trombone. Now, if not before, one has fully get used aurally to the world of the album Ida Lupino and knows to enjoy the tuba and clarinet defined bass-free sound. It is a good thing that there are still four more tracks in which you can give yourself to the relaxed, coloring game of the quartet.
As to be expected from an ECM production, Ida Lupino shines with the finest detail-rich sound that fully helps all the instruments to obtain their right and which makes the quartet play in the credibly spread out acoustics. A great download, musically as well as sound wise.
Giovanni Guidi, piano
Gianluca Petrella, trombone
Louis Sclavis, clarinet, bass clarinet
Gerald Cleaver, drums