Matteo Pastorino - Lightside (2025) [Hi-Res]

In Lightside, award winning Bass Clarinettist Matteo Pastorino has created an album of profundity and musicality which travels through the light and the shade, the sensual experiences and the glorious diversity and colours of the Mediterranean and its continual conversation with the three continents it connects.

Born in Sardinia, Matteo has taken his homeland's fierce independent spirit and applied it to his playing, his compositions and arrangements to perform on stages across the Globe. His quartet won the Young Talent Prix at the 2012 edition of the Saint Germain des Pres Jazz Festival with Matteo also garnering the Selmer Prize as Best Soloist in a well deserved and well earned double. Since then, Matteo and his Quartet have recorded several successful albums which have lead to Lightside, his first recording released on A.MA Records.

The two pre-order tracks, the title track and Coming Back, represent the wonderful range of Lightside as an album and of the Quartet of Pastorino himself alongside Domenico Sanna on piano, bassist Dario Deidda, and Armando Luongo on drums. Both tracks allow for the deep and spiritual sound and vibe of the Bass Clarinet to draw us in without ever dominating as the triptych of bass, drums and piano provide both foundation and partnership throughout.

Perhaps the final say on the compositions and musicality of Matteo Pastorino is best left with the words of a Jazz legend, Wynton Marsalis;

'Matteo Pastorino’s bass clarinet engulfs us with probing and searing emotion, making even more impressive the calm clarity of his ensemble playing and his ability to ladle helpings of gravy on the lower frequency countermelodies.'

Matteo Pastorino Bass Clarinet
Domenico Sanna Piano
Dario Deidda Bass
Armando Luongo Drums