The Uneven Shorter Luca Mannutza

• 1 Yes or No 06:40
• 2 Fall 05:54
• 3 Juju 05:36
• 4 Esp 05:31
• 5 Iris 05:21
• 6 Speak No Evil 05:42
• 7 Infant Eyes 07:20
• 8 Black Nile 06:17
• 9 Nefertiti 05:03
• 10 Footprints 07:09
• Total Runtime 01:00:33

Info for The Uneven Shorter

The new album by Luca Mannutza, "The Uneven Shorter", a tribute to one of the most beloved artists of jazz, Wayne Shorter, will be released on November 19.

It will be released by Birdbox Records, the new record label that has already distinguished itself for its particular dynamism in the long and difficult months of the pandemic, succeeding with the Jazz Just Like This festival to bring 22 names of international jazz music on digital platform.

The uneven Shorter will be premiered by the artist in Rome at the Casa del Jazz together with all the members of the quartet, Paolo Recchia on alto sax, Lorenzo Tucci on drums and Daniele Sorrentino on double bass.

Although Mannutza has long accustomed his audience to total metrical freedom in the name of his passion for rhythm, upsetting the metrics of one of the greatest composers of the second millennium would be an arduous task for any musician. Keeping the melodic and harmonic aspect unaltered, Mannutza has arranged Wayne Shorter's metrics from 4/4 and 3/4 in unusual ways using the so-called "odd times": 5/4 or 7/4 and sometimes 9/4 and 11/4.

Mannutza's audience is also familiar with the improvisation that leads the artist to often superimpose a second metric to the main one chosen for the arrangement.

Luca's solo in Yes or No, one song above all, leaves one breathless when, for example, during the section in 5/4 he superimposes the 4/4 in the phrasing, and does the opposite when the rhythmic sections pass in 4/4. Piano and sax chase each other changing to effect the basic meter, using elements of polymetry.

Matteo Sabattini, in the liner notes of the album, defined this work as a "brilliant musical construction, that everyone, musicians and fans, should listen to in order to penetrate deeper into the rhythmic universe, analyzing and maybe learning metric modulations, odd meters and changes of feeling. The uneven Shorter is a rare album, because it is certainly not easy to find records that have so many different examples of these rhythmic speculations."

Luca Mannutza, piano

Luca Mannutza
Born in Cagliari in 1968, he approached music at a very young age, thanks to his father who gave him his first piano lessons when he was only 4 years old. He began classical studies at the age of 6 and enrolled at the 'G.P. da Palestrina' school in Cagliari in 1979, where he graduated with excellent marks at the age of 18.

After years of various experiences, including with progressive rock and fusion groups, he approached jazz in 1990, indulging a natural predisposition for improvisation and creativity. The intensity of his musical activity in this field began to grow two years later, when he started playing with Argentinian saxophonist Hector Costita and met New York trumpeter Andy Gravish, with whom he still collaborates.

In 1993 he also began performing alongside the best Italian jazz musicians, including Paolo Fresu, Emanuele Cisi, Maurizio Giammarco and Bebo Ferra. Among the important awards received in the jazz competitions in which he took part at the beginning of his career, we can mention the Ennio Porrino Prize (1981), the special mention of the jury at the Barga Jazz competition (2000), the first prize in the Massimo International Prize Urbani (2002), in the Audience Award at the International Tramplin Jazz Competition in Avignon, France, as a member of the quartet of saxophonist Max Ionata (2002). Furthermore, in 2002 in Paris, he qualified for the final phase of the Martial Solal International Competition, the most prestigious jazz competition dedicated to the piano.

In addition to performing as a soloist on the piano, he plays in a duo with saxophonist Max Ionata and in a duo with drummer Lorenzo Tucci (duo Lunar), in a trio with Luca Bulgarelli and Nicola Angelucci; he is also co-director of the quintet Sound Advice with Andy Gravish, in which Marcello di Leonardo, Luca Bulgarelli and Max Ionata take part, and directs a sextet, Sound Six, with Max Ionata, Andy Gravish, Paolo Recchia, Andrea Nunzi and Renato Gattone .

Since 2002 he has been part of many important projects of drummer Roberto Gatto, with whom he has performed in numerous concerts internationally and made recordings for several albums. Since 2002 he has collaborated steadily with Fabrizio Bosso, as an organist and pianist, and is a member of the High Five, the group most representative of Italian jazz success in the world, sales champions with the album Five for Fun (Blue Note / EMI Italia 2007 ) and Handful of Soul (Schema 2006) together with Mario Biondi. Also noteworthy is the collaboration with the American trumpeter Jeremy Pelt. Luca Mannutza combines his intense live activity with that of arranger for various artists and recording projects, such as Mario Biondi, Rosalia de Souza, Filippo Tirincanti, Lorenzo Tucci.

Luca Mannutza has played in the most important Italian jazz clubs (Torrione Jazz Club, Panic Jazz Club, Cantina Bentivoglio, Alexanderplatz, Blue Note Milano, Pinocchio Jazz Club and many others) and around the world (Blue Note Tokyo, Blue Note Osaka, Sunset and Sunside Paris, Bimhuis Amsterdam, Pizza Express London, Smoke New York, Fat Cat New York) and has participated in numerous events and festivals as a guest of prestigious institutions such as the Casa del Jazz (Rome), Umbria Jazz, Villacelimontana jazz. , Moncalieri Jazz, Pescara Jazz Festival, Ancona Jazz Summer Festival, Roma Jazz Festival, Form and Poetry in Jazz (Cagliari), Bologna Jazz Festival, Padova Jazz Festival, Gray Cat Festival, I hate summer Festival, Vicenza Jazz, Crossroads Festival and many others in Italy and around the world (Italian Jazz in New York, Shanghai 2010, Jakarta Jazz Festival, Dubai Jazz Festival, Parc Floral Paris, Italian Jazz in Beijing). He has played with the most important Italian and foreign jazz musicians (Rava, Fresu, Bosso, Boltro, Tamburini, Amato, Scannapieco, Cisi, Giammarco, Bonisolo, Giuliani, DiBattista, Gatto, Sferra, Bonaccorso, B.Casini, Ferra, J. . Pelt, J.Frahm, S.Grossman, J.D. Allen, G.Cleaver, D.Burno,B.Hart) and many others.

Many newspapers and major specialized magazines (Jazzit, Musica Jazz, Swing Journal, Jazz Magazine, All About Jazz) have reviewed his recordings and praised their qualities.​

This album contains no booklet.