Monday Orchestra Un Poco Loco The Music of Bud Powell - Luca Missiti

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra. All rights reserved.

“What Missiti has done is to wrap Bud’s theme in a palette of tonal colors that only a big band framework can offer.

In doing so, he provides the audience with the gift of hearing these Powell bebop classics in an entirely new way.”

- JazzProfiles editorial staff

Big Band albums from Italy are as rare as they are thematically unusual.

My last encounter with one was the 1997 release of the Carlo Ceriani Orchestra’s Talking with the Spirits: Big Band Tribute to Roland Kirk [Splasc (h) Records CDH 476.2].

And now, almost 30 years later, comes Luca Missiti’s Monday Orchestra Un Poco Loco The Music of Bud Powell [Ultra Sound US-CD355/S].

What makes it unusual is that like the Ceriani recording, they both feature big band interpretations of the music of an iconic Jazz musician which was designed to be played in small groups: in Kirk’s case a quartet while Bud usually worked in a trio setting.

With the exception of a version of Bud’s Un Poco Loco by Stan Kenton’s Orchestra and big band interpretations of his Parisian Thoroughfare by Tubby Hayes and Quincy Jones, respectively, I was unable to locate any other large group arrangements of Powell’s music in a variety of online discographies.

A context for Luca’s efforts is provided in the following insert notes by Maurizio Franco which I’ve translated from the Italian.

“One of the most important anniversaries of 2024 for the world of jazz is the centenary of the birth of Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell, one of the most important and precious figures in the history of jazz piano. An authentic leader of Bebop pianism, equally exceptional both as an instrumentalist and as a composer, but at the same time an artist tormented by existential problems that have unfairly undermined its image.

His complex human and artistic story, which ended in 1966 at just forty-two years old, was among the stories told in the wonderful 1980s film 'Round Midnight by the French director Bertrand Tavernier. 

Not only an excellent soloist, as a writer Powell left us a very relevant corpus of compositions; but because they are not easy to perform there have not been many jazz musicians who have tackled them in a broad way, one that is aware of their possibilities.

Today Luca Missiti, whose qualities as band leader and arranger are now well known in the national jazz scene, gives Bud’s compositions a new context.

A predilection for Thad Jones, the study of other master arrangers such as Bob Brookmeyer, an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz composers from Ellington to Gil

Evans are Luca’s main influences.

They helped him form his own sonorous and expressive modern jazz language which while linked to Jazz history essentially keeps the "tradition in motion".

This can be heard in this current Bud Powell project which Missiti conceived for his large orchestra and featuring two exceptional guests, Fabrizio Bosso and Rosario Giuliani, as soloists on some pieces of the album.

Luca’s careful choice of compositions was based on the significant pieces of the Powellian production. Among other things, those selected were  very different from each demonstrating the variety of their author's compositional thought.

The expressive character that emerges through Missiti’s arrangements is the result of avoiding entrusting their theme to a single instrument. Dividing it between the various sections of the orchestra creates a dialogue that offers a "three dimensional" image of the compositions, rendered in a new way, but perfectly recognizable thanks to one clear writing capable of highlighting the background color and the general atmosphere.

Precisely because of this clarity of writing the solo interventions are all, without exception, absolutely functional to the context, never generic, and perfectly integrated into the musical story and divided with balance between the various pieces.”

Maurizio then goes on to offer a detailed description of each of the 11 tracks that make up the CD and the soloists featured on each of them. 

For example, Maurizio notes that: “Among these selections, Glass Enclosure deserves a mention in its own right. Recorded as a trio in 1953, the composition reflects Powell’s knowledge of classical music which emerges absolutely advanced for the year of its recording. 

In the album it is divided into four short fragments of imprint chamber music, in which harmony is pushed almost to the point of dissonance to broaden the timbral spectrum of the composition, whose function seems to be that of a Powellian memory, a sound ghost that emerges during listening, dividing the songs between them like an ideal curtain.”

The hallmarks of a good big band recording are energy and enthusiasm, and there’s plenty of that on offer in the music of Luca Missiti’s Monday Orchestra’s interpretations of Un Poco Loco The Music of Bud Powell. 

The arrangements are varied to reflect the mood of each piece: Celia is taken at a jaunty medium tempo and is scored in such a way as to allow for the complicated Bebop figures of the melody to flow. Alessandro Bottacchiari on trumpet, the irrepressible Rosario Giuliani guesting on alto sax and bassist Marco Vaggi are all feature soloists.

In Tempus Fugit, as the name implies, Luca orchestrates its rhythmic melodic figures to reflect the rapid agitation of the original, but also provides plenty of clarity so that the large number of instruments don’t crush the nimble feeling of the theme. The brilliant trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso and Rosario on alto do the honors as soloists.

Un Poco Loco is a showcase for the brass, from their powerful and screaming declaration of the theme and their counterplay with the saxes which gives the arrangement a “chase” feeling. Luca then restates the melody with just trumpet and flute before the individual solos begin. Bosso, Giulio Visibelli on alto and drummer Francesco Meles are in the solo spotlight on this track.

What Missiti had done is to wrap Bud’s theme in a palette of tonal colors that only a big band framework can offer.

In doing so, he provides the audience with the gift of hearing these Powell bebop classics in an entirely new way.

This is particularly the case in the four distinct movements which he used to arrange Powell’s Glass Enclosure. With each thematic statement coming in at less than a minute, over this combined two-minute span of time, Luca used various tempos and voicings to give the tune an entirely different tonal quality.

Bouncing with Bud, a non-blues theme whose form is A-A'-B-A' with an eight-bar interlude that is not played during the solos, is a particular favorite as I’ve played it many times as an opener to “get the chops flowing” at a gig. Like Celia, it’s taken at a relaxed tempo to let the intricate Bebop line unfold and is used as a feature for trombonist Andrea Andreoli.

Another major quality of Luca’s arrangements is that they swing and do so in a way that reflects the straight ahead drive that was so characteristic of Bud’s style of playing. Major credit here goes to bassist Marco Vaggi and drummer Francesco Meles for generating a strong pulse as a rhythm section and helping to invigorate the band’s performances.

The band plays together as a unit and you can tell it’s been well-rehearsed by its tight and accurate phrasing of the various sectional parts of the arrangements.

Maurizio Franco, concludes his notes by stating that “in essence, Monday Orchestra Un Poco Loco The Music of Bud Powell is a tribute to Powell's centenary that deeply penetrates his musical world, combining it with that of big band jazz. Luca Missiti gives us an album fully mature and of international standard.”

Luca’s Monday Orchestra has a website replete with YouTube videos which you can visit by going here.

And you can order Monday Orchestra Un Poco Loco The Music of Bud Powell [Ultra Sound US-CD355/S] on Amazon both as a CD and an Mp3 download.

If you are a fan of Bud’s music and want to hear it in a big band setting, then this recording is a must.