Federica Michisanti Quartet - Afternoon (2023)

Federica Michisanti, bassist and composer, winner of the Top Jazz 2018 as best new talent, of the Top Jazz 2020 with her project Horn Trio as the best Italian formation of the year and of the Siae Award 2019, in recent years she has distinguished herself in the jazz scene Italian with his various projects."Afternoons" is his fifth album, the second produced by Parco della Musica Records.

The lineup is made up of three of the most active and recognized musicians in the European music scene: Louis Sclavis on clarinets, who has been collaborating with Federica on her projects for a few years now, Vincent Courtois on cello and Michele Rabbia on drums and electronics. If the choice to play without harmonic instruments is confirmed, for the first time Michisanti inserts the drums into the formation, involving a multifaceted personality like that of Michele Rabbia who does not limit himself to playing the traditional role of rhythm section, but rather creates colors and atmospheres making use of electronics and the use of a large number of objects that go beyond the traditional set of a drummer. The album includes seven songs, all written by Michisanti, two of which ("Nocturne" and "Spot") are united by a free improvisation which from the coda of the first song, more lyrical and evocative, leads them towards the next one, more rhythmic and frenetic. The compositions show sounds that draw from European cultured music and jazz avant-garde and have various natures: sometimes they are stolen themes that lead to free improvisations, as in "Two", or more structured improvisations, as in "Not"; sometimes they are melodies that lie on a repetitive bass line, like "Sufi Loft", or they are melodic lines that intertwine forming a harmony that continuously changes as in "Floathing" (hence the play on words that stands for indicate something that fluctuates in continuous movement) or compositions that present more open passages which then arrive at a structured rhythm which then leads to a change of tempo until arriving at the improvised part, as in "Be4 PM". “Afternoons,” says Michisanti, “pervaded by that special light which, like a second dawn, brings the promise of still having many possibilities before the day ends and spent in the company of music in the creation of most of the album's compositions, except for "Nocturne" which, as the title itself says, is a nocturnal creature.”