Alessandro Fabbri - StrayHorns (2012)

«StrayHorns» is the third album (and the most successful out of them) of our label with Alessandro Fabbri as a leader, released shortly after «Pianocorde». All of the works of this drum player from Florence don’t begin by chance; the music always has a solid based idea with a great amount of efforts behind it. The new album, an original reinterpretation of eleven wonderful songs of Billy Strayhorn realized by a septet with a hint of flowery of Evans’ style, including no harmonic instrument, has four brass (that include a tuba and a French horn), that don’t betray the original plan. It actually seems, as if it could have been more possible, more homogeneous and smooth out of all the prior albums. The thorough notes of Luca Bragalini, a great expert of the Ellington’s universe, help us further understand this laborious album. “Strayhorn was simply an introvert and prudish person, in some cases enigmatic”, affirms the Lombard music critic. Merit is also given to Fabbri for having been able to dig into famous works, such as Lush Life, Daydream, The star crossed lovers, great undiscovered tunes, such as Pomegranate and The hues, an eight bars blues shaped differently each time. The names of Maurizio Giammarco, Roberto Rossi and Ares Tavolazzi stand out as all of them are excellent soloist performers. Giammarco surprises us with his alto sax but not only that, he gifts the band with two great arrangements of Johnny come lately (a chapter of a great formal and narrative meaning) and Lotus blossom. But, as Bragaglini specifies at the end of his liner notes, “It may be that the Zenith of the album is the final track Take the A train, a slowed down ballad reduced to the classic ABA form… a cameo that shows how Fabbri understood the poetic sense of his inspirer, whose music is a whispered, shy suggestion, never a turbulent proclamation…”.