Enrico Blatti - Espresso 443 (2011)

Balancing classical, tango, song and jazz, Espresso 443 is the eclectic work of Roman composer Enrico Blatti, a classically trained musician but with diversified frequentations, whose previous CD (Libertango - MSR - 2009) was a tribute to Astor Piazzolla.
And the Argentine Maestro is, not surprisingly, very much present in filigree on this album as well, both for the tango atmospheres and for the way Blatti makes the ensemble work, in which, it is worth noting, the piano is absent and Elena Trovato's harp is characteristically present instead.
In its generality Espresso 443 is a typically Aegean work, an impression reinforced by the presence, centrally, of two of the most representative soloists of a label that is now a true "genre"- Petro Tonolo and Gabriele Mirabassi. The two reeds almost always play, one or the other, the role of first narrative voice, against a background in which the textures of harp and accordion stand out, and their solos also constitute the most jazzy moment of the work. The insertions, also soloistic, of the accordion and violin, on the other hand, are more reminiscent of the tango, while it is precisely the harp, an element that gives the greatest timbral originality to the whole, that perhaps helps to trace the work back to another of its majuscule inspirers - that Nino Rota explicitly paid homage to in one of the tracks.
Globally more than appreciable for the excellence of the voices and the fine workmanship (which makes it, however, above all a choral work), Espresso 334 has its originality in the small details, such as certain sudden changes of atmosphere, some curious juxtapositions ("Taranta," which combines tango and southern folk, "Radio Tirana," which orchestrates Balkan rhythms in an unusual way) or the particular use of certain voices (the harp and percussion).