Program Description – listen online

The episode No. 749 of “ANIMAJAZZ“, conceived and conducted by Bruno Pollacci , aired on Thursday 16 February at 19.30 Italian time (1:30 pm Kansas City time) on Puntoradio, also streamed over www.puntoradio.fm and instantly podcast on http://animajazz.eu will open with the pianist and composer DINO MASSA with his “Kansas City Quintet” (Christopher Burnett, as, Charles Gatscher, g, Andrew W. Stinson, b, Clarence Smith, d / pc), from the CD “Echoes of Europe” we will listen to the same original composition that gives the title track (in the first photo on the left).

Italian Screen Capture

English Screen Capture

Recent Reviews

• FROM JAZZ DA GAMA (CANADA): “These are moments worth savouring, because discs documenting music as exquisite of form and function – in all its nudity – as this, on Echoes of Europe come along only very rarely.” ~ Raul da Gama, Jazz da Gama (Canada)

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• FROM KCUR: “It’s an exceptionally graceful album that imbues mainstream jazz with the elegant sheen of classical chamber music.” ~ Bill Brownlee, The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine

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• FROM SOUNDCONTEST (ITALY): “The exotic atmosphere of Notos (Christopher Burnett) is enchanting. The well-timed playing of Massa is adamant. Christopher Burnett ponders his improvisational speech with wisdom and elegance, seasoning it with some color…” ~ Stefano Dentice, SoundContest (Italy)

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• DRUM MAG (ITALY): “Five original compositions by Massa, plus two songs composed for the occasion by Burnett and trumpeter guest Marcus Hampton, for a album of contemporary jazz marked by a strong melodic vocation and a great formal elegance.” ~ Guido Bugatti, Drumset Mag no. 54, February 2017 (Italy)

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• FROM MIDWEST RECORD: DINO MASSA’S KANSAS CITY QUINTET/Echoes of Europe (ARC-2680) – “In which we find smoking contemporary jazz arising out of a chance meeting by players that wouldn’t have run into each other if not for being in the 1990 version of the NATO Jazz Band. Yeah that NATO, the political thing. The sparks flew and they never cooled off. Hooking up all these many years later, they play like this has been going on in New York for some time rather than Kansas City recently. Easy going jazz that isn’t easy listening, straight ahead ears will dig the proceedings. Well done throughout.” ~ Chris Spector, editor and publisher

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• FROM BOBBY WATSON: “I really like your album and I think the title ‘Echoes of Europe’ is very appropriate in describing the aesthetics of the music.” ~ Bobby Watson, jazz great

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• FROM JAZZ WEEKLY: “Composer/arranger Dino Massa accomplishes much on a smaller scale. Christopher Burnett/as, Charles Gatschet/g, Andrew W. Stinson/b, Clarence Smith/dr for the core with Massa’s piano while guests including “Freda Proctor-Terri Anderson Burnett/fl, Marcus Hampton-Stanton Kessler/tp-fh veer in and out of the seven pieces like characters in an Agatha Christie novel. The pieces are well structured with a chamber feel, featuring soft and warm flutes floating on the Latin “Imagine” and fluffing with the flugelhorns on “Notos.” Massa’s piano and Gatschet’s guitar form a quiet interlude with Burnett’s sweet alto on “Echoes of Europe” and the lithe pulses of “Remembering” and “Paris” are rich water colors of sound. Like listening to Monet.” ~ George W. Harris

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SELECTED REVIEW QUOTES

• The term: “…and just play” – music, of course – might not readily be associated with this disc by Dino Massa and his Kansas City Quintet but it ought to be as it is the spirit which has imbued the entire music on it. The words come at the end of a quote attributed to Charlie Parker which begins and ends thus: “Master your instrument, Master the music, and then forget all that bullshit and just play…” The words are so not only so admired by these musicians, it would seem, but appear to have been taken to heart in every nook and cranny of this music. The result: music that embodies old-fashioned swing in every tempo and time signature that it is played; no extraneous ornamentation, not a note, line or phrase out of place; everything in melody, harmony and rhythm pressed into the idiomatic cause of the music. No bullshit.
• These are moments worth savouring, because discs documenting music as exquisite of form and function – in all its nudity – as this, on Echoes of Europe come along only very rarely.
• “Refined” is an epithet that comes to mind and if that suggests a certain taciturn feel to the music, it is not entirely untrue. However, it is very much the music of adventure – the kind that comes from distant concentration and energy that derives from musicians feeling, rather than reading their way forward.
• It is the association with instruments and players in fresh contexts; mashing up the permutations and altering the perspective between foreground (solo) and background (ensemble), and of the shifting spatial architecture of the music itself.
• The two flutes written into “Tarantella” are one of the most alluring aspects of this crepuscular, brooding piece, placed strategically at the end of the recording. This wonderfully teasing and flirtatious melody is a perfect way to leave the air that rushes in to fill the void of silence at the music’s end with great expectation of what might come next from an association that includes Dino Massa and Christopher Burnett as well as any and all of the others on t his disc.

Raul da Gama

READ ENTIRE REVIEW: Dino Massa Kansas City Quintet – Echoes of Europe By Raul da Gama

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