Stefano Onorati, Walter Paoli - The Box (2026)

Between 2008 and 2012, Marco Tamburini (1959–2015) and Stefano Onorati experienced a flurry of creative activity. In 2010, the group Three Lower Colours – completed by Stefano Paolini – recorded thescore for the silent film «Blood and Sand», released on DVD. Those sessions were later featured in «First Take», the trio’s debut album, followed in 2011 by «Contemporaneo Immaginario», recorded with the Vertere String Quartet. From the archives of the late Cesena–born trumpeter, Onorati also unearthed the trio’s earliest studio recordings, dating back to 2009, which were released posthumously as «Red» (2021). Likewise, a late–night session from 2010 — this time as a duo with no drums — became «East of the Moon» (2023). While revisiting his archives, Onorati has recently uncovered another remarkable recording from that period: nine tracks by an original and futuristic duo featuring drummer Walter Paoli, his companion in many previous and later projects. It is no coincidence that these tunes — remixed and mastered in 2025 — were recorded in Tamburini’s studio, where much of the Three Lower Colours repertoire was created. Without the trumpet — as Tamburini simply hosted the session — and with Paoli on fire, fully attuned to and able to expand on the constantly evolving ideas of the Livorno–born keyboardist, the duo created and recorded extraordinary music. Thankfully, such music was preserved and those recordings can now, fifteen years later, finally be heard and fully appreciated. Composer Stefano Bellon writes in the liner notes: “… «The Box» overflows with invention, taste, talent, imaginative power, and poetry. The sound is exquisitely crafted, and every track – marked by an unwavering expressive intensity, without faltering or lapses – emanates instinctively from the personality and close rapport of the two musicians”. And again, a few lines later: “... an album with such communicative force does not arise from nothing. The ghosts of noble lineages and vast aesthetic distances are deliberately invoked (from Zawinul to Stravinsky, whose discreet reference appears veiled and remote). Yet this is no exercise in emulation or stylistic display; on the contrary, these references serve as detonators the phantasmagorias that permeate the entire work are unleashed from”.