Search - Rosario Giuliani :: Luggage

Yet another proof that jazz is world music.

greg taylor | Portland, Oregon United States | 07/11/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Rosario Giuliani is yet another Italian who has mastered the tradition of jazz and who has gone on to develope his own voice. The liner notes give thanks to Coltrane and Parker (then again even the atheists among us give thanks for John Coltrane and Charles Parker) but I hear his tone as somehow combining Sonny Criss and Jackie McLean. While his playing can be fast and fluid ala bebop, he would have fit in nicely on some of the soulful mid-sixties Blue Note stuff and he has a somewhat bent melodic sense like Wayne Shorter or James Spaulding. More simply put, he is a wonderful player. Can you tell that I am impressed? So why not five stars? I like to reserve that rating for those few albums that reveal truely new possibilites of music to me. This album is not particularly innovative. Giuliani seems to agree with G.B. Shaw when he said "The thing is not to do something new. Any fool can do something new. The thing is to do something that cannot be bettered." Giuliani has maybe done just that on this impressive and powerful CD. He plays alto throughout and is accompanied by Pietro Lussu on piano, Pietro Ciancaglini on the bass and Lorenzo Tucci on the drums. Giuliani wrote five of the ten tunes, Lussu and Ciancaglini each contribute one. The killer among the originals for me is the title track. A fast, odd and rythmic melody. The three covers are Oriental Folk Song by Wayne Shorter, Road Song by Wes Montgomery and Portrait of Jennie by Robinson and Budge. All very well done. I guess I am just going to have to learn Italian, move to Italy, find some way to make money and listen to all the great jazz."