Reflections - Marco Fumo

Alceste Aylrodi / March 2020
“Marco Fumo's Reflections should be part of the heritage of teaching jazz history. Yes, because the Abruzzese pianist is not simply an excellent pianist, but he is one who has made historical research his starting point. After having performed the ragtime repertoire far and wide, here he unfolds his musical knowledge in those interests - ignored by the classics, or frowned upon - between the Euro-cultured universe and that of African-American music. He underlines, as few are capable of doing, all the links that certain great composers of the late 19th and 20th centuries have created between two musical hemispheres that are only apparently distant. From the chorus mentioned by Scarlatti in Sonata K. 382 to Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy, one of the most popular pieces of modern classical music - with its discontinuous metric, caressed by the timbral lightness that dissolves the harmonic tensions. There is the Tango by Igor ’Fëdorovič Stravinskij: composer who has never hidden his passion for music from the New Continent. There is Darius Milhaud, who recalls the Brazilian choro, with the poignant notes of Sorocaba From saudade do Brasil. Marco Fumo investigates, deepens and displays all the interstices of the combinations between Latin American music and the Classical epoch. He does it by giving us gems such as Aníbal Troilo's Romance de barrio, and also a superlative performance of Aaron Copland's Four Piano Blues; not to mention another jewel that fits into the diadem, represented by the Novelette no. 3 by Francis Poulenc. There are 18 tracks in the lineup; therefore, apart from those mentioned, the attentive listener can also enjoy Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Ernesto Nazareth, Scott Joplin, just to name a few. And you will be able to enjoy the interpretation rendered by a timeless pianist, of those who - ictu oculi - love both the piano and the music, but without sinning in the executive originality, a great brand by Marco Fumo.”

Fabio Ciminiera / March 2020
“Reflections on piano literature, writing and interpretation, common matrices and differences. Marco Fumo takes a journey of over three centuries with a story that starts from Domenico Scarlatti and arrives at the contemporary music of Francis Poulenc, Aaron Copland and Darius Milhaud after passing through the early 20th century via Igor Stravinsky and Claude Debussy, Brazil by Ernesto Nazareth, the Argentina of Anibal Troilo and Eduardo Arolas, the jazz of Duke Ellington and Fats Waller and what could be called his "comfort zone", that is the territory of cultured African American music, populated by characters such as Scott Joplin, James Johnson, James Scott and Jelly Roll Morton.
A project designed to compare the music of these composers through a particular mechanism: to present the 18 tracks as nine small suites composed of two movements. In this way, the attention of the pianist and the listener focuses specifically on some particular points, in a sort of "guided suggestion". Clear examples are represented by the third pair - concentrated on Argentine tango and matrices, with the homonymous theme of Stravinsky and Café de Barracas by Arolas - or by the fourth pairing - addressed to Brazil, with Garoto of Nazareth and the Sorocaba from Saudades do Brasil by Milhaud.
The bonds activated by Marco Fumo also propose more philosophical combinations, Debussy's Clair de Lune and Duke Ellington's Reflections in D, or virtuosic suggestions as in the combinations chosen for Scarlatti, first with Odeon of Nazareth and then with the fourth movement of the Four Piano Blues.
In general, the concept of this ambitious project is based on the idea of ​​linking these pieces together - and, consequently, their authors, the approach to writing and the instructions given to the interpreter, the forms and expressive codes - in a wide and transversal research on the material composed for piano, or entrusted to pianists, and with the intention of finding how some precise elements have been brought into these porks. In the short essay accompanying Reflections, Stefano Zenni stresses how African American musical roots are a common factor throughout this journey: a factor used in a different way, from time to time, a factor made explicit or implied in the atmosphere of the composition, managed on a rhythmic or melodic level.
A narrow path consisting of short-lived pieces (most of which are around two and a half minutes) in order to emphasize the melodic structure, the exhibition and, in general, the essential characters of the different works. A work therefore that reasons on the individual scores, first, and on the overall program, then, to go through a real meditation - to borrow the definition used by Marco Fumo in the booklet of the disc - through these themes and through the contact points identified between the various couples. An interlocking of possible readings, between set objectives and sought coincidences, between elective assonances and unexpected encounters.”