Elsewhere
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Da Vinci Jazz
Giuseppe Urso, Stefano India, Valerio Rizzo
13.67€
Giuseppe Urso is a musician, composer, arranger and conductor from Palermo. He graduated in symphonic percussion and jazz with top marks and honours. His career spans big bands, symphony orchestras and projects as both bandleader and sideman.
He has performed with Phil Woods, Cedar Walton, Vince Mendoza, Clark Terry, Arturo Sandoval, Dave Liebman, Patti Austin, Rachelle Ferrell, Billy Childs, Diane Schuur, Toots Thielemans, Noa, Jack Walrath, Dave Kikoski, Eumir Deodato, Tigran Hamasyan, Bill Carrothers, Bobby Watson, Ernie Watts, Emil Richards, Joe Porcaro, Martial Solal, Les McCann, Wayne Bergeron, Darren Barrett and John Serry, among others.
His discography includes numerous recordings as a leader and composer, attracting attention in the specialist press. In 2001, readers of Basi Media Magazine voted him Best Italian Jazz Drummer. His recordings as a leader have also featured on RAI’s Fahrenheit and specialist radio stations in the United States.
Alongside his performing career, he has maintained an extensive teaching practice and published educational materials. In 2009, he co-founded the international music school Palermojazz, serving as its teaching director until 2013 and organising courses, workshops and seminars with internationally renowned musicians.
As a composer and performer, he has presented his project Vinum De Cupa at festivals in Italy and abroad. A timpanist, drummer and jazz pianist, he has performed in theatres, festivals and jazz clubs. At Palermo’s Conservatorio Alessandro Scarlatti, he has taught jazz drums and percussion, headed the Jazz Department and helped found and conduct its Jazz Big Band, the Palermo Jazz Orchestra, whose collaborators have included Peter Erskine, Gianluigi Trovesi and Joy Garrison.
Stefano India is an electric and double bass player, composer and educator. His work explores the harmonic and melodic possibilities of the electric bass, bringing academic research into his performing and compositional practice. He earned degrees in electric bass with distinction and classical double bass at the Conservatorio in Palermo, and studied ensemble music with Mimmo Cafiero at the Open Jazz Club.
He played in the first Matteo Mancuso Trio, touring Europe and developing the group’s live arrangements. His experience spans modern jazz, fusion, rock, pop and orchestral music, with appearances at Jazzahead!, Blue Note Milan, Casa del Jazz in Rome and festivals in Italy and abroad. In 2023 he launched Drop the Bass, a project of original compositions documented in a six-part live studio series. He also performs with the Giuseppe Urso Trio, including on the album Shapes.
Valerio Rizzo is an Italian pianist and accordionist whose work spans classical music and jazz. He began studying as a child with his father and later with Maria Zancana, taking examinations at the Conservatorio Antonio Scontrino in Trapani. He earned an ABRSM diploma in classical piano performance in 2009 and a first-level degree in jazz piano with honours at the Conservatorio Girolamo Frescobaldi in Ferrara in 2014.
He studied jazz at Palermo’s Open Jazz School and performed at the Langnau Jazz Festival in Switzerland. With the Giuseppe Urso Trio, he recorded Shapes (2018) and Nake (2020) for Da Vinci Publishing. His projects also include work with singer-songwriter Serena Ganci and jazz singer Giulia Lorvich. Since the 2018–19 academic year, he has taught jazz piano at the Conservatorio Arturo Toscanini in Ribera. His performing experience includes engagements with Royal Caribbean International and a residency at Belcanto at Dubai Opera.
Giuseppe Urso is a musician, composer, arranger and conductor from Palermo. He graduated in symphonic percussion and jazz with top marks and honours. His career spans big bands, symphony orchestras and projects as both bandleader and sideman.
He has performed with Phil Woods, Cedar Walton, Vince Mendoza, Clark Terry, Arturo Sandoval, Dave Liebman, Patti Austin, Rachelle Ferrell, Billy Childs, Diane Schuur, Toots Thielemans, Noa, Jack Walrath, Dave Kikoski, Eumir Deodato, Tigran Hamasyan, Bill Carrothers, Bobby Watson, Ernie Watts, Emil Richards, Joe Porcaro, Martial Solal, Les McCann, Wayne Bergeron, Darren Barrett and John Serry, among others.
His discography includes numerous recordings as a leader and composer, attracting attention in the specialist press. In 2001, readers of Basi Media Magazine voted him Best Italian Jazz Drummer. His recordings as a leader have also featured on RAI’s Fahrenheit and specialist radio stations in the United States.
Alongside his performing career, he has maintained an extensive teaching practice and published educational materials. In 2009, he co-founded the international music school Palermojazz, serving as its teaching director until 2013 and organising courses, workshops and seminars with internationally renowned musicians.
As a composer and performer, he has presented his project Vinum De Cupa at festivals in Italy and abroad. A timpanist, drummer and jazz pianist, he has performed in theatres, festivals and jazz clubs. At Palermo’s Conservatorio Alessandro Scarlatti, he has taught jazz drums and percussion, headed the Jazz Department and helped found and conduct its Jazz Big Band, the Palermo Jazz Orchestra, whose collaborators have included Peter Erskine, Gianluigi Trovesi and Joy Garrison.
This work’s title, Nake, means “sheepskin or goatskin” in the archaic Greek language; it also originates the word “naca”, found in the dialects spoken throughout Southern Italy, but especially in Apulia and Sicily, and meaning “cradle”; as a matter of fact, in the past cradles were made of animal hides. Cradle, then, as the cradle of past civilizations; in Sicily they were numerous and they left evident signs in the facial expressions and in the habits of its inhabitants, as well as in the majestic artworks left by the Phoenicians,…
This work’s title, Nake, means “sheepskin or goatskin” in the archaic Greek language; it also originates the word “naca”, found in the dialects spoken throughout Southern Italy, but especially in Apulia and Sicily, and meaning “cradle”; as a matter of fact, in the past cradles were made of animal hides.
Cradle, then, as the cradle of past civilizations; in Sicily they were numerous and they left evident signs in the facial expressions and in the habits of its inhabitants, as well as in the majestic artworks left by the Phoenicians, the Normans, the Greeks, the Romans, the Spaniards and the French.
The music of Nake thus resounds with many stylistically influences, blended in a natural synthesis, whereby the ostentation of mannerisms and clichés is abandoned in favor of an intellectual honesty making it fluent and elegant at the same time. In particular, the variety of harmonies and meters employed with a careful use of dynamics does not betray the trio’s classical academic studies. They generate atmospheres which are rarefied and intense at the same time, while respecting a basic organicity throughout the leader’s various compositions – as happens to the very particular interpretations of Newman or of the Tears For Fears, without forgetting Glass.
The trio’s interplay and the various thematic improvisations lead back the album’s patterns to the environment of jazz , without ever sacrificing their scoring, which is central for the themes and developments of certain compositions. This is the case of 41th Championship (ironically titled) or in the final End Of The Summer, whose mood is evocative and conclusive, dedicated to the end of a season, as a metaphor for life.
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