Seven Steps Quintet - Elements (2013)

Pierpaolo Cogno, born in 1959, is an excellent pianist even if he is hardly known in Italy. After studying at the Conservatorio Tartini, in Trieste, he moved soon to jazz following in his older brother Mario’s footsteps. He then perfected himself with Enrico Pieranunzi and Franco D’Andrea, at Siena Jazz School. After funding the “Scuola di Musica 55” with Gabriele Centis – who still manages it – Pierpaolo moved to Lugano, where he has been living for twenty years and where he teaches. Thus Pierpaolo had few occasions to be appreciated in his country. Something should change with the Seven Steps Quintet, started by Pierpaolo in 2008. The debut album, «Seven Steps», released in 2009 and difficult to find now, explored the meaning of the seven music intervals and it already allowed us to catch a glimpse of the stylistic features of Cogno’s jazz: a modern–bop characterised by a modal style, with marked melodic qualities and open to the most varied influences. This openness became even stronger in this new project dedicated to the dialogue between the five elements of nature and mankind. Recorded in the end of 2012, «Elements» was realised with the previous album’s rhythm section, whose members made by then a good and solid team. It sees Pierpaolo (at the Fender Rhodes in Acqua) playing with his brother Mari, a double bass player characterised by a deep touch, and with the drummer Andrea Michelutti, another eminent native of Friuli who, like Francesco Bearzatti, migrated to France. Meanwhile an out–and–out “revolution” happened in the front–line, replacing the traditional couple sax–trumpet (Max Spizio–Fabrizio Pontiggia, or Fabrizio Bosso, in the first Cd) with the Bearzatti’s pyrotechnical tenor sax (he plays the clarinet in the last song), who is surprisingly lyrical and relaxed (Terra) in this occasion, and the vibes of Francesco Pinetti. A really well–matched quintet resulted. It reminds us of the first Steps Ahead, but also of Chick Corea (Aria) and Gary Burton. Every reference is inserted in a fresh and personal language though, not in the least reverential towards those masters.