Freshness and color

Franco Ambrosetti inherited two things from his father: a love of jazz and a family-owned company with several hundred employees. The trumpeter and flugelhorn player ran the company for 27 years - until he sold it in 2000 to devote himself entirely to music. Ambrosetti talks about this in his autobiography, which was published last year and is well worth reading Two careers - one sound. He now also has a new CD, The Nearness Of Youfollow.

Their music goes back to a project for the 2016 Sanremo Jazz Festival: the Ticino native was asked to develop a concert evening with the Sanremo Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Massimo Nunzi; two years later, they came together again in the studio to record the ten pieces for posterity. The focus was on the encounter between classical musicians and jazz soloists.

Ambrosetti, now 77 years old, demonstrates his flair for the warmest possible sound on the album. It is also fascinating how well he manages the balance between jazz and orchestral music. The arrangements are broad and yet differentiated and are extremely agile. The subtle Un Uomo Disabitato or the gently melancholic My Ship from the pens of Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin. The album, which sometimes sounds like the soundtrack to an opulent Hollywood film from the 1950s, unfolds with great ease. And also creates suspense, in that Ambrosetti Gin And Pentatonic or A Bix Within A Wheel enriched with abstract passages. This is uncomfortable, but provides freshness and color. The CD ends with Hadena mini-requiem for the double bassist Charlie Haden, who died in 2014. It is the worthy conclusion to a work that knows how to please from A to Z.