Geir Lysne & NDR Bigband feat. Stefano Bollani: Visioni live in Hamburg

NDR Big Band
directed by Geir Lysne
Stefano Bollani, piano
Jeff Ballard, drums

recorded live at Studio Rolf Liebermann, Hamburg, June 10 & 11, 2010

1. La Sicilia
2. Il Dormatore - Para Frase
3. Storta Va
4. Elena e Il Suo Violino
5. Il Barbone (Di Bamako)

Italian pianist Stefano Bollani had a clear vision as a child when he was six years old: he wanted to become a famous singer. A few years later he recorded a tape and sent it to singer Renato Carosone  who told him to listen to Jazz and Blues. Stefano did as he was told and became a sought after sideman, until he met trumpet player Enrico Rava, who convinced him finding his own voice in Jazz.  Later on Stefano founded his quintet "Orchestra del Titanic".

Bollani achieved his childhood dream singing through the piano and is now one of the top jazz acts. in Italy and  Europe. When he played at NDR, the idea was born to perform with a real jazz orchestra, the NDR Big Band.

In 2006 Stefano released his album "I visionari".

Enrico Rava & Stefano Bollani: Art of the Duo - live at NDR 2003

Photo © Roberto Masotti/ ECM Records

Enrico Rava,tp
Stefano Bollani,p

recorded live at NDR Studios 2003

1. Tango for Vasquez y Pepita (Rava)
2. Le Solite Cose (Rava)
3. Drops (Rava)
4. Happiness is to win a Big Price (Rava)
5. Le Tue Mani (Montano, Spotti)
6. The Way You Look Tonight (Jerome Kern)

Here´s another great live recording of this incredible duo I recommended earlier on this blog.
In 2008 they extended the duo format together with US-boys Mark Turner, Larry Grenadier and drumlegend Paul Motain on the ECM release "New York Days"

Stefano Bollani & Stian Carstensen live at Jazzfest Berlin 2005

Stefano Bollani · piano
Stian Carstensen · accordion

Kulturbrauerei Prenzlauer Berg, JazzFest Berlin 2005

1. Waltz in Db (Minutenwalzer) (Frédéric Chopin)
2. Visione Number Due (Stefano Bollani)
3. Honeysuckle Rose (Fats Waller)
4. Torn a Surriento (Ernesto de Curtis, Battista de Giovanni)
5. September Song (Kurt Weill)

Stefano Bollani and Stian Carstensen are two like-minded musicians: curious about their environment they like telling stories and entertaining on a grand scale. From soloist to symphony orchestra player Bollani has fulfilled many tasks. Playing in trio format with Clarence Penn and Scott Colley he is also performing with Enrico Rava on a regular basis. Carstensen is a jack of all trades in regards to music.
Stone in the Water is the first of Stefano Bollani's ECM recordings to feature the Italian pianist's Danish Trio, a group that already has six years of playing experience behind it, and produces a sound that is supple, subtle and flowing.

Enrico Rava & Stefano Bollani live in Murnau 2009

1. "Dear Old Stockholm" (Trad.)
2. "Interiors" (Enrico Rava)
3. "Cheek to cheek" (Irving Berlin)
4. "Felipe" (Moacir Santos)
5. "All the things you are" (Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein)
6. It ain’t necessarily so (George und Ira Gershwin)
7. Certi angoli secreti

Enrico Rava - trumpet
Stefano Bollani- piano

recorded live at Festival Grenzenlos, Kultur- und Tagungszentrum Murnau, October 24, 2009

Enrico Rava, born in Trieste in 1939, is undoubtedly the most internationally acknowledged Italian jazzman. In forty years of his career as trumpet player, and composer, he has produced more than hundred recordings, thirty of which as a leader.
At the age of six, wanting to become a singer, Stefano Bollani (born Milan 1972) would accompany himself on the family keyboard. A few years later, he recorded a cassette of himself singing and playing, which he sent to his idol Renato Carosone, along with a letter explaining his dream. Carosone replied advising him to listen to a lot of blues and jazz, and so Bollani did.
In 1996, he met Enrico Rava at the Teatro Metastasio in Prato who immediately invited him to play in Paris with him: "You´re young, you don´t have a family. Take the risk, give up pop and devote yourself full-time to the music you love." He would come to consider Rava his mentor after the trumpeter advised him to get out of pop music and make improvisation his priority. Taking Rava´s advice, Bollani backed out of Jovanotti´s tour and flung himself into jazz, language of improvisation and freedom.
But even when they first played together, the relationship was never simply one of teacher and pupil: From the beginning, says the pianist, Rava was open to his melodic propositions, and would take them and build upon them in his own solo statements. This is the model they have followed to date. Together they’ve developed a very wide-ranging musical language that is as congruent as it is quick-witted, unpredictable, and poetic. Bollani puts his phenomenal technique in the service of the music always, and Rava sings on the trumpet in an ever-clearer voice.
Together they recorded several duo albums, the news one called "The Third Man", released in 2007 on ECM.