Flavio Zanuttini & Opacipapa - Born Baby Born (2018)

A trumpet (by Flavio Zanuttini himself, the mastermind behind “Born Baby Born”), an alto sax (Piero Bittolo Bon) and a drumset (Marco D’Orlando). Nothing more: no bass to deepen the rhythm and no harmonic instrument, be it a piano or a guitar. Just “meat and potatoes”, as Eugene Chadbourne states on his liner notes, dismissing in this meal the possible contributions of a fried egg, some buttered peas or a salad. And yet, you can hear a bass doing rhythmic and harmonic work, and this because the trumpet, the sax and the drums incorporate the bass parts, in a phantom-like way. The drummer do it naturally with the tom-toms and the bass drum, but you wouldn’t expect that from the horns. Or do you, considering that they’re played by superlative instrumentalists? A few years back, Zanuttini dared to play the music of Don Cherry, and he managed to get very close to the original trumpeter, while keeping his own musical personality. The Italian musician has a long curriculum as an orchestra player, in that context knowing that he’s an individual contributor of something bigger, but that’s what explains his will to go beyond the conventional roles when he’s a soloist in a small group. Curiously enough, the «bassless, pianoless, tuttoless» (Zanuttini’s words) trio Opacipapa puts themselves in the middle of two traditions, the free improvised one and the carefully organized of the great historical big bands. The music either swings, like if we’re still living in the Fifties, or go to the post-free jazz stratosphere. Frequently, it swings when visiting the other side of the cosmos.

Flavio Zanuttini - trumpet, compositions
Piero Bittolo Bon - alto sax
Marco D’Orlando - drums