City of Broken Dreams Giovanni Guidi

• 1 City of Broken Dreams 07:17
• 2 Leonie 03:51
• 3 Just One More Time 04:13
• 4 The Forbidden Zone 03:39
• 5 No Other Possibility 06:25
• 6 The Way Some People Live 06:06
• 7 The Impossible Divorce 03:35
• 8 Late Blue 06:16
• 9 Ocean View 03:28
• 10 City of Broken Dreams, Var. 07:11
• Total Runtime 52:01

Info for City of Broken Dreams

Pianist Giovanni Guidi, is one of the most outstanding musicians to have emerged from the ranks of Italian jazz in the last decade and has already made his presence felt on Enrico Rava’s “Tribe” and “On The Dancefloor” albums. Rava praises both Guidi’s “limitless curiosity” as an improviser and his “relentless refinement” of touch and musical taste, and the pianist continually proves that those qualities are not opposites. His first leader date for ECM is a glowing collection of self-penned tunes, simultaneously inner-directed and creatively daring, with many adroit exchanges between the musicians and plenty of space given also to bassist Thomas Morgan, whose role in the Guidi Trio is perhaps analogous to Scott LaFaro’s in the Evans Trio. Portuguese drummer João Lobo is another highly original musician, poetically shading the music with a delicate tracery of cymbals.

City of Broken Dreams” is the ECM leader debut of the prodigiously gifted Italian pianist Giovanni Guidi. Guidi has previously appeared on two discs for the label with Enrico Rava – “Tribe” with the Rava Quintet and the live “On The Dance Floor” with the Parco della Musica Jazz Lab band. Now he introduces his new international trio with US bassist Thomas Morgan and Portuguese drummer João Lobo, and a shimmering inner-directed music of striking originality. Lyrical free-floating ballads predominate, and the tunes seem optimally set up to showcase the strengths of his confrères. Bassist Thomas Morgan has as much room to move in this unit as Scott LaFaro had in the Bill Evans trios, or Gary Peacock in Paul Bley’s groups – invited in other words to interact in the foreground of the music. Guidi is generous with his space in these pieces, all from his pen, every one of them turning some unexpected corners.

In these haunting compositions, melodies can suddenly scuttle crabwise, and rhythms may be dislocated and stretched, sometimes setting up considerable tension, as on “No Other Possibility”. Sometimes, as on “The Way Some People Live”, Guidi casts down a carpet of gentle arpeggios for Morgan to glide across. João Lobo, an acute commentator, punctuates “The Impossible Divorce”, with disconsolate lunges at tom-toms and scrapes sticks agonizingly across cymbals at the climax of “Late Blue”. As the impressions accumulate, the “City of Broken Dreams” begins to seem like a short story collection, a series of vignettes from a lonesome place, to which the listener will feel drawn to return.

Giovanni Guidi, piano
Thomas Morgan, double bass
João Lobo, drums

Recorded December 2011
Auditorio Radiotelevisione svizzera, Lugano
Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Giovanni Guidi
Born in Foligno 1985, meets Enrico Rava during a Workshop in Siena. Rava notices his talent and decides to include him in “Rava Under 21” project, that would become “Rava New Generation” after a little time. With this group Guidi will record two CDs , in 2006 and in 2010, for “ESPRESSO” magazine.

At the moment, beyond the partnership with Gianluca Petrella, his own personal trio with Luca Aquino and Michele Rabbia, his quartet leaded with the young sax “enfant prodige” Mattia Cigalini, Guidi is always leader of his own groups.

He took part to a very large number of important jazz festivals all around the world. We may mension Umbria Jazz, Vicenz New Conversation, Zurich Nu Jazz, Umbria Jazz Balcanic Windows, Stavanger Mai Jazz, Jazzlandia, Noth Sea Jazz Festival, San Francisco Jazz Festival, Molde Jazz, Portland Jazz Festival, and many others. Moreover , he performed in many clubs and theatres in New york, San Paolo, Rio De Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Brasilia, Slavador De Bahia, Berlino, Parigi, Londra, Monaco, Dublino, Seoul, Hong Kong.

His first album as a leader is “Tomorrow Never Knows”, recorded by the japanese label VENUS, receiving five stars in a review by the “Swing Journal” magazine.

After that he released other four albums for CAM JAZZ label: “Indian Summer” and “ The House Behind This One” recorded with his quartet, “The Unknown Rebel” with a band of ten elements and “We Don’t Live Here Anymore” recorded in New York with Gianluca Petrella, Michael Blake, Thomas Morgan and Gerald Clever.

His first album as leader released by the prestigious ECM label is dated 2013: “City of Broken Dreams”, recorded in trio with Thomas Morgan and Joao Lobo.

Guidi had just recorded previously two other albums for ECM: “Tribe” and “ On The Dance Floor”, both by Enrico Rava.

Guidi won, moreover, several awards, such as the “TOPJAZZ “ award by “Musica Jazz” magazine. In that occasion the young pianist is been named by a 58 members jury the best talent of 2007. On March 2015 ECM released “This Is The Day” recorded with Thomas Morgan and Joao Lobo.

Booklet for City of Broken Dreams