D. C. Giancoli, Fisica 2 (ii o Iii Edizione), Casa Editrice Ambrosiana

Fontaines D.C. release their highly-anticipated fourth album, Romance. Released via XL Recordings, Romance is the band’s first album with producer James Ford and is without doubt their most assured, inventive and sonically adventurous record yet. It’s set to build on the success of the Dublin-made, now London-based band’s acclaimed 2022 album Skinty Fia, which reached number 1 in the UK and Irish album charts and saw the band receiving a host of accolades including “International Group of the Year” at the 2023 Brit Awards.

The second installment of four projected volumes, this once again captures latter-day Lester Young in top form, relaxed and playing with impeccable phrasing and swing. Ably backed by the Bill Potts Trio during his week-long stand at Olivia's Patio Lounge in Washington, these live tapes put the lie to the longstanding jazz myth that Young was well past his prime in the final decade of his life…

Barely a year after the release of their hugely acclaimed debut album 'Dogrel', which earned a Mercury Prize nomination and Album of the Year 2019 at both BBC 6Music and Rough Trade record store, Dublin’s Fontaines D.C. have returned with an intensely confident, patient, and complex follow up album. A Hero's Death arrives battered and bruised, albeit beautiful - a heady and philosophical take on the modern world, and its great uncertainty.

This third volume furthers explores the marvelous cache of tapes that have surfaced from Lester Young's 1956 engagement at Olivia's Patio Lounge in Washington, D.C. With the swinging but unobtrusive Bill Potts Trio, he provides the same empathetic support heard on the other volumes in this set, always playing the right changes without overt bop embellishments just for the sake of embroidery. Potts soloing is always in the pocket and his comping behind drummer Jim Lucht and bassist Norman Williams is equally fine and telling in what it leaves out. By laying down a simple beat with simple chord changes, you can actually hear Prez loosen up with each chorus, digging in and finding fresh ideas even in tunes that he had played hundreds of times over…

While many critics have written off Lester Young's recordings from his last years leading up to his death in 1959, this previously unissued collection of material recorded at Olivia's Patio Lounge in Washington, D.C. in December, 1956 proves that he was still very much in command. Joined by a local rhythm section consisting of pianist Bill Potts, bassist Norman Williams and drummer Jim Lucht, the tenor saxophonist is still swinging mightily and in full control of his chops. There aren't really any surprises among the selections, which draw from Young's favorite standards and a few of his most requested compositions…