Quasar - Spooky Action (2020)

A dynamic and at the same time essential record, characterized by a modern phrasing that often has its roots in the jazz and classical tradition. This is how Spooky Action is presented, the debut album by Quasar who, winners of the Fara Music Jazz Live award in 2019, release their debut album on 25 June 2020 for the Emme Record Label. The band was formed in 2019 within the Siena Jazz foundation and is the result of the encounter between the compositional ideas of the saxophonist Giulio Ottanelli and those of the guitarist Mario Petronzi, who rely on a now consolidated rhythm composed by Francesco Tino on bass electric and Mattia Galeotti on drums. A very cohesive formation that combines in an elegant and refined way the electric sound of the guitar and the bass with the acoustic sound produced by the sax and the drums. In this band past and present meet, linking the sound of contemporary jazz with that of tradition with interesting forays into classical music of the late romantic period. The structures of the pieces are studied in detail and improvisations find space in pre-established moments, never left to chance. In this way, the real protagonist is not the individual musician but the interplay and cohesion of the musicians.

The disc opens with Spooky Action, an odd tempo piece divided into two parts, the first tighter and the second wider with a rhythmically denser accompaniment. Improvisation frees itself from this structure through a sax that in the theme blends with the guitar, almost generating the tone of a new instrument. Hypothermia a composition whose harmony recalls late-romantic music: it is characterized by a polyrhythm that extends all the time and which makes the succession of notes fluid and continuous. The climax is reached in the second part of the piece with an increase in rhythmic density, passing from 5/4 of the A to 5/8. Somewhere Else is the piece that comes closest to the American jazz tradition, with compositional elements of Ravel's music (in particular the “pavane pour un enfant defunte”). In this arrangement, the melodic lines played by bass, guitar and sax come together in a single harmonic texture. Zelda's Trip is a composition that develops through three macro sections, highlighted by the dynamic trend: the first exposes the theme and comes to an emptying of all the tools. The guitar alone acts as a transition to the second section; from here starts a crescendo that reaches its maximum in the sax solo. Then, suddenly, we move on to the rubato duo of guitar and sax which continues up to the coda, where it reconnects to the initial sounds.