The album of the day: Emanuele Cisi, “Games of clouds”

Emanuele Cisi, “Games of clouds” (Cd Dischi Della Quercia 128022-2)

For years now the Piedmontese saxophonist Emanuele Cisi has been one of the certainties of European jazz; his sound, broad and generous, starts directly from the great tradition of Sonny Rollins but also takes into account the harmonic developments developed by Wayne Shorter, adding a typically Italian melodic sense with a particular predilection for simple themes of great lyricism, from which Emanuele is capable of extracting every single drop of expressiveness.

Naturally, he is not lacking in technical virtuosity and the ability to inflame the audience with pyrotechnic passages, but listening to his albums it seems to me that the authentic center of Cisi’s personality lies precisely in the pleasure of singing, in carefully evaluating the impact that each single note has on the overall result, both in the most burning uptempos and in the more relaxed ballads. The quality level of Emanuele’s discography is consistently high, you can’t go wrong with any of his records, whether you decide to start with “Mayday” or the more recent “Urban Adventures”; my favorite remains “Giochi di Nuvole” (published in 1998) by virtue of the beauty of the themes that Emanuele composed for the occasion, to which are added excellent pages written by the drummer Francesco Sotgiu and the double bass player Marco Micheli, exceptional musicians who together with the pianist Paolo Birro (whom we have already met in these pages) form a quartet that is truly special in terms of skill and ability to work together.

Listening to the continuous and imaginative interplay between the soloist and the rhythm section is truly a joy; they all give us perfectly calibrated solos, which radiate energy in quantity.

In the liner notes, the great saxophonist Charles Lloyd underlines the ability that Emanuele has to vary textures, colors and themes, achieving what Lloyd defines as a “commonality with Nature”, managing to create new music by always comparing himself in a creative (and not passive) way with the past. There are no songs of less interest on this beautiful album; “Giochi di Nuvole”, “Dap”, “Forse”, but also “Song for Iolanda” and “Friend”. In closing, Cisi reminds us how the tradition of the great American Songbook belongs indelibly to its history, giving us a wonderful version of Harold Arlen’s “Last Night When We Were Young”.

Carlo Boccadoro, composer and conductor, was born in Macerata in 1963. He lives and works in Milan. He collaborates with soloists and orchestras in different parts of the world. He is the author of numerous books on musical topics.

This text is taken from “Lunario della musica: A record for every day of the year” published by Einaudi, courtesy of the author and the publisher.