Giovanni Sanguineti: Remember the Future

Remember the Future brings together Giovanni Sanguineti, double bass, Mario Zara, piano, and Nicola Stranieri, drums, with guest alto saxophonist Mattia Cigalini. Its eight original compositions explore modern mainstream and contemporary jazz through melodic themes, harmonic detail and the ensemble’s shared sense of swing.

In his introductory note, music journalist Stefano Dentice highlights the singing quality of the themes, their melodic depth and harmonic refinement, and the musicians’ direct, emotionally engaged communication.

Giovanni Sanguineti on the music

This album seeks to be a worthy successor to Gnothi Seauton, a project that demanded much of me and brought great satisfaction. The compositions followed a similar process of development and refinement, although bringing the recording to completion proved more difficult. What runs through the music is the hope that there is still a tomorrow, a horizon one step beyond us: an opportunity to make amends and improve, but also a temptation to postpone our decisions.

Once upon a Tomorrow looks towards that possibility of a future. Whether it will be better or worse remains unknown; knowing that it exists may be enough.

Le identità di un giorno asks how many identities we inhabit in a single day, from its beginning through its hectic rhythms to its close, and how solitude and contact with others give daily life its rhythm and meaning.

Old Time Remedies returns to the familiar remedies of earlier times: the blues and the standards.

Utopsia takes its title from Dario Falconi’s book. Its underlying hope is a renewal of ethical human action, grounded in respect for ourselves and others, and the difficult emergence of a different humanity.

Le torri di Rodia evokes Sabato “Simon” Rodia’s towers in the Watts neighbourhood of Los Angeles, built from discarded materials. I imagine them as an image of perseverance pursued for its own sake.

Perseidi imagines fragments from space dissolving into sparks as they meet the atmosphere, carrying the wishes we entrust to them.

Distopia presents the opposite of utopia: an imagined future shaped by undesirable political and social conditions.

When Air Becomes Breath reflects on the way everything around us enters our lives. We unconsciously filter what we see, hear and feel through our inner experience. The air surrounding us becomes breath through us, and becomes life.

Programme notes by Giovanni Sanguineti; English revised from the original booklet.