TORINO JAZZ FESTIVAL 23 - 30 APRIL 2025

By Ferruccio Martinotti

Edition number 13 of the Festival, this time in full coincidence with The Liberation Day (April 25th), the national holiday celebrating the 80th anniversary of the victory against nazi-fascists troops that were still occupying northern Italy. Torino and Piedmont were the fulcrum of the partisans struggle and paid a tremendous price in terms of dead or tortured people, mostly very young. As usual, the TJF took place in several locations across the city. A snapshot of the concerts we attended, as follows.

ENRICO RAVA - Fearless Five (Teatro Colosseo, April 23)

The old Maestro (85 years old) is back in his hometown when in 1956, attending the Miles’s concert, had the epiphany that drove him to buy a trumpet and become the legendary musician we know. Along his long career, he used to give a chance to a lot of “rookies” (what a real Maestro should always do…) and this time ain’t an exception: all members of the band, Fearless Five, are around their 30s and, needless to say, fully deserve to be Rava’s partners in crime for this stage of his endless sonic journey. Matteo Paggi (trombone), Francesco Ponticelli (double bass), Francesco Diodati (guitar) and Evita Polidoro (drums, vocal) deliver full cylinders swing flavors, free escapades boosted by electronics, as well as Abercrombie-esque guitar nuances, in a smooth circular, democratic and mutual exchange with Enrico’s flugelhorn, still cristal and pristine like fresh mountain water. They won Musica Jazz magazine’s 2025 poll, both as best band and best record and the sold out theater (1500 seats) eventually saluted those fearless souls with endless applause. No doubt, the trumpeters (see also Wadada and McPhee) traded their souls at the Crossroad for the Eternal Youth.

FERRAIUOLO/MIRABASSI - Disubbidire sempre (Educatorio della Provvidenza, April 24)

Despite a solid classical upbringing, the duo of Fausto Ferraiuolo (piano) and Gabriele Mirabassi (clarinet) pushes full speed ahead towards unusual music territories, picking up and mixing genres, influences and styles, leaving the comfort zone as soon as they can and forcing the audience to listen to their music without too many landmarks and paradigms. They emphasize the ludic subtext of their concert and the solid interplay, the intertwined and overlapped musical textures are certainly joyful and emotional, through a well working balance between composed structures and free expression. “Disubbidire sempre” (“Disobey always”, a wonderful project-title that alone was worth being there), aptly fits this ongoing exploration of new and challenging musical paths.

CALIBRO 35 - Exploration (Teatro Colosseo, April 24)

Undisputed aces from Milano, self defined as “jazz robbers”, we owe them the retro futuristic re-discovery of those soundtracks mined from the inexhaustible goldmine of the 60’s and 70’s Italian B movies (if not C or D…). While the films certainly didn’t leave a mark in the Cinema’s Holy Book, totally different was their musical cotè. The likes of Piccioni, Bakalov, Umiliani, Micalizzi, Ortolani, Martelli, Lesinar, just to name a few and without considering Morricone, were off the scale, top notch composers, ignored by the Kritiks and forgotten under the dust of time, before, thanks to Easy Tempo and Soul Jazz collections, Tarantino’s worshipping and the works of Mike Patton and John Zorn, they eventually found a decent spotlight on their enormous class and talent. Calibro 35’s blasting sound, through covering obscure pebbles or writing new material, wonderfully able to avoid an algid and calligraphic coverage, deliver hot and sweaty grooves, greasy blaxploitation lines that make you feel at the wheel of Starsky & Hutch’s Gran Torino, screeching the tyres on today’s L.A. freeways. The chemistry between the four musicians (Massimo Martellotta guitar, synth; Enrico Gabrielli flute, saxophone, keyboards, electronics; Fabio Rondanini drums; Roberto Dragonetti bass) after almost 20 years spent playing all over the globe, allows the rocket ship to fly with a nitro booster, driving the screaming, ecstatic audience completely nuts.

ZOE PIA - Eic eden inverted collective “Atlantidei” (Teatro Vittoria, April 25)

Paraphrasing the theory of cognitive balance, according to which “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, we could say that anyone who plays with our heroes will alway deserve the admission ticket. This is what happens with Zoe Pia, the young musician (clarinet, launeddas, electronics) from Sardinia who played a bunch of dates with Mats Gustafsson last year, leaving behind a huge stream of positive reviews, thus making it mandatory for us to attend her gig, the live debut of the project “Atlantidei”. Four young percussionists (Mattia Pia, Nicola Ciccarelli, Paolo Nocentini, Carlo Alberto Chittolina), from classical music upbringing, shake the venue to its foundations, beating every kind of beatable instrument: bass, snare, tom, cymbals, vibraphone, xylophone, marimbas, kettledrum, tambourine, gong, even a plastic basin, building up a fascinating, polychrome, sonic landscape in which Zoe is unrolling her amazing, tangled textures. The outcome is never cacophonic or out of focus but rather lyrical and compelling, thanks to a brave, emotional and uncompromising performance, able to move the audience deeply. Such a free-ancestral voyage, starting from the mythical Atlantide/Sardinia, finds its arrival station on the Black Continent with the band leaving the stage muttering a litany called “Africa”: no better way to end a really beautiful concert.

VIJAY IYER - Piano solo (Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi, April 25)

Piano solo is a peculiar beast, definitely not a couch pet and, to be honest, not our super favorite cup of tea but given that: 1) we have a super handy chance to see Iyer for the first time; 2) to skip such a gig could leave a bitter wave of regrets for very long time; 3) our solo records by Evans and Monk were worn out by thousands of listens, we head to the Conservatorio Hall, fuelled with confidence and hope. A magnificent grand piano placed beside the enormous, towering, ancient pipe organ, pride of the prestigious musical institution, is welcoming the people for a sold out gig. Not a typical jazz audience, we’d say, but, yes, you're right, what the hell is a “typical jazz audience”? Then Vijay enters the stage, a slight bow and takes place on the piano. Dead silence, music, applause, standing up, slight bow, dead silence, music, applause and so on, the same ritual until the very end. Hyper virtuosity, crossed-handed playing, mathematical progressions: is this jazz? Or is it classical music? Or are our skills too weak and inadequate to understand what is it? Silly questions, sure thing. The concert goes and so does the unease. Mental flashbacks bring us back Breezy screaming at the audience “have hugs, have drinks, make noise!”. Silly thoughts, sure things. Don't get us wrong: no blasphemy or disrespect towards a sheer, undisputed musical talent, just a place light years beyond our idea of jazz. And music. Simple as that.

JAN BANG SEXTET - “Alighting” (Hiroshima mon Amour, April 25)

The Norwegian musician and producer, long time collaborator of the likes of Hamid Drake, Jon Hassel and David Sylvian, founder of the Punkt Festival, is coming to town with a project specifically composed for the Festival, called “Alighting”, delivered by an ad hoc sextet of musicians, gathered on stage for the very first time. Along with the band leader (voice, live sampling), we find the astonishing turkish, Amsterdam-based Sanem Kalfa (voice, cello); the Catalan Santi Careta (acoustic and electric guitar); from Norway Mats Eilertsen (double bass) and Eivind Aarset (guitar, electronics); on drums the “Enfant du Pays”, the mighty Michele Rabbia. No boundaries, no walls, no tariffs, no gods, just a common language: the music. Bang lends the voice to almost every song and his monochromatic singing à la David Sylvian, smoothly matches the labyrinthic plots beautifully drawn by such marvellous music partners. The suffused atmospheres and the tinged, almost ambient, textures would have needed a more intimate seating theater, maybe, while the legendary Hiroshima, an all-stand-up venue with the boozer just a few meters from the stage, is better suited for Cockney Rejects or Henry Rollins than for scandinavian jazz, you bet, but everything went really well and the audience warmly appreciated.

TONONI/CAVALLANTI - “Nexus plays Dolphy” (Casa Teatro Ragazzi, April 26)

Nexus is an open project put in place in 1981 by drummer Tiziano Tononi and reedist Daniele Cavallanti that involved along the years the “Parterre des Rois” of Italian jazz scene: Enrico Rava, Gabriele Mitelli, Gianluca Trovesi; Pasquale Mirra, Silvia Bolognesi, to name a few. After around ten records of original compositions, along with tributes to Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, Don Cherry, Roland Kirk, John Carter, John Gilmore and Charles Mingus, this time, as a new chapter of their sonic adventures, they decided to challenge one of the most vertical music walls: Eric Dolphy. The master Roberto Ottaviano (soprano sax), Alessandro Castelli (trombone), Emanuele Parrini (violin), Luca Gusella (vibraphone), Andrea Grossi (double bass) are the climbing companions of Tononi and Cavallanti, engaged in the almost impossible task of walking on thin ice, avoiding to fall down in the crevasses of pale xerox copies or disrespectful outcomes. And they win because they dare to dare: keeping the Dolphian coordinates as untouchable cardinal points, they freely float through the most impervious and tricky routes on the map. The engine runs so perfectly oiled that even the violin (despite some pretty solid counter-evidence, not a jazz device, sorry) sounds as a necessary tool. The dedication of the final song to the people of Gaza is a commendable note for this great combo. FYI, an official record of this tribute is available.

LAKECIA BENJAMIN - “Phoenix Reimagined” (Teatro Colosseo, April 28th)

If any Festival worthy of the name has (must have..) its moment of Glamour, this was Lakecia’s gig, no doubt. The White House Inauguration, Obama’s appreciation, The Late Night Shows, the covers of every music magazine from Pocatello to Timbuktu, the nearly fatal car incident, her platforms and golden lamè outfit, all helped to make mrs. Benjamin the Last Sensation in Town, or, at least, one of them. Such a freight train of hype preceding her arrival in Torino made us pretty cautious and suspicious but, as for any snobbish preconception (that was ours), we were wrong, totally wrong. Sublime class, enthusiastical verve, contagious involvement, unstoppable positive mood, make the concert a 1000 Fahrenheit degrees live experience, electrocuting the sold out venue. The musical palette is polychrome and challenging: intense solos; credible street rhymes shot like an AK 47; impeccable balance on the high tension wires of “My favorite thing”; a leader always devoted to an ongoing and generous interplay with band members. Needless to say, the level of the musicians on stage is worthy of her: Elias Bailey and Dorian Phelps are the powerhouse rhythm section, while the Corean John Chin paints on piano terrific textures à la Chick Corea. The final encore, a thermonuclear rendition of Booker T’s “Green Onions” blows off the roof, testifying that jazz is not and will never be a rhetorical, academic exercise.

DUDU’ KOUATE 4TET - (Teatro Juvarra, April 30)

From the arrival on Sicilian shores as an immigrant from Senegal to become the percussionist of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago: this simple sentence could summarize the adventurous personal and artistic life of Dudù Quate, the last musician we saw at this edition of the TJF. Kouate, coming from a griot upbringing, spent his life collecting songs, musical sketches, patterns and rituals from different African languages, then combined them with contemporary languages, thus building a bridge between tradition and innovation. Easy to say, much more difficult to realise, avoiding a watered, undrinkable “fusion”, good for a dentist’s waiting room but not for our Blog. The stage test dispels all doubts, fully accomplishing the goal through a well focused deployment of ideas onto sounds, beautifully delivered by Simon Sieger (piano, keyboards, trombone); Alan Keary (electric bass, violin) and Zeynep Ayse Hatipoglu (cello), while Dudù, beside voice, ngoni, water drum and talking drum, is committed to beating a very wide range of tribal percussions. As he explained, the 4TET offers to past and future sounds and voices the chance to be gathered together, building up a moment of unity and brotherhood, according to the African principle of Ubuntu: I am because we are. The collaboration with Moor Mother will generate a record, scheduled for the beginning of 2026, and we already tied a string around our finger.

Jason Alder, Thanos Chrysakis, Charlotte Keeffe, James O’Sullivan – Inward Traces Outer Edges (Aural Terrains, 2025)

By Nick Ostrum

Inward Traces Outer Edges is the latest release from Thanos Chrysakis and his Aural Terrains label. On it perform label stalwarts such as Jason Alder (in an odd paring of contrabass clarinet and sopranino saxophone) and Chrysakis himself (laptop and synth) in addition to the British trumpeter Charlotte Keeffe and guitarist James O’Sullivan, both of whom have been distinguishing themselves in the London and adjacent scenes over the last several years.

From the first sounds, one notices that this is different from other Chrysakis and Aural Terrains productions. It is busy, heavy on the buzzing electronics and O’Sullivan’s manipulated guitar clink. Then comes the huff and heave of Keeffe and steady bombinations of Alder, as Keeffe switches to strained fanfares over the emerging stormy front. When composed, Chrysakis’ music seems to blend sounds, evoking dark organ music, and relying on singular and overlapped droning for effect. Here, however, the quartet seems driven more by quest for different currents of energy and the potential for new sonic interactions that more open contexts such as this allow. The music smolders with the electro-acoustic intensity of an overgrown field at dusk. Nothing shouts too loud, but the sheer range of textures and timbres evokes that type of vibrant and diverse natural variation. At times, a windy and strained trumpet catches one’s ear. Then, Alder’s low tones and, on sopranino, sharp bites and jaunty (maybe even jazz) arpeggios. Then, the listener’s ear wanders to what sound like muffled voices and electric chains, synthesized drones (this is Chrysakis, after all) and glimmering plonk of the electronics and guitar.

It is strange to hear this configuration of musicians and Chrysakis, an accomplished composer, in such a setting. I have been assured there was no score or direction beyond “Don’t hesitate to linger on what is emerging,” which is such a wonderful and telling instruction. Inward Traces Outer Edges maintains some of the long-tone aesthetics and deep listening that characterize Chrysakis’ compositions. Still, I would not have placed this among his output had I not already known of his involvement. There is just too much clatter, which, in the hands of Alder, Keeffe, O’Sullivan and Chrysakis himself, is a good thing, as they do it with such intention and control, to pleasingly coarse and unconventional results.

Inward Traces Outer Edges is available as a CD directly from Aural Terrains: https://www.auralterrains.com/releases/55 .

Alexandra Grimal & Giovanni Di Domenico - Shakkei (Relative Pitch Records, 2025)

By Stef Gijssels

French saxophonist Alexandra Grimal and Italian pianist Giovanni Di Domenico have performed and released albums over the years, in different ensembles. This is their fourth duo album, after "Down The Hill" (2020), after "Ghibli" (2011) and "Chergui" (2014), and it is an absolute winner. 

Recorded live in Ghent, Belgium in January 2023, the duo brings us five improvised pieces with Japanese titles. "Komori" means "a person who tends to trees", "Ishi No Irai" means "Request Of The Stone", "Kuden" means "(oral) tradition", "Sanmai" "absorbing oneself in something", "Korishiro" "object to which a spirit is drawn or summoned". If anything, these titles suggest an organic, nature inspired and spiritual musical excursion. Grimal plays tenor and soprano saxophones, Di Domenico plays grand piano, celesta and organ. The music is fragile, ethereal, lyrical and very precise. Both Grimal and Di Domenico master a wide variety of styles and influences, to the extent that a lot of their music would not even match our blog's profile, yet this album will please fans of free improv and avant-garde alike. 

The music is rich, complex despite its spontaneity, light-hearted yet deep. 

The pièce de résistance is the twenty minute long "Sanmai" - starting with a smartphone tone from the audience - on which De Domenico switches to organ. The latter instrument gives more gravitas to the sound, a more solemn and grand vista compared to the more delicate piano pieces. Grimal takes on the sound by long single tones from her tenor, with growing intensity and timbral extensions, resulting in a mesmerising effect. After a little more over six minutes, her tone becomes lyrical, somewhat naive, gentle, playful and on soprano, completely changing the atmosphere of the piece without losing its essential focus and sense of direction. The organ's dark tone from the beginning shifts into a more light-hearted theme and takes over the piece after another six minutes, only to change again into a more unpredictable environment. And it keeps shifting. The effect is astonishing, fascinating. 

I liked their previous albums a lot, but this is the strongest one. Both artists have a very strong sensitivity for each other's sound, allowing to co-create as if every note was planned, as if every change and shift was agreed upon instead of the joint movement into a new uncharted sonic space, and perfected this over the years. 

Don't miss it!

Sophie Agnel / John Butcher - RARE (Les Disques VICTO, 2025)

By Martin Schray

Music can be compared to radiation - analogous to descriptions by the German writer Ernst Jünger. In his diary entries of the same name, Jünger refers to light, but his observations can also be applied to the auditory world - especially that of improvised music. The musicians capture sound that reflects on the listener. In this sense, they perform preparatory work. The abundance of sounds must first be selected and then evaluated - in other words, given the sound that corresponds to their rank according to a secret key. Sound means life, which is hidden in the tones. A flawless improvisation then has an effect beyond the pleasure it gives the listener. It would be a decision between the played and the discarded, a delicate balance that transcends to the other areas of life and society. Thus musicians would be far more important in their significance than they are generally given credit for. When they transform tones into sound, the future is seen, it is conjured up or banished in the best sense. Perhaps this gives music a little too much weight, but I thought of this analogy when I listened to Sophie Agnel’s and John Butcher’s latest album, RARE.

The very first notes of the opening piece sound like a small homage to György Ligeti’s “Atmospheres”, with their improvisational rigor on the one hand and relaxed, variable and aleatoric moments on the other. However, the two apparent extremes coincide in Agnel and Butcher’s music. The improvisation is then more a state than a contour or shape, the timbre is the decisive element, the actual carrier of the form, which - detached from the musical shapes - becomes an intrinsic value. Agnel’s notes seem to be dabbed on, Butcher’s saxophone casually hisses past them or his lines pop up only to disappear again immediately. Much could be played here, but the two decide not to. The pause is the crucial element. If RARE were an ECM recording, euphony would probably take center stage. But Angel’s and Butcher’s music is roughened, bulky and accessible at the same time, atonal but quite audible, rugged and dark, but also plainly beautiful. Both are masters of their instruments, and there are also wild passages on RARE, as well as stark contrasts such as Butcher’s birdsong in “RARE 2”, which Agnel accompanies with notes from the lower register. Pure life here: The awakening of nature in the early morning, but the dark clouds on the horizon already herald a coming storm.

The music on RARE lives from these fundamental tensions, it even thrives from them. You can lose yourself in the sounds created by two of the great improvisers of our time, let yourself fall into it, reel in it. RARE celebrates this creativity, it’s a high mass of improvisation. Agnel and Butcher manage to uncover the life (the sound) that is hidden in the notes. It’s a vision of a better future. Marvelous!

RARE is available as a download.

You can listen to some excerpts and buy it here:

Matthew Shipp

This is a nice find ... music journalist Marc Masters sits down with pianist Matthew Shipp to discuss his new book, Black Mystery School Pianists and Other Writings, which came out last month from Autonomedia press. In the book, the prolific pianist offers a collection of essays, poems, tributes, and obituaries among other things. 

Listen here

Since this new interview is a Podcast, and this is technically the Sunday Video post, here's a video of Shipp talking about his music, with cultural journalist Carlo McCormick. This one has been around for a bit, but good ideas never get old, right?

Rapid Zen - Fried Brains (Defkaz, 2025)

By Eyal Hareuveni

Rapid Zen is a new free improvising trio featuring prolific Portuguese, Rotterdam-based double bass player Goncalo Almeida, Sweden-born, Barcelona-based (after 40 years in Argentina) turntablist and vocal artist Barbara Togander (known for her recorded collaborations with Argentinian sax player Camila Nebbia, and has performed with Otomo Yoshihide, Christof Kurzmann, Andrea Parkins and dieb13), and Catalan, Barcelona-based magician drummer-percussinist Vasco Trilla (who has played before with Almeida in the Low Vertigo trio with Catalan guitarist Diego Caicedo). Fried Brains is the trio's debut album, and it was recorded at Underpool Studios in Barcelona in June 2024.

Don’t hold your breath in anticipation of instant karma or rapid enlightenment, but with such resourceful and imaginative improvisers, you can enjoy a series of chaotic and colorful collages and rhythmic pulses comprised of manipulated and processed vocals, fast turntable sampling, powerful double bass playing with an array of extended bowing and percussive techniques, and unorthodox and always inventive percussive ideas. There is nothing spiritual, but the rapid flow of left-of-center ideas may recalibrate your brain’s wave frequencies to the point of frying.

Each of the nine pieces suggests a distinct, layered and nuanced sonic palette, with endless references, from the frenetic, pixie-like vocals (“Catalyzing Zen”); through the inquisitive and hypnotic spoken-word art of Laurie Anderson (“Clockwork Predictability”); ornamenting solo arco double bass playing with concise alien comments (“Nine Pimientos”); evoking a mysterious, film-noir image (“Super Perfume”); creating enigmatic and minimalist radio and sound art (“Constantinopla”); the nervous choir of manipulated chants and fragmented pulse wishing their brain will be fried (on the title piece); twisted, spiraling church-bells sounds (“No One’s Home”); to the last, subversive but surprising lyrical experiment to modulate the listener’s heart rate to Rapid Zen’s disorienting frequencies (“Hearts Modulation”). There are tons of imaginative sonic ideas to process before attaining a Zen satori.

 

See more here: https://youtu.be/P6Qe3s32Z-U?si=jfPL-HVXJwBgpKMG

Staraya Derevnya – Garden Window Escape (Ramble Records, 2025)

By Nick Ostrum

One might say Krautrock, as variegated as it was, was an attempt to remake something German in an environment wherein the immediate past, and even the idea of the Volk, was severely tainted. In that sense, it was a type of reinvention of tradition out of the scraps left by the collapse of the Nazi regime and driven by a hopeful futurist orientation. By the time the industrial wave of Krautrocker experimentalists was coming into its own in the early 1980s, this optimism had collapsed, but that pursuit of making music out of one’s environment that reflected those same environments remained.

Staraya Derevnya, whose Garden Window Escape drops May 2 (today!), describe their music as “Krautfolk,” and, with the understanding of folk outlined above, I hear it. This sounds like an attempt to take the clamorous chthonic-space warp tradition now associated with the heavier reaches of German movement and refract it through various electronics to create something that reflects our fracturing contemporary moment. It is an attempt to convey stories and impressions of life non-linearly, and the distortions and strangeness help only help those sentiments land. Still, I am not sure what to call this. Kosmische Musik 3.0, or whichever version we are running now? Post-industrial Krautrock, redesigned and reinvigorated, with greater attention to computer electronics and EAI techniques that have developed over the last half-century? Is Krautfolk really enough? Then again, such a fixation on previous styles is problematic, as it limits the creative impetus behind the work. And this album, Garden Window Escape, is intensely creative and, in that, deeply effective. When I first inserted this into my car CD player, it moved me in a way few albums do these days. My heart started pounding.

Staraya Derevnya is the transnational ensemble of leader Gosha Hniu (cries and whispers, wheel lyre, marching band kazoo, percussion and objects), Maya Pik (synthesizer, flute, drum machine), Ran Nahmias (silent cello, santur, oud), Grundik Kasyansky (feedback synthesizer), Miguel Pérez (guitars), Yoni Silver (bass clarinet), and Andrea Serafino (drums). Its members are strewn across the UK, Mexico, Bulgaria, and Israel, which makes it all the more remarkable that they have been a band since 1994.

The soundworld Staraya Derevnya creates is dark, marauding, and disorienting, often tattered but with an underlying warmth. It is atavistic and ritualistic, complete with perplexing chants and whispers, repeated and incrementally broken from words into cryptic syllabic fragments. (Hniu starts a mix of his Russian [he is originally from Ukraine] and invented words, and trudges along, sound by sound, from there.) Simple melodies loop and layer on crackling backgrounds on haunted long tones. The band also deploys the driving industrial thrum and thud that underlies dancehall music, almost in the way the Kenyan duo Duma does, to great effect. Rather than veering so far into harsh noise, however, Staraya Derevnya deploy a rough psychedelia, patchwork sound snippets, heavy synth, gravelly frictions, and various vocal oddities, shrieks, and oddly juxtaposed acoustic instruments – various strings, bass clarinet, flute, unnamed percussion. There is just so much going on here. It sends the mind in spirals.

Garden Window Escape is arresting, if nothing else. It has been on constant rotation since it arrived in the mail. It has also sent me scrambling to revisit my old Einstürzende Neubauten and Sprung aus den Wolken albums. It fits among them because it sounds rooted, but also fresh and jarring. And this is just the kind of thing I need right now. It wrestles with a precarious present by drawing continuities with an uncertain past, while carving out its own space. In that act, Staraya Derevnya construct something new out the wreckage.

One of my favorites of the year.

Garden Window Escape will be available as a download and LP from Bandcamp:

Video: Staraya Derevnya - What I keep in my closet