Parco della Musica Records presents the third volume of the Franco D’Andrea Piano Trio project. “Traditions Today, Vol. III” brings to the stage an atypical jazz trio featuring D’Andrea on piano along with Daniele D’Agaro on clarinet and Mauro Ottolini on trombone. “The band has been the reference color of traditional jazz, which is the music that fascinated me in my early days”-reports Franco D’Andrea. ” Louis Armstrong ‘s “Hot Five” lineup included trumpet, clarinet, trombone, piano and drums or banjo. This combination of instruments, absolutely magical to me, still has much to offer even to the jazz music of our time. This trio contains within itself the essence of a band sound, in which characteristic instruments are definitely the clarinet, representing the reeds, and the trombone, for the brass. The piano in this context can play a multiplicity of roles due to its typical orchestral nature.”

The music unfolds between riffs, polyrhythms, improvised counterpoints, contemporary abstractions and sounds sometimes inspired by the Ellingtonian jungle style. Franco D’Andrea ‘s iridescent art is a polyhedron tending to the sphere. The oceanic immensity of his constant search for a personal language within the jazz tradition finds adamantine representation in this trio concert. An extraordinary overview of his musical thinking free of mannerisms of any kind and constantly in search of authentic and profound expressiveness. Music of gentle, pointed, magmatic, snappy and refined stubbornness. Overwhelming and consistent at the same time. Wonderfully poised between Apollo and Dionysus. Intensely personal, completely jazzy.

In an age when in most cases we handle form, aesthetics and art with the gloves of the anatomist to protect ourselves from formalin, Franco and his music are one of the brightest lights in a dark night. A beacon to follow to overcome a dark and viscous becalmed sea.