Live in Japan

CAM5023 2007-05-22

Track List

Aurora Giapponese - 1:50
Impronippo - 15:21
How Can You Not? - 7:51
If Only For A Time - 6:23
Mio Caro Dottor Gräsler - 8:22
Musashi - 4:24
Improleaves - 15:22
Winter Moon - 5:54
Broken Time - 7:52
Tokyo Reflections - 2:23
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso - 7:18
Ninfa Plebea - 7:52
When I Think Of You - 9:12
Improminor - 11:07

Musicians

Enrico Pieranunzi - piano
Marc Johnson - acoustic bass
Joey Barron - drums

He is that sort of man and that sort of artist: conscientious, intelligent, inherently elegant. So when he lets it all hang out, like on “Impronippo,” it is an exhilarating release. He has never recorded anything quite like this totally spontaneous trio improvisation, an impulsive 15-minute abstract expressionist suite. And there are two more here almost as bold, "Improleaves” and “Improminor.”
Pieranunzi had never visited Japan until this five-concert tour in 2004. Clearly, he finds Japan a stimulating, liberating place. Marc Johnson mostly stays in the background of “Improleaves,” but on other pieces his voice is as far forward as it was in Bill Evans’ last trio. His poetic solos contain a dark light that no other instrument knows. It is the exclusive province of the double bass in the hands of a master. Enrico Pieranunzi reveres and understands Bill Evans. (He wrote a
book about him, Bill Evans: Ritratto di artista con pianoforte, published by Stampa Alternativa.) Pieranunzi’s hook-up with Bill Evans’ last bass player is profound. Throughout this album, the two startle one another into breakthroughs of creativity.
If Live In Japan contains playing as free and aggressive as anything Pieranunzi has recorded, it also offers his distinctive, clarified, luminous lyricism.