Going into the studio tomorrow playing some of the tunes performed on this occasion, the surprise in the line-up was the welcome presence of dazzling bebopified alto saxophonist Rachael Cohen (instead of Michael Chillingworth) who sight read the part and meshed well with tenorist and bass clarinettist James Allsopp.
Italy born, double bassist and composer Andrea Di Biase’s music bridges contemporary European jazz, classical influences and modern improvisation. Trained at the Milan conservatoire before completing postgraduate jazz studies at London’s Guildhall, he has worked with leading figures including Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone and Julian Argüelles.
A lot of the energy from the quintet was stoked by the rhythm section. Phronesis icon Ivo Neame on piano, who has been working with Walter Smith III recently, reliably found just the right set of propulsion to fatten out the harmonic lines.
Jon Scott, superb in Adam Waldmann’s Kairos 4tet back in the day, a band Ivo was also in, nowadays the drummer in the brilliant GoGo Penguin, was on exciting long time England living bassist Di Biase’s earlier album from 2012 Uncommon Nonsense that was a quartet affair. Listening to Ivo made me recall the night he jammed with Wynton Marsalis on the same piano in this very room in June 2010.
I liked most in this “augmented” Oltremare [meaning from the Italian “beyond the sea”] configuration bolstered by an additional horn, the tune called ‘Random Breakfast Generator,’ dedicated to the bassist leader’s son Elliot, and ‘The Island of Instability’ an elegy of sorts for Di Biase’s adopted British homeland..
Di Biase is on one of 2026’s top albums as part of Bruno Heinen’s The W on the Bartók and Chick Corea inspired Mikrokosmos. His approach last night in some of the more absorbing densely contrapuntal passages made me think of the touch of Henri Texier a few times; and maybe there are intimations of ex-Chick bass don Avishai Cohen too in the winning blend of asymmetrical time signatures that he has cultivated in his musical personality. He’s a kindred spirit to Henrik Jensen aesthetically although perhaps Jensen’s sound is a tad more Dave Holland-esque.
It certainly will be interesting to hear the new Oltremare album when the work is complete and the time is right for the music to come out in the future. Tunes are convincing, it’s a dynamic vision certainly that traverses a dazzling array of ballsy chamber jazz directions underscored by a firm rhythmic imperative.
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