Seek and you will find. What a find among the new releases pile. Lush. Tasteful. A ballads with strings album from Swiss jazz icon Franco Ambrosetti on flugel with arrangements by the great Charlie Haden Quartet West arranger Alan Broadbent conducting a 29-piece orchestra.
Guitar icon John Scofield, the distinguished bassist Scott Colley and Weather Report drummer Peter Erskine are also on the recording that opens with a treatment of Mal Waldron's 'Soul Eyes' followed by 'Portrait of Jennie,' a Russell Robinson tune from the 1940s. covered by Nat King Cole and more recently Harold Mabern with Kurt Elling.
Most aptly here the piece was also on the mid-1950s classic Clifford Brown With Strings.
The title track is an Ambrosetti original and features the evocative violin playing of Sara Caswell. Ambrosetti, now 82, is known for his work with George Gruntz and his recordings on the Enja label go back to the late-1970s and Close Encounter although Ambrosetti first debuted as a leader in the mid-1960s.
This new album continues the spell cast by Nora (2022) with largely the same personnel. Pianist Uri Caine also figured on that earlier album.
Ambrosetti's first album with strings was Sleeping Gypsy, a collaboration with Bad Benson arranger Don Sebesky issued in 1980 that has a tune on it called 'Lugano Lady' - Ambrosetti hails from Lugano. Sebesky died last year aged 85.
Sweet Caress also includes a version of Charlie Haden classic 'Nightfall' and Ambrosetti originals, including 'Colors of the Wind.' It's all very dreamy, similarly paced but works as a long play listen given the way the mood, with its nostalgic, romantic tendencies is never broken. It's like an arthouse film you don't want to end even when the final credits have ended and the cleaners in the cinema auditorium have switched on the lights and you are left sitting there wishing they hadn't and that the movie itself would whir into life once again. One for the Clifford Brown lover given how faithfully Ambrosetti follows in the footsteps of the master. It's all so beautifully arranged once again by Broadbent who returns to the UK next spring for dates with the singer Georgia Mancio.
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