No Way Out

A stunning empathy between piano and vibraphone. Refined, balanced double bass and drums. An extremely sophisticated quartet, striking a perfect balance between the enlightened creativity of the 60’s and today’s modern sound. Pianist Giovanni Mirabassi, who is part of this tight quartet together with Stefon Harris on vibraphone, Gianluca Renzi on double bass and Lukmil Perez Herrera on drums, composed “No Way Out” as his second recording for CAM JAZZ.  This album opens with the title track, a statement of intent as to the entire recording. The synergism between Mirabassi and Harris leads to steadily evolving musical ideas that unfold out of the pianist’s themes. All eight tunes in “No Way Out” are by the band leader: from “The Snow White Syndrome” and “What Was Dream About” to “L’Audace”, “Canzone” and “Il Bandolero Stanco” (perhaps a tribute to an unappreciated movie featuring the Italian actor Renato Rascel?), listeners are returned to a Mirabassi in a state of grace, capable of composing in a fresh, highly inspired way, heeding the moods and refinement of the great Blue Note standards from the 60’s. He is a full-fledged musician who knows how to express himself, for having accrued valuable artistic experience over his long-standing career: his playing with Chet Baker and Steve Grossman, when he was just seventeen; his moving to and growing up in Paris, when he was just over 20; and, not to forget, being awarded the “Django d’Or” and “Victoires du Jazz” prizes in 2002.  All this flowed into “No Way Out”, a recording to be listened to and enjoyed inquisitively, carefully and committedly, in order to discover how many ideas pop out of the hat of this talented, distinguished pianist from Perugia.

Recorded and mixed in Brooklyn on 8, 9 December 2013 at Systems Two Recording Studio Recording & mixing engineer Max Ross

Cover photo by Andrea Boccalini - Photos by John Rogers

Liner notes by Brian Morton