- artist:DARIO CELLAMARO
- featured artist:S. CANIATO, S. DALL'ORA, D.MOCCIA, S. ORLANDI, F. ALBANO
- release year:2003
- style(s):Instrumental, Jazz
- country:Italy
- formats:CD (Compact Disc)
- record posted by:ALFAMUSIC - Label & Publishing
- label:ALFAMUSIC
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NINNA NANNA NINO - (ALFAMUSIC JUNE 2003)
Dario Cellamaro's Jazz, in some ways, leads to a romantic, nearly dreamlike idea of Afro-American music. But we would be wrong in considering it "unique music" or, exaggerating, "diseased music". His music simply tells us about the Fifties and the Sixties and those leading artists who made great that period in which be-bop coexisted (in truth it was a compromise) with hard-bop and Free Jazz. A world which borrowed from Hollywood, amongst the many directors at its disposal, Clint Eastwood for "Bird" (1988; soundtrack by Lennie Niehaus and Charlie Parker) and France Bertrand Tavernier for "' Round Midnight" (1986; Soundtrack by Herbie Hancock). The period which Cellamaro focuses on is historically important for the evolution and the artistic growth of the black Americans and for the social jolt that they transmitted to the ghettos created by the racial laws of White America. Shortly after, "Black Power" would have shown itself with greater force and absolute conviction. However Cellamaro, (and this is a standard feature of his recordings, from those with Clark Terry to the sessions with Dave Glasser), imposes to his compositions a clear awareness, yet avoiding the interference of politics with private matters. The main aspects upon which the drummer focuses are therefore aesthetic, strictly musical and expressive. It's obviously a matter of contents, but also of form: the swing (constant, diabolic, loveable), the harmonic arrangement (always well proportioned and smooth flowing), the intensity of the melody which, following a successful logic of the drummer, must be clear, clean, simple. As if in writing a song: "NinnaNannaNino", in this way, appears to set the tone of the whole CD. Cellamaro, who was born in Puglia but has lived for years in Varese, a small city near Milan, answers with his pieces to a categorical request of the listeners: listening as a manifestation of pleasure. In other words, satisfying the five senses by connecting hearing, brain and body. The Album is dedicated to two persons dear to Dario: his brother Nino and his friend and drummer Giampiero Prina, both deceased prematurely. The voice you can hear in the last track of the CD, retrieved from an answering machine tape, is Giampiero's, and also from the Milanese artist is the theme of "Gliding Notes" which Cellamaro recovers respectfully but with the desire to show the world how sensitivity and cleverness have no price. It's also because of this that the music contained in the Album flows smoothly and without interruption, like the remembrance of a near past; like memories of the present to which it is difficult to adapt. But to which one must rebel. And so, it isn't by chance that the pieces by Cellamaro go back, in style, to a jazz that makes your soul quiver. It is bound to the idea of moving the horns each one an eighth above the other: from here derives the softness and distinctive incisiveness of the timbre of Fulvio Albano's sax and the athletic tenderness of Danilo Moccia's trombone. Sergio Orlandi is different, a trumpet player present in "2nd time" and "Birk's works", he plays solo's which are at the same time polished and blaring, bringing memories of Freddie Hubbard and in part, Lee Morgan. Cellamaro also managed to overcome the constraints which usually exist when a drummer wants to also be a band leader. In his "beat", in his use of the charleston and the cymbals, in his drum roll, you can discover the Maestro's which inspired him, from Gene Krupa to Art Blakey, from Philly Joe Jones to Kenny Clarke. A drumming full of colour which over time has found the perfect balance between the narcissistic nature of a solo and a kind of accompaniment which, although never being submissive, moves along with the other members of the band as an exclusively rhythmic "voice". The element of strength of this product - apart from the singable themes (at times rich with Cellamaro's Mediterranean features, but always refined) and the capability to revisit with great harmony other artists compositions, from Green to Winding, from Gillespie to Pieranunzi - is Dario's capability to transform his suffering, made of being away from home, dejection, character clashes, into beauty. There isn't a single piece in the entire Album which doesn't move you or exhilarate you, which doesn't make you smile or give you fun, which doesn't tickle your imagination or your heart. They are details of life, pictures of the mind, passages of a controlled virtuosity which favours the poetry and the comfort of a lyrical phrase to the technical exercise. A mechanism in which act, with the ease of able operators, Stefano Caniato at the piano (with his Powellian incursions) and Stefano Dall'Ora at the Double-bass(with his polished sound and essential phrasing). Elements of a quintet which makes music fly like a memory.
Davide Ielmini - May, 2003