Guidi Tonelli

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.

Pianist Giovanni Guidi and trombonist Gianluca Petrella, key figures in what some are hailing as a “golden age” of Italian jazz, found their strong improvisational rapport inside Enrico Rava’s band (see for instance the 2010 ECM album Tribe) and, keen to play more, formed a duo, giving many concerts in which they are intermittently joined by guests. For this studio recording, producer Manfred Eicher brought the duo together with US drummer Gerald Cleaver and French clarinetist Louis Sclavis, for an outgoing set of music which includes lyrical free improvising and tunes composed by Giovanni and Gianluca.

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.