Mario Rusca quintet / nonet - 4th Dimension (2024) [Hi-Res]

As far as the choruses are concerned, Nicoletta Tiberini, Martina Rossi and Alice Macchi, from Maestro Rusca’s ensemble music courses at the Civica di Jazz School, provide inspired and swinging backing vocals.
The cherry on the cake, the element that gives to ‘4th DIMENSION’ a pulsating and swinging’ drive, is the participation on the album of Marco Fadda, one of Italy’s leading percussion players.
This heterogeneous ensemble has shaped, during 5 days of intense studio recordings, an absolute masterpiece full of swinging rhythms along with a few magical intimate moments.
In his 65 years career, Italian piano legend Mario Rusca has shared the stage and recording studios with luminaries such as Chet Baker, Curtis Fuller, Gerry Mulligan, Lou Donaldson, Art Farmer, Lee Konitz, Dusko Gojkovic, Enrico Rava, Tullio De Piscopo, Kenny Clarke, Stan Getz, Toots Thielemans, Gianni Basso, Pepper Adams, Steve Lacy and Tony Scott (with whom he formed an indissoluble partnership).
Being accompanied in this album by extraordinary musicians, Rusca chooses to flow in a repertoire that, like in his most recent records for Mono Jazz, bridges between original pieces and revisited standards from the American Jazz Songbook, approached with unprecedented sensitivity and depth.
The journey of ‘4th DIMENSION’ is an extraordinary cinematic musical voyage across various styles ranging from Bop, Hard Bop, Cool, Funk and Latin Jazz. ‘4th DIMENSION’ is a perfect follow up to the internationally acclaimed Easy Tempo legacy!
In these 13 tracks, “il Maestro” embraces and enhances a ‘cinematic’ component in his music - an attribute he has long cultivated through original soundtracks and library albums recorded for diverse cult Italian labels.
This, as we were saying, is achieved through the addition of percussionist Marco Fadda, who introduces a series of rhythmic nuances across several tracks, and of the extraordinary female vocal trio reminiscent of I Cantori Moderni of Alessandro Alessandroni & Edda Dell'Orso, used in the tradition of Italian composers of ‘60s and ‘70s film music.
This natural progression reflects Italy's history, where jazz musicians have long been involved in soundtracks and film scoring since the late ‘50s. Italian jazz has integrated this approach into its composition and arranging styles, as demonstrated in the first 10 volumes of the Easy Tempo series. A spirit and tradition that Rusca's ‘4th DIMENSION’ record continues. Listening to some of the tracks on the record evokes the legendary works created for cinema by Piero Umiliani, Piero Piccioni, Lelio Luttazzi, Armando Trovajoli, Gianni Ferrio and others.

Mario Rusca: piano, arrangements
Gabriele Comeglio: sax alto
Flavio Boltro: trumpet
Nicoletta Tiberini: vocals (1/2/3 and 5)
Martina Rossi: vocals (1/2/3 and 5)
Alice Macchi: vocals (1/2/3 and 5)
Riccardo Fioravanti: acoustic and electric bass
Maxx Furian: drums
Marco Fadda: percussion (1/2/3/5/6 and 10)