Giovanni Guidi Trio - This Is The Day (2015) [Hi-Res]

The Giovanni Guidi Trio plays jazz of uncommon originality and reflective depth. On their second ECM album, Italian pianist Guidi, US bassist Morgan, and Portuguese drummer Lobo continue the work begun on the 2011 recording City of Broken Dreams, with pensive, abstract ballads which shimmer with inner tension. Each of the players has a strong sense for the dialectics of sound and silence. The repertoire is mostly from Guidi’s pen, but also includes the standard “I’m Through With Love”, Cuban songwriter Osvaldo Farrés’ “Quizás, quizás, quizás” (familiar to jazz listeners through, above all, Nat King Cole’s version), and “Baiiia” by João Lobo.

This is an album that poses questions both for us and the people who will hear it. The aim is to draw the listener’s attention to the areas that might seem at first elusive. Perhaps it is here that we can find the real intensity, the real meaning, of the work… Giovanni Guidi

This Is The Day is Giovanni Guidi’s second album as a leader for ECM, following on from the 2012 recording City of Broken Dreams. The young Italian pianist, born in Foligno in 1985, was launched on the international stage in the groups of Enrico Rava. After being struck by the concentrated, impassioned qualities of the young pianist’s playing during the summer courses of Siena Jazz, Rava invited him into his band, and has since recorded with him on the ECM albums Tribe (with the Rava quintet) and On The Dance Floor, a live album with the “Parco della Musica Jazz Lab” in Rome.

This Is The Day again features Guidi’s international trio, with US bassist Thomas Morgan and Portuguese drummer João Lobo. Morgan recorded for the first time on ECM with guitarist John Abercrombie in 2008 on Wait Till You See Her and has since participated in albums of strikingly diverse character, including Wisława by Tomasz Stanko’s New York quartet, Chants with the trio of Craig Taborn, Sunrise with Masabumi Kikuchi and Paul Motian, Mbókò with David Virelles and, most recently, Gefion with Jakob Bro’s trio. Morgan’s style, melodic and essential, characterized by the fullness of touch, has been likened to that of Charlie Haden. It also shares with Haden’s approach an almost minimalistic sense of assurance yet is at the same time supremely adaptable. Guidi often cedes a central role to his bassist, as on the second song here, "Carried Away", yet one could hardly speak of a bass ‘showcase’: Morgan is too thoughtful a player for demonstrative display.

This Is The Day was recorded in the Auditorium Stelio Moro of the Swiss Radio and Television, in Lugano, in April 2014 and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Giovanni Guidi, piano
Thomas Morgan, double bass
João Lobo, drums