Stefano Battaglia

This is an interesting title in the wake of the notion that Stefano Battaglia composed most of these pieces and has performed them on earlier recordings – both solo and with various groups – and that Tony Oxley is such a renowned improviser…

3Quietmen is a young Italian trio that draws inspiration from composer Bela Bartok's Mikrokosmos, a prominent work consisting of 153 piano pieces. Fellow countryman and revered modern jazz pianist Stefano Battaglia joins the band for these pieces that waver between jazz and groove-based abstractions, shaded with electronics. It's a polytonal feast for the ears, as the musicians execute circular mini-motifs and cunning paradigm shifts, punchy ostinatos and brawny group-centric interplay. Battaglia occasionally calms the waters via airy, jazz-based phrasings and swirling chord progressions, while offering counterpoint to trumpeter Ramon Moro's searing notes. The classical inferences are subliminal and faint, and the artists occasionally skirt the free zone. On "Quietman Hymn," Battaglia and Moro render a supple and memorably melodic theme atop the rhythm section's gentle pulse and accenting tonalities.

Milanese pianist and composer Stefano Battaglia has walked on both sides of the classical and jazz street with ease and comfort. Whether performing Bill Evans or Pierre Boulez, he plays with integrity and authority. The double-disc Raccolto is his ECM debut, and he performs in two different settings to illustrate his tremendous gifts as both an improviser and a composer. His romantic leanings and sometimes pointillistic playing reveal his influences, from Evans to Paul Bley to Keith Jarrett. He carries his mentors with ease inside his gig bag. Disc one showcases Battaglia in a jazz trio setting with bassist Giovanni Maier and percussionist Michele Rabbia (who plays on both discs).

Stefano Battaglia plays both piano and prepared piano (sometimes simultaneously) in a highly attractive double-album programme that includes his own compositions and spontaneous improvisations as well as two versions of the Arabic traditional song “Lamma Bada Yatathanna”. The melodic and texturally-inventive pieces, some of almost hypnotic allure, were recorded both in concert and in “closed doors” sessions at the Fazoli Concert Hall in Sacile, Italy, in May 2016, and subsequently arranged into what Battaglia describes as “a wonderful new shape with a completely new dramaturgy” by producer Manfred Eicher.

The research by Stefano Battaglia and that of Michele Rabbia share training ( classical for both) , the sensual attraction for jazz , a love of classical music of the ' 900 , which extend in particular to two of the big issues which moves the musical evolution : I'm referring to the world of sound , the quest for its expansion and the theme of improvisation.