BRUNO TOMMASO BARGA JAZZ ENSEMBLE “Dagli Appennini alle Madonie”

ARTIST

Bruno Tommaso Barga Jazz Ensemble

ALBUM TITLE

“Dagli Appennini alle Madonie”

LABEL

Caligola

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Bruno Tommaso is one of Italy’s most underrated maestros. A bassist, composer and conductor who shuns the spotlight, he has spent nearly six decades collaborating with some of the greatest names in Italian jazz – Enrico Rava, Franco D’Andrea, Gianluigi Trovesi and Enrico Pieranunzi – as well as with European and American giants such as Lee Konitz, Art Farmer, John Taylor and Richard Galliano. Yet it is above all as a composer and arranger that Tommaso has made his most enduring mark.

In this new and illuminating chapter of his journey, he presents nine fresh compositions and leads the Barga Jazz Ensemble – a compact offshoot of the Barga Jazz Big Band, tied to the festival held in Tuscany’s Lucca province. The result is a kind of pocket orchestra featuring a dozen first-rate improvisers, including Alessandro Rizzardi and Roberto Rossi. Together they embark on a vivid musical voyage that begins in the Garfagnana mountains and crosses the Italian peninsula, passing through Sardinia, Emilia-Romagna, Puglia, Campania and Sicily.

This itinerary evokes work songs, festive songs and traditional lullabies – all central to Tommaso’s aesthetic. His unmistakable style merges jazz and popular music with cultured references, drawing from both scholarship and lived experience.

Conceived as a suite that reveals new colours with each listen, the album’s most substantial piece is “Gesvals” – fourteen minutes in which echoes of ballroom dancing (waltz, mazurka and polka) intertwine with playful allusions to Miles Davis and Luigi Tenco. Mucciarelli’s electric guitar evokes the opening of “Un giorno dopo l’altro.” In “Puglia Sound,” the melancholic opening – inspired by the illegal hiring practices that exploit women – gives way to a brighter, tarantella-like section highlighted by a charming clarinet solo from Gori.

Ultimately, though, it is the journey as a whole that invites exploration, beyond the individual episodes. A work of deep imagination and refined craftsmanship, From the Apennines to the Madonie stands as another quiet triumph in Bruno Tommaso’s remarkable career.

– Ivo Franchi

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