Francesco Turrisi
RAY COMISKEY
Fotografia Diatribe ****
In his most ambitious CD yet, the gifted pianist/composer explores Italian folk songs, Jobim, his own originals and, with Claus Kaarsgaard (bass) and João Lobo (drums), makes use of the form and freedoms conferred by a baroque bass line for a series of musical miniatures (
pensierini ). These baroque-referencing snapshots, gripping trio mood pieces, variously shardlike, sombre, minatory, faintly mocking or childlike, take this fine album to one place.
However, in a contrast perhaps too great for one album, the CD’s most completely realised performances move it to another place with the much longer, sharply differentiated takes of A ttaccati li Tricci and Alla Carpinese – folk songs whose melodramatic darkness is persuasively and imaginatively embraced – and the beautifully articulated, moving personal solo tributes to Turrisi’s partner and father in Pensierosa and Lachrimae . See diatribe.com
