A return of one of the greats of European jazz for two nights. Solo + trio on the first night, solo + quartet on the second.
The solo performances each night will be different, as will the music for trio and quartet. The quartet tonight is with Andrea Di Biase (bass), James Maddren (drums) & Fulvio Sigurtà (Trumpet)
It is a privilege that this pianist, who is one of the defining players of European jazz, regards the Vortex as his London home.
Come and find out why.
This is what the Guardian has written about his one of his Vortex shows:
“He came to town in the wake of the London jazz festival, but though Roman pianist Enrico Pieranunzi was sharing the Vortex jazz club with an audience of 70 or so rather than headlining the Barbican or South Bank, his technique, imagination and European prestige ought by rights to have made him a big star. Pieranunzi uncannily recalls the late Bill Evans in his jazz adaptation of a formidable classical technique (he has written an admired study of Evans’ methods), and in the elegant agility with which he can change melodic direction even at flat-out tempos. He’s no clone, however, but a true original, and a fine composer besides. Pieranunzi put all these virtues on display at the Vortex, with British bassist Geoff Gascoyne and Italian drummer Enzo Zirilli – the former supplying deftly apposite solos, and the latter sympathetic power, once he adjusted his volume to the room.
The Evans effect was evident from the first notes – and not Evans’ romantic Chopin-like aspect, either, but the effortlessly zigzagging uptempo version, in an opener buzzing with percussive chords and intricate runs packed into tight spaces. The melody of the ensuing A Different Breath reflected the title in its rapidly modulating three-note exhalations, but the waltz that followed offered more open space for Pieranunzi’s clean lines, and the flexibility with which he moves between rhythmically dynamic, hook-like figures and long, roving extemporisations. A broodingly cinematic piece (Pieranunzi’s music is often visually evocative, with Ennio Morricone a favourite subject for him) displayed the assurance with which the Italian floats free of a theme without abandoning it, and a stabbing, hard-struck groover elicited a drum break of measured force from Zirilli. Pieranunzi visits the UK rarely, but his audience would quickly grow if he made more of a habit of it.”