Massimo Barezzi

The Sistine Chapel Choir were quite late to the recording scene, but they are making up for lost time under director Massimo Palombella. The strengths of the choir's performances on this holiday release are threefold. First of all is the sound environment of the chapel itself, resonant and big, yet hospitable to dense polyphony since Josquin was a choirboy there. Josquin appears on the program here, but the motet Missus est Gabriel is not a common work, and that points to the choir's second strength: they work from a manuscript tradition, that of the Vatican, that is different from the set of scholarly publications that have long shaped the Renaissance performing repertory, and several pieces here are world premieres, or otherwise seldom heard.

Massimo Farao' is a wonderful Italian pianist who has played and recorded with Red Holloway, Albert "Tootie" Heath, Tony Scott, Franco Ambrosetti, Nat Adderley, Jeff Tain Watts, Jack DeJohnette and Chris Potter, among others. Farao's passionate style and stoic romanticism are very attractive along with the rich harmonies he creates.

This is the one to purchase if you decide to own one Urbani in your collection. Why? The quartet (Luigi Bonafede on piano; Furio Di Castri on bass; and Paolo Pellegatti on drums, with Urbani, of course, on alto sax) performs with uncommon synchronicity on a varied set. While the album is dedicated to Ayler and Coltrane, the music is anything but free-style, as might be implied. Instead, the wonderfully diverse pick of tunes (Coltrane's "Naima," Bird's "Scrapple form the Apple," Waldron's "Soul Eyes," Weill's "Speak Low," among three originals) is played with exquisite passion and precision. "Scrapple," where Urbani is backed only by acoustic bass, is a masterpiece, while "Soul Eyes" is blown with heart-rendering grace. Urbani's own "Dedications" burns, leaving behind little, if any, tread. Think of Urbani as a sort of super-Phil Woods and you might get the idea. Very cool.

Massimo recorded a stream of great performances in his short lifetime, and this one is no exception. If some of the material sounds a tad dated, the vast majority is first-rate, and Urbani makes the most of all of it. The best pieces are the familiar ones: the two alternate takes of "What's New" and the startling different versions of "The Way You Look Tonight." Urbani's quartets always feature the leading Italian jazzers, and this one includes bassist Giovanni Tommaso, creative original pianist Danilo Rea, and the ubiquitous Roberto Gatto. On two of the less interesting numbers written by Tommaso, the group is joined by tenor saxophonist Maurizio Urbani. Hearing Massimo on "My Little Suede Shoes" leaves no doubt about his roots, as if the giant picture of Bird on the cover leaflet juxtaposed with the title, "The Blessing" could be misunderstood. A class act, and one that should not disappoint the most discriminating critics of hard bop.

Only months after ASV's selection of chamber music by Nino Rota, which I reviewed in the May issue, here is another disc to prove that his output was not restricted to his highly effective film scores. This one is by an expert Milanese group, newly formed by the pianist Massimo Palumbo. Its programme overlaps with ASV's in the two postwar trios; at slightly slower speeds, Chandos's Ensemble Nino Rota gets rather more out of these essays in very mild modernism than ASV's Ex Novo Ensemble.