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Piero Bittolo Bon

Piero Bittolo Bon is one of the busiest and most in demand italian musicians in the italian jazz and avant-garde scene. He mainly plays alto saxophone but is also at ease on baritone saxophone, flutes and clarinets. Piero has also had a long-standing affair going on with the electric bass, which he played at the beginning of his musical journey in funk, reggae, and rock bands, before committing himself to wind instruments and improvised music. Passionate and vibrant, his music, densely composed or totally improvised, reverberates with echoes of the best of free jazz, fire music, torrid improvisations and chamberesque compositions, sharp attacks and continuous inventions bar after bar. Member of the fresh and much regarded italian collective/record label El Gallo Rojo Records, he’s currently leading his own quintet, Bread & Fox with Filippo Vignato on trombone, Alfonso Santimone on piano, Glauco Benedetti on tuba and Andrea Grillini on drums. Other notable bands he leads are his Jümp The Shark sextet with Gerhard Gschloessl on tuba and trombone, Domenico Caliri on guitars, Pasquale Mirra on vibes, Danilo Gallo on bass and Federico Scettri on drums, and “Rollerball”, a rock-oriented jazz quintet with Beppe Scardino on bari sax, Enrico Terragnoli on guitar, Danilo Gallo on bass and Massimiliano Sorrentini on drums, not mentioning the many other bands he’s involved in, mainly with his Gallo Rojo fellows and with other major italian musicians. In 2010 he was called to be part of a new Uri Caine project, “Pulse”. His “Original Pigneto Stompers” outfit features giant of electric bass Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Simone Massaron on guitars and Federico Scettri and Massimiliano Sorrentini on double drums. One of his most recents projects, “Lacus Amoenus”, involves the great trumpet player Peter Evans. His interest in finding new sounds and new improvisational languages brought him to design a special microphone system allowing to control and play the feedback that is generated inside the saxophone tube. This “augmented” alto saxophone is featured in his solo project “SPELUNKER”. He performed an recorded with italian artists such as Danilo Gallo, Zeno de Rossi, Beppe Scardino, Enrico Terragnoli, Stefano Senni, Francesco Bigoni, Massimiliano Sorrentini, Achille Succi,Tiziana Ghiglioni, Tiziano Tononi, Daniele Cavallanti, Francesco Cusa, Domenico Caliri, Giovanni Maier, U.T. Gandhi, Simone Massaron, Silvia Bolognesi, John De Leo and with musicians like Anthony Braxton, Uri Caine, Peter Evans, Steve Lehman, John Tchicai, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Lukas Ligeti, Gino Robair, Jessica Lurie, Andrew Drury, Neil Leonard, Ernest Dawkins, Vincent Davis, Craig J.

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Album Review

Unscientific Italians: Play The Music Of Bill Frisell Vol. 2

Read "Play The Music Of Bill Frisell Vol. 2" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


Prosegue l'omaggio alla musica di Bill Frisell da parte degli Unscientific Italians che, dopo il disco uscito nel 2021, presentano adesso un secondo volume, proposto anche in un doppio vinile assieme al primo. La formazione è la medesima, anche se ci sono un paio di avvicendamenti in alcune tracce: musicisti in larga parte precedentemente membri del collettivo di El Gallo Rojo--nel cui interno, nel 2008, era nato il progetto, poi lasciato inattivo per dieci anni--o comunque frequenti collaboratori ...

3
Album Review

Piero Bittolo Bon: Spelunker

Read "Spelunker" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


The Italian saxophonist Piero Bittolo Bon is a veritable one-person orchestra. On his 12th release, Spelunker (his fourth solo outing), he augments the sound of his alto saxophone and adds bass flute and electronics to his instrumentation. Thus, over two long improvisations and a shorter excerpt, he creates poignant and cinematic soundscapes that move and stimulate. “Game/Elan" opens with resonant alto and electronic percussion and can easily be a soundtrack for a dystopian steampunk film. The eerie sounds ...

Album Review

Dinamitri Open Combo: Mappe per l'Eden

Read "Mappe per l'Eden" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


Arriva su disco il Dinamitri Open Combo, fusione di due tra le migliori formazioni nazionali--il Dinamitri Jazz Folklore di Dimitri Grechi Espinoza e l'Open Combo di Silvia Bolognesi--ottenuta grazie alla presenza in organico di alcuni musicisti in comune, alla grande frequentazione di tutti i membri in molti contesti e a una residenza organizzata nel 2019 da Pisa Jazz. Ne è scaturito questo Mappe per l'Eden, che avevamo avuto modo di vedere dal vivo prima della pandemia e che ...

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Album Review

Unscientific Italians: Play The Music Of Bill Frisell Vol. 1

Read "Play The Music Of Bill Frisell Vol. 1" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Few would argue against Bill Frisell's status as one of the most singular and influential guitarists/composers since around 1980. And yet, the Baltimore-born musician remains something of an enigma: easy to admire but a tad more difficult to pin down. Instantly recognizable from just a handful of notes, Frisell is, at the same time, a musical polyglot, the breadth of whose music—particularly his myriad collaborations—is perhaps unparalleled. How best then to approach his music? The Unscientific Italians, an ...

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Album Review

Unscientific Italians: Play the Music of Bill Frisell Vol.1

Read "Play the Music of Bill Frisell Vol.1" reviewed by Mario Calvitti


Arrivato a farsi conoscere in età relativamente tarda (aveva già passato i trenta anni quando ha inciso il primo disco da titolare per la ECM, preceduto da un paio di collaborazioni con due illustri artisti della stessa etichetta come Arild Andersen e Jan Garbarek), Bill Frisell si è subito imposto come una delle voci nuove più importanti nel mondo del jazz e della musica improvvisata, non solo per il suo personalissimo approccio alla chitarra che lo ha fatto diventare un ...

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Album Review

On Dog: Dielectric

Read "Dielectric" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


A sette anni di distanza dai due precedenti lavori, Part I: Sloeblack e Part II: White Horse y La Rumba, usciti in contemporanea, arriva un nuovo album di On Dog, quintetto internazinoale capitanato da Francesco Bigoni e dal danese Mark Solborg. Registrato nel 2016, questo Dielectric è stato poi messo a punto nel periodo del confinamento per la pandemia ed esce anche stavolta per l'etichetta ILK. La formazione è singolare fin dalla scelta degli strumenti: tre ance, tutte ...

1
Album Review

PBB's Bread & Fox: This Is Sour Music

Read "This Is Sour Music" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


L'avevamo visto dal vivo in uno degli ultimi concerti prima dello scoppio della pandemia e adesso possiamo ascoltarlo su CD: parliamo del quintetto Bread & Fox di Piero Bittolo Bon, giunto con questo This Is Sour Music (Trouble in the East Records) al secondo lavoro dopo Big Hell on Air, uscito nel 2016 per Auand. La cifra della musica non è cambiata, conservando una densità di scrittura che si rifà a Henry Threadgill e Tim Berne, coniugata però ...

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