Recensioni

This is why I review records. The label says they put out "contemporary jazz," but this isn't jazz-like at all. It's first-rate, highly imaginative free improvisation that doesn't swing or have any connection to the blues. With the mysterious "instrumentation" listed, it's anybody's guess who plays what or how the two produce the ravishing sounds they do. On luxurious, long tracks like "3" (almost exactly ten minutes long) the guys coax a heavenly range of harmonics from their axes. "5" evokes a large group of thumb pianos leading a collective of gregarious acoustics. "7" is an aching, plaintive piece that stirs up a penumbra full of longing. If Ligeti worked in the free improv music scene, he might make pieces like this. For fans of Tamia and Pierre Favre (worth seeking out!), this is must listening. As for Degrassi and Lenoci, long may they record!

Richard Grooms (The improvisor)

Thick, dense and rich piano improvisational compositions that seem to be totally spontaneous.

This would be WONDERFUL music for th' festival, or for those who live, eat & breathe improvisation! I'm sure it would be better live, but th' CD does a great job of conveying th' urgency & freneticism that helps you (th' listener) transcend th' awful norms!

Apparently, these 2 work at this together, though without some kind of biographical information, I'm hard-pressed to comment. There are many-sided electronics, clanking bottles, guitars & tons of other most interesting pictures woven into this musical tapestry; reminds me of some of th' sessions I used to have with Davey Williams, Wally Shoup & LaDonna Smith, in th' early '80's. For those who NEED a little bit o' freestyle, this comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Dick Metcalf, aka Rotcod Zzaj (Improvijazzation Nation)

Just wanted to write a quick not about how FANTASTIC the Franco Degrassi/Gianni Lenoci Duo was last night!

The show started with an amazingly ominous and francically energetic piece for piano and electronics unlike any pice we have heard in the series so far, and the set continued on full of surprises invluding clarinet mouthpieces, slide whistles, playing inside the piano with mallets and chopstick, and using the inside soundboard area of the piano as a reverb chamber for melodica, flutes and other interesting and haunting approaches.

Throughout the performance, the most amazing electronically manipulated sounds and voices combined with subsonic bass and subharmonic frequencies that at one point shook the lights behind the stage to great visual effect ( Equal parts varese,Cecil Taylor and Scanner, just for an obligatory reference point).

Anyone familiar and enumoured with distincltly European avant garde and "free" music would have LOVED last nights performances...

Jonathan LaMaster (Sublingual Records,Cambridge Usa)

I think the Cd is great..Good luck with this work. It is exciting and interesting..

Bob Boster "Mr.Meridies" (Cultural Labirinth, San Lenadro Usa)

A very, very, very good try. Some parts are excellent, but other parts are not memorable[...] I encourage you to try again and again.

Leo Fegin (Leo Records, Londra Uk)

The British Label Asc present a work by two italian musicians whose training as pianist led them to a kind of experimental composition that is associated to impovisation and in wich sounds form different sources are compiled and processed in order to generate landscapes of slow development where instrumental gesture is integrated, at timed hidden, between its folds.

Francis Monroe ( Hurly Burly, interaction-improvisation magazine #8, Villamanta ,Spain)

The Italian avant-garde scene has long been fertile breeding ground for some interesting, innovative and often colourful characters. Think Rome in the sixties, Bologna in the eighties and nineties. Free-jazz, actuelle, fine arts and classical influences have created a strong history and respect for artists working outside of the mainstream. These two disks represent some of the current trends in the Italian underground. The Franco Degrassi/ Gianni Lenoci disk starts off with subtle and melodic solo piano, leading into atmospheric and even grating noise combinations. Roaming freely outside traditional musical confines, the eight different pieces on this disk seem to take place in a cavernous space filled with scrap metal and machines. The piano drifts in and out, sometimes remaining ethereal and then jumping to the forefront. There are way too many sounds going on here to specify them all but the overall effect is rich, dreamy and even a bit frightening at times.

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