"Inner Smile" is the new 2011 studio album from drummer, Aldo Romano - recorded in his country of origin : Italy. The track ‘Inner Smile’ first appeared on Romano’s 1997 Verve album ‘Intervista’. He has surrounded himself here with a top quartet : Enrico Rava on trumpet, Baptiste Trotignon, piano and Thomas Bramerie on bass.
Moppa Elliott is a young bassist who leads a young, talented band. As such, the music—both written and improvised parts—is misleadingly mature. Whether it's strong training and influences or just plain old giftedness I can't say, but it's heartening to see such talent continue to flow into jazz, despite the great old form's ongoing brush with death at the hands of the music business, aided and abetted by an increasingly indifferent or antipathetic public.
Box set in ECM’s acclaimed Old & New Masters series reintroduces Arild Andersen’s first three leader dates for the label – “Clouds In My Head”, “Shimri”, and “Green Shading Into Blue”. Recorded between 1975 and 1978, none of these albums has previously been issued on compact disc, and this edition is eagerly awaited. The music traces Andersen’s personal evolution from ‘free’-inclined bassist to bandleader-composer and introduces some players who would prove important for the future of the music – amongst them an 18-year-old Jon Balke on the “Clouds” session.