Ralph Towner and Paolo Fresu - Chiaroscuro (2009)

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An exciting new duo, of unusual instrumentation, initiated by American master guitarist Ralph Towner. Towner’s acoustic guitar concept has long since absorbed and abstracted influences from baroque music, contemporary composition, Brazilian music and jazz, above all the jazz of Bill Evans. In this programme of Towner originals and improvisations, the sole cover version is “Blue In Green”. the Bill Evans/Miles Davis tune from the classic “Kind of Blue” album – an apt choice for Sardinia-born trumpeter Paolo Fresu, whose pure and elegant tone still carries echoes of early Miles. Towner’s own pieces offer continually changing landscapes for Fresu’s horn to grace, in a very poetic and lyrical set whose gradations of light and shade, of sound and shadows, are beautifully recorded. “Chiaroscuro” is Towner’s 22nd ECM disc as a leader and Fresu’s first - although the trumpeter guest-starred on Carla Bley’s prize-winning “The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu”, issued on WATT in 2007.

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Track List:

01. Wistful Thinking (04:19)
02. Punta Giara (06:21)
03. Chiaroscuro (06:31)
04. Sacred Place (04:13)
05. Blue In Green (Miles Davis) (05:45)
06. Doubled Up (04:56)
07. Zephyr (07:29)
08. Sacred Place (reprise) (01:59)
09. Two Miniatures (02:38)
10. Postlude (02:31)