Roberto Bottalico - Il favoloso mondo di Wayne lo strambo (2022)

"The Fabulous World of Wayne the Weird" is the new album by Roberto Bottalico, released for Filibusta Records. A tribute to the inspiration and compositional principles of the famous saxophonist Wayne Shorter, which will be presented in concert on Saturday 19 November at the Casa del Jazz in Rome.

As weird as Wayne. So he was nicknamed Shorter in high school as a junior. A sort of Mr Bizzarro, a little outsider from an early age. It is on his legendary figure that the Alter & Go Project of saxophonist Roberto Bottalico has imagined and written this new album.

A musical thought, that of Shorter, which moved in an apparently symmetrical way but which in reality gave rise to musical ideas which continuously changed shape, emotional, harmonic and melodic connotation. A world, therefore, full of fantasies and improvisations, where Bottalico gives shape and content, thanks to a game of references and identifications.

The result is the creation of a fantastic and imaginary universe, told in eight episodes with different characters and events each time. Eight original pieces by Roberto Bottalico, with the exception of Resolution by Coltrane.

And here, then, that Kurkusa, the grain of corn forced to balance on a thread, comes to life in the fabulous world of Wayne the weirdo; the giant walking half a step at a time, trying to get in front of John Coltrane; Inspector Porfiry Petrovic, born from the pen of Dostoevsky, and the tortuous pursuit of him to track down Raskolnikov; Dedalus, Leopold Bloom's alter ego in Joyce's Ulysses, lost in his flow of thought; and finally Wayne Shorter himself, known as the weirdo, portrayed here in his most intimate and personal sphere.

Conceived and argued by saxophonist Roberto Bottalico, supported by guitarist Augusto Creni, pushed by Alessandro Del Signore's double bass and disturbed by Massimo di Cristofaro's drums, "The Fabulous World of Wayne the Weird" is the sound translation of a mental image that changes constantly shape and perspective, thus escaping from fixed and delimited contours.

Roberto Bottalico, here in his fourth recording effort with the Alter&Go Project, expresses a research work towards modern jazz, winking at the infinite possibilities of sound, with great artistic sensitivity.