Carla Bley - The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu (2007)

The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu is a highly attractive new studio album from Carla Bley. It introduces the pensive, romantic trumpet of Paolo Fresu to her Lost Chords ensemble and to the ECM-distributed WATT label. The recording features all new compositions from Bley that make the most of the great stylistic affinity between Fresu and British saxophonist Andy Sheppard. Carla has said that the blending of Fresu's sound with Sheppard's is the raison d'être for the current line-up, and it is beautifully explored on the whimsically titled "Banana Quintet," a suite of many moods. The Lost Chords was founded in 2003 when Carla Bley added her big band drummer Billy Drummond to her established trio with Steve Swallow and Andy Sheppard, with whom she has collaborated for over 40 and 20 years respectively. Bley is one of the great composers of modern jazz and her writing has been compared to that of Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus. Paolo Fresu is firmly established as one of the most interesting figures in the new Italian jazz, his clear vibratoless horn sound sometimes compared with that of Miles Davis.