Giovanni Guidi Trio

Pianist Giovanni Guidi (born 1985), is one of the most outstanding musicians to have emerged from the ranks of Italian jazz in the last decade and has already made his presence felt on Enrico Rava’s “Tribe” and “On The Dancefloor” albums. Rava praises both Guidi’s “limitless curiosity” as an improviser and his “relentless refinement” of touch and musical taste, and the pianist continually proves that those qualities are not opposites. His first leader date for ECM is a glowing collection of self-penned tunes, simultaneously inner-directed and creatively daring, with many adroit exchanges between the musicians and plenty of space given also to bassist Thomas Morgan, whose role in the Guidi Trio is perhaps analogous to Scott LaFaro’s in the Evans Trio.

The Giovanni Guidi Trio plays jazz of uncommon originality and reflective depth. On their second ECM album, Italian pianist Guidi, US bassist Morgan, and Portuguese drummer Lobo continue the work begun on the 2011 recording City of Broken Dreams, with pensive, abstract ballads which shimmer with inner tension. Each of the players has a strong sense for the dialectics of sound and silence. The repertoire is mostly from Guidi’s pen, but also includes the standard "I’m Through with Love", Cuban songwriter Osvaldo Farrés' "Quizás, quizás, quizás" (familiar to jazz listeners through, above all, Nat King Cole’s version), and "Baiiia" by João Lobo.

Italian pianist Giovanni Guidi’s core trio with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer João Lobo opens Avec le temps with a deeply-felt interpretation of the title track, the song of love and loss by Léo Ferré, and closes the album with “Tomasz”, dedicated to Tomasz Stanko. In between, the band swells to quintet size, with saxophonist Francesco Bearzatti and guitarist Roberto Cecchetto contributing to Guidi originals and group improvising in a programme of strikingly contrasting energies and colours, with outstanding playing by all participants. Avec le temps was recorded at Studios La Buisonne in November 2017 and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Rekindling the familiarly flowing interplay with fellow travellers Thomas Morgan and João Lobo – the trio’s musical partnership goes back over a decade at this point –, on A New Day Italian pianist Giovanni Guidi moreover expands the group’s instrumental grasp with the introduction of American saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, who makes his ECM debut here. Not only is the ensemble scope widened; with Brandon Lewis in tow, new dialects and fresh perspectives are broached, and different instrumental paths taken, inspired by an overall heightened sense of communication and Lewis’s unmistakable, confident tone. Recorded at Studios La Buissonne, Southern France, in August 2023, the album was produced by Manfred Eicher.