Projects

Arrigo Cappelletti piano
Giulio Martino tenor sax

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Wayne Shorter is probably one of the most original authors in history of jazz. His compositions are lyrical, introspective and harmonically brave. And give several chances: from ambiguous and mysterious ballads to themes of typical Latin inspiration, from intricate and harmonically complex ‘medium-up’ to ‘funky’ – or very classically structured – pieces. It’s natural that two curious, open-minded and very lyrically inspired musicians as the Lombard piano player Arrigo Cappelletti and the Neapolitan tenor sax player Giulio Martino have been attracted by this music and have tried to make it of their own. The “Shorter Project” founds its source here, bravely and unconventionally rediscovering Shorter’s compositions, respecting their spirit but – often provocatively – modifying their structure and universally recognized version.

Arrigo Cappelletti piano
Ana Moura voice
Jorge Fernando guitar and voice
Custodio Castelo portuguese guitar

During his Portuguese experience Arrigo Cappelletti not only introduced a kind of jazz mixed to sonorities and atmospheres of fado, but composed true traditional fados, too, committing their interpretation to some of the most famous representatives of Portuguese fado, as Ana Moura, Jorge Fernando and Custodio Castelo. The result is a show where Cappelletti’s compositions stand side-by-side with some of most famous fados, without losing atmospheres and quality of interpretation. The classic trio of fado (voice, viola/guitar and Portuguese guitar) joined by Cappelletti playing piano gives a result of rhythmic complexity and dialogue between piano and Portuguese guitar, unknown to traditional executions.
Here is a fado written by Cappelletti on the K 109 Sonata by Domenico Scarlatti – lyrics by Fernando Pessoa – played by the above mentioned trio featuring Arrigo Cappelletti playing piano – location: Palacio da Foz in Lisbon. This fado is part of the soundtrack of the film “Un gioco ardito” by Francesco Leprino (Il Gran Sole, 2006) on the composer Domenico Scarlatti.

Arrigo Cappelletti piano
John Hebert double bass
Jeff Hirshfield drums

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After several years of musical research, during which he worked with no frontiers (Tango-Jazz with Coscia and Manoury; Portuguese Fado with Alexandra, Custódio Castelo, Jorge Fernando; musical compositions inspired by the biggest poets of 20th Century; recent experimentation with Giulio Visibelli as a Duo), with some concerts in 2004 (Blue Note in Milan; “Classico” and Palma Theater in Rome; Ecojazz Festival in Reggio Calabria) and with the CD Arrigo Cappelletti Trio in New York (recorded in August 2005 in NY and just published by Music Center), Arrigo Cappelletti is back to his first love: the classic Trio with piano. Since the 1992 album Singolari Equilibri (Peculiar Balances), with Haemi Haemmerli and Bill Elgart, sythesis of lyrical and research, explicitly influenced by Paul Bley and remarked on Penguin Guide to Jazz as one of the most important Trio CDs of the last years, his plays in a Trio were more and more unfrequent. Now Cappelletti presents his Trio with two big personalities of the NY Jazz avant-garde: double bass player John Hebert and drummer Jeff Hirshfield. His program is one one side inspired by lyricism, rarefation and irony of Paul Bley (on whom in the meanwhile he wrote the book Paul Bley, la logica del caso), on the other side related to the fundamental lesson of blues and standards.

Arrigo Cappelletti piano
Giulio Visibelli sax soprano, flute

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A surprising, lyric, mocking bet: the meeting of Tango and freely improvised Jazz, on Arrigo Cappelletti’s compositions. Promoters are Cappelletti and Visibelli, who worked together since the album Pianure, first Italian experiment of Tango-Jazz, towards musical research with no fronteers.
In 1999 Cappelletti and Visibelli as a Duo recorded the CD Freetango (published by CDPM Lyon) and in 2003 the CD The Kid (published by Splasch). They played in 2000 at Clusone International Jazz Festival, International Jazz&Wine Festival in Dobrovo Castle (Slovenia), Villa Arconati Festival (with Maria Anadon), Festival dell’Unità in Milan, in 2003 at Le voci del jazz (Voices of Jazz) Festival in Milan Auditorium (with Polina Runovskaya), in 2004 at Iseo Jazz and Siena Jazz. Together with one of the biggest bassists and composers of modern Jazz, Steve Swallow, they recorded the CD Little poems (published by Splasch in January 2002), commented by Ed Hazell and dedicated to the memory of the American poet Sylvia Plath, and proposed once again the historic Trio of the ’60s BLEY-SWALLOW-GIUFFRE’, the beginning of a Jazz of research, European and linked to chamber music. With Steve Swallow they played several concerts in Summer of 2002 and accompanied three times the projection of the film The Kid by Charlie Chaplin. In October 2004 the video On Smoking by Francesco Leprino, based on their compositions, participated in the prestigious Not Still Art Festival (Brooklyn, NYC, U.S.A.).

“Questa musica gode di una libertà che non è mai alea, muovendosi con quel limpido procedere, sobrio ed essenziale, che è connaturato al modo di esprimersi di entrambi i musicisti. E quanto al tango, raramente è presente in modo esplicito; viene più che altro evocato attraverso uno sguardo al suo mondo espressivo, la cui componente lirico-malinconica tocca corde alle quali i due musicisti (soprattutto Cappelletti) sono molto sensibili: Si può allora dire che ci troviamo di fronte ad una riflessione sul clima emotivo del tango, fatta usando le parole e la sintassi del jazz”
(This music has a freedom that is never fortuitous, proceeding limpidly, with sobriety and essentiality, deeply rooted to the way of expression of both musicians. Tango is rarely explicitly present: it is mostly evocated by a look to its expressive world, whose lyric-melancholical component touches cords the two musicians (especially Cappelletti) are very sensitive to: so we can say we are dealing with a meditation on Tango emotive climate, made by words and syntax of Jazz.)
Maurizio Franco (unrevised translation)

Arrigo Cappelletti piano
Ralph Alessi trumpet

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This Duo has its beginning during a tour in Summer 2005. Arrigo Cappelletti works with American trumpetist Ralph Alessi, important personality of NY Jazz avant-garde, for a project on free improvisation. An open, lyric music, full of surprises and links not only to Jazz but to 20th Century music as well. In his book on Paul Bley, Arrigo Cappelletti writes:
Abolizione del tema, sua sostituzione con frammenti melodici sparsi, casuali, ininfluenti. Ciascuno di questi frammenti ha la forza di ripetersi per un po’, modificandosi leggermente, ma non di dar luogo a un discorso musicale organico e capace di sviluppo. Dopo un po’ non resta che il silenzio, che ha fra le altre sue funzioni quella di punteggiatura; un modo per organizzare e scandire un discorso altrimenti privo di organizzazione e di struttura.
Cappelletti and Alessi in Duo are open to the most different experiments: improvised accompaniment to silent films images, as they did for Aurora of F. Murnau; dialogue with lyrics of 0-24 Divieto di sosta, by philosopher, writer and satirist (under the pseudonym of Corvorosso) Furio Sandrini, in this case guest speaker.

Arrigo Cappelletti piano

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Arrigo Cappelletti est manifestement un formidable pianiste qui possède toutes les qualités : technique, maîtrise, sens harmonique et imagination. Sa lecture de Monk est particulièrement originale.

MARTIAL SOLAL

Arrigo Cappelletti is one of the many jazz pianists to try their hand on piano solo with the music of Thelonious Monk. However, his approach to the music of Monk stands out for its unconventional nature and at the same time rigorous. There is nothing here of the 'wandering' free and rhapsodic of many experiments in piano solos. Monk's compositions are dismantled and rebuilt in a free and all are, at least initially, unrecognizable. But Cappelletti remains faithful to their core audience and, above all, the 'spirit' of the music of Monk. A famous songs such as “Ask Me Now”, “Pannonica”, “Crepuscule With Nellie”, “Ruby My Dear”, “I mean You”, “Monk’s Mood” etc ... join in the project compositions directly inspired by Cappelletti Monk as "Breaks", "Tanghedia", "For Andrea", "Durate".

Arrigo Cappelletti pianoforte
Mat Maneri viola
Andrea Massaria chitarra
Nicola Stranieri batteria