All compositions, unless otherwise noted, by Luca Zennaro.
Recorded at Santa Caterina Church, Chioggia (Venezia), on May 10, 2022; mixed and mastered in in September; sound engineers Ivano Boscolo Nata and Roberto Songini.
Guitarist Luca Zennaro, born in 1997 in Chioggia, proves his precocious talent by making «Altera Limes», his third album under his name after «Javaskara» (2018) and «When Nobody Is Listening» (2020) – all of them released by Caligola. However, one must not forget «Cedrus Libani» (2021) released in the UK with HackOut! Trio, whose leadership he shares with saxophonist Manuel Caliumi and drummer Riccardo Cocetti. After completing his education at the Rovigo Conservatory of Music in 2021 under Roberto Cecchetto first and Domenico Caliri then, Zennaro’s talent literally blossomed in 2022, the year he was involved in multiple projects, even as a sideman. Compared to his previous works, «Altera Limes» is a unique album which the guitarist recorded live in a moving studio inside the small, beautiful 15th century Santa Caterina church in Chioggia. It must have been the charm of the place, the intimate performance for a few people, the excellent sound quality resulting from the thorough knowledge of the acoustics which are far from simple, but the trio’s music unfolds with exemplary smoothness and fluidity and balances the rather unconventional structure of the tracks – all of which but Monk’s Let’s Cool One are new. The album, as made clear by its title, evokes the expansion of music beyond our common perception. Ideas alternate according to dynamics that benefit from both the excellent interplay between the musicians and their ability to suggest the rhythm, but also from the succession of themes and the harmonic ambiguity of the compositions. In this regard the support given by Francesco Bordignon’s solid bass and the creative drumming of the English musician Phelan Burgoyne, with whom they form a tight-knit and ingenious trio, is essential. The leader’s guitar sounds more intimate and more meditative than ever and is exemplary in its art of subtraction. The brief comment penned by British pianist Kit Downes, an ECM artist, is appropriate: “… It’s a pleasure to sit down and listen to the magical new album by Luca Zennaro – it’s resounding, rich in details, unique and marvelously.
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