La geometria dell'abisso

This is one strange and delightful recording. Conceived by composer Alfredo Impullitti from three texts by famed writer Fernando Pessoa, he took three sections of Pessoa's "Il Libro Dell'Inquietude" and set them to music, orchestrating them according to a subtle palette of dramatic and dynamic colors. His orchestra, the illustrious Kaos Ensemble, are masterful timbral interlocutors, so the pairing is perfect. The engagement of trumpeter and flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler is not so curious either since he spends so much time composing and arranging in Italy. Wheeler was not chosen as a soloist because he hangs out in the land of Rome, however, it was because of his uncanny warm tone and subtle manner of shifting modes through melodic and lyrical invention and his way of navigating an orchestra through particularly challenging intervallic changes seamlessly. The music here on this three-movement work — that is narrated, not sung — is a mixture of late 20th century classical music using a minimal set of pitches and meters, and late, nearly postmodern, 20th century Italian big band jazz. As the Kaos Ensemble offer variations on all of Impullitti's themes, with his blessing, Wheeler and soprano saxophonist Mauro Manzoni turn the themes into statements of prismatic color and texture. The place of the string section here, in the middle of the mix, is interesting in that it lends ambience and glissando to virtually everything here, and pianist Fabrizio Puglisi lends his post-bop stylistic touches to everything here, adding some flourish to the restraint and self-conscious depth. This is a glorious if difficult to pin work, but one that is well worth seeking out for fans of European jazz and improvisation, or for fans of ECM's more adventurous projects.