Luca Zennaro - Javaskara (2018)

Luca Zennaro from Chioggia has just turned 21, and he is still attending the Jazz Department of the Conservatory of Rovigo, where he had the chance to get noticed by Marco Tamburini, during his last year of teaching. One would not think he is so young. His first record as a leader seems to picture an already mature musician, with a strong and precise musical identity. He has received many awards so far: Zennaro qualified second in 2017 in the Riga Jazz Stage Competition, where he had the chance to perform with one of his idols, Kurt Rosenwinkel; but in the same year he was also among the finalists in the Massimo Urbani Award. The rhythmic trio from Veneto, completed by Nicolò Masetto and Marco Soldà, has met the Sicilian saxophonist Nicola Caminiti, now a brilliant student of the Manhattan School, during the Siena Jazz Summer Workshop 2016, and the empathy instantly born among the four artists was so natural to convince Luca to form his first stable group. The songs, composed by the guitarist in the last two years, alternate episodes with a strong rhythmic impact with others more ethereal and reflective, but all strike for their freshness and ability to capture attention from the first listening. In addition to seven successful original compositions, among which we like to remember Ritorno a Baker Street, but also the liveliest Can’t wait for Enrico and Sounds like a lie, Zennaro offers a heartfelt rereading of Giochi di luci, sweet ballad by Tamburini, the unforgotten master who had immediately sensed his talent. In it, as well as in the track that precedes it, the twenty–eight year old trombonist Federico Pierantoni is efficaciously added to the quartet, entering effortless into the record’s mood. A legitimate curiosity is aroused by the chosen title, which recalls the languages of Eastern Europe, but instead is nothing more than an “exotic” version of giavascara, a word that in the dialect of Luca’s Polesani grandparents means shaggy. This is also a choice that speaks volumes about how this work is the outcome of a not only musical research, which has to do with his origins.