(Post-Bop, Contemporary Jazz) [WEB] Felice Clemente Trio (Paolino Dalla Porta, Massimo Manzi) - 6:35 AM - 2015, FLAC (tracks), lossless

The “Mediterranean yeast” of a Jazz crooner.
There is the jazz that comes before John Coltrane, and the one that comes afterwards: in order to decide which road a musician should take, a musician needs to know them both .Felice Clemente has decided to take Trane and Joe Henderson as mentors: tenterhooks and velvet of the same breath.
Born in Milan in 1974, Clemente lets his music ferment in the “Mediterranean yeast”: intellect and heart, summary and clarity, melody and impulsiveness. This CD has become a drop of life in the human sea. Ingredients for “popular jazz” are all present: recognizable themes, dancing rhythms, colorful timbers, rich expressivity. Paolino Dalla Porta plays rounded sounds, Massimo Manzi squeezes swing even from a can, and Daniele Di Gregorio combines exoticism and nationalism. A logical syntax, as in an artisan workshop, which releases from exasperation and climbs over the communicative paralysis of the 20th century.
Clemente is the son of his time: on one hand, he refuses the indetermination of the 21st century, on the other he honors native roots of a global jazz, which similarly to romantic music is the supreme artistic language. He is a superlative performer, composer and arranger (his teachers have been Tino Tracanna and Corrado Guarini). He lives jazz as a reaction of vital rhythm, in which every beats “must create tension,” as Giorgio Gaslini said.
This way “Enjoy” was born, with its “zig zag” melody, and “To Sara”, with its soothing tune. “Mal d’Africa” has come to life from the meeting between East and West (with veiled “tribalism” transformed into a song). “Canguri urbani” is particular for the elasticity of the rhythm – almost like cats playing with a ball of wool. In the end, what really matters is that this group represents an artistic coherence that nowadays helps those who think that jazz is too complicated to understand (due to their lack of ability for “listening” to music). Letting yourself go with Clemente’s sax is an amazing therapy, because you get the chance to know an “informal singer” who follows an aesthetic of resonance and fluidity, without betraying himself and his art.
(Davide Ielmini)