Pietro Tonolo, Michele Calgaro, Paolo Birro, Salvatore Maiore & Mauro Beggio - Deep Art Men (2018)

Jazz has occupied an important place in Italian conservatories for several years. For music that has always been characterized by overflowing energy and a sincere desire for musicians to play, there is a risk of resting on their laurels, content with banal déjà vu. This did not happen in Vicenza: five talented and successful jazz musicians met at the conservatory and decided not only to teach, but also to play together, making it as natural as possible: a repertoire of original works, several concerts to check, and then all return to the recording studio to rally the band around a common product. Even the title of the quintet's album "Deep Art Men" clearly indicates that they teach at the jazz department of the A. Pedrollo Conservatory in Vicenza. The annotations of the saxophonist Federico Benedetti, a former pupil of Pietro Tonolo, are useful in this regard. He dedicated the final track of the album, "Tonolulu", to his maestro. Creativity and enthusiasm show through "... in the sunny serenity of the Airport, where Birro surprises with his playing on the electric piano; in Dittato, a calm but determined and persistent piece; in Shorter's Progression and Porto Franco, where Calgaro is particularly eloquent, as well as in the nocturnal magic of Bluerik, a brilliant postmodern homage to Sati, which Tonolo highlights with numerous surprises that he manages to extract from his tenor saxophone...". It is also worth mentioning "... among the many other gems of Ammentos is a real celebration that awakens the richness of all the southern hemispheres, where Maiore and Bejo masterfully weave a polyrhythmic kaleidoscope, where everyone plunges headlong into the sparkling play of sound ideas ...". An album that should be listened to with the utmost attention, as it is able to present new and wonderful surprises with each subsequent listening.