Pianure

Pianist Arrigo Cappelletti has composed his finest work to date, the six-part suite Pianure, a long meditation on Italian and other Latin folk forms, which include the son, the bandera, the tango, and others. Utilizing a jazz chamber group comprised of a soprano saxophone, an accordion, a bassist, and a violin, Cappelletti gives listeners first a tour of the history of Latin music from improvisation and formal function to antiquity through to modern popular notions and back to meditative improvisation. There is a pronounced elegance in his pronounced chromaticism, which carries within it a vertical harmonic sensibility that reaches across the color spectrums of the other instruments in the ensemble as well. The notion of the counterpoint of two distinct melodies carried out on soprano and violin, respectively, and the unifying tonalities of the piano split between the two in the various registers offers a cascading series of emotional palettes to the piece from melancholy reverie to celebratory insistence. To balance out the suite, Cappelletti adds six tracks, all of them tango variations. They signify movement, drama, and most of all emotional fluctuation between one thematic element and its resultant variation explored by one soloist or another. All of them are summed up in the closer, "Tango Rinnovato," which pulls all the disparate strands of history, mystery, melody, and uncorked harmony together and whirls them into a dynamic, mournful, and passionate low moan of Latin invention. The result is breathtaking and leaves the listener unable to play anything else to follow it.