Riccardo Chiarion Quartet - Sirene (2012)

Riccardo Chiaron, born in 1974 at Gorizia, is a complete and refined guitarist, and it’s for this reason that he is so on demand and a highly esteemed teacher. Self–taught at the beginning he then carried on to study jazz with Glauco Venier, taking his degree at the Conservatory of Music in Trieste. He recorded at the end of the 90s in a trio with Roberto Franceschini and Luca Colussi, therefore contributing to Namos, a quintet of young musicians from Friuli, that in 2005 recorded for Artesuono «Sestante», containing the track at a medium tempo with a long and articulated theme that gave the name of the group and is here efficaciously proposed once again. Then he collaborated with famous jazzmen like Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Chris Laurence, Martin France, and played for three years with Pietro Tonolo Quartet. After having added a precious impact to our titles like «Watch your step» (Nicola Fazzini), «Decantando» (Federica Santi), «Bricolage» (Mauro Darpin), and having participated in the important project «Glauco Venier plays Frank Zappa» too, Chiarion finally releases his first record as a leader. In these years, when an album sometimes becomes a sort of business card, «Sirene» presents itself as a mature work, and achieves a long formative career, which many of his fans have been waiting for. The choice of the quartet’s members, balanced and compact, reveals itself to be excellent. If with his friend Luca Colussi there could haven’t been any problems, both the deep Stefano Senni’s double bass and the original Michele Polga’s tenor sax contribute in a determining way to the success of the session. Eight tunes, proposed and composed by the leader, contribute in spreading his open neo–bop, having a modal taste, capable of passing from Coltrane’s influences of the opening ballad Guardando – that mixes into a medley with In fuga, on the contrary close towards the 60s Blue Note mode – to the track giving the name of the Cd, a fast tempo that brings to light the Colussi’s imaginative drumming. The guitarist favors the “medium”, distinguished by long expositions of the principal theme and very telling secondary themes, but having also a certain rhythmic complexity, disguised by the great phrasing fluidity: such are Falsopiano, Dilemma and the last song, Partire, based on a Latin rhythm, which leaves enough time for very inspired solos by Polga and Chiarion.