Live at the Village Vanguard

CAM5047 2013-03-12

Track List

I Mean You - 06:41
Tales From The Unexpected - 05:22
Pensive Fragments - 07:12
My Funny Valentine - 08:25
Fellini\'S Waltz - 05:56
Subconscious Lee Ii - 07:12
Unless They Love You - 05:53
La Dolce Vita - 11:03

Musicians

Enrico Pieranunzi - piano
Marc Johnson - acoustic bass
Paul Motian - drums

"There are few places in the history of jazz that can claim the kind of legendary aura of the Village Vanguard, a symbol of this music not only for jazz fans around the world but also for tourists of every sort that make the pilgrimage to the Big Apple. When, as a kid, I held LPs entitled “Live at the Village Vanguard“ by the likes of Rollins, Coltrane or Bill Evans in my hands, I couldn’t help being enthralled by that title, and as I listened to them my imagination raced ahead of itself. It was the same story when, leafing through the pages of some celebrated photographic history of jazz, I would happen on one of those marvelous shots of the famous canopy over the entrance to the Vanguard, which has come to epitomize both the club and that North American metropolis itself.
Well, I stood under that canopy every evening of that week in the summer of 2010 when this CD was being recorded, descended that steep and famed stairway, made my way to the stage and took my place behind the piano. There I sat, surrounded by photos of all the musicians that over the decades had offered up their art and expression to the world, whose same records I had held in my hands and listened to as a boy, and right there alongside me two of the jazz world’s giants: Marc Johnson and Paul Motian…
I know it might sound corny to say I had dreamed a dream that was now coming true, but it’s not easy to find another way to describe how I felt there, every single one of those evenings, as that inconceivable dream materialized into the sounds my fingers coaxed out of that piano to converse with the magic Marc and Paul were working with that bass and those drums. It is with deep emotion that I would like to thank those who made that dream a reality, that is to say the extraordinary and generous Lorraine Gordon, who invited me to her club for that unforgettable week; and my friends at CAM JAZZ whose incomparable James Farber set this unique musical adventure to CD.
My gratitude to Paul Motian, who is sadly no longer with us, really knows no bounds, for having once again, here, given the gift of his inspired drumming and for the privilege of his long, intense and precious friendship.

Enrico Pieranunzi,
November 2012"