Roberto Ottaviano sax
Marco Colonna clarinets
Alexander Hawkins piano
Giovanni Maier bass
Zeno De Rossi drums
With his latest CD Eternal Love, Roberto Ottaviano puts the accent on music as medicine of the soul and as a cement of collective identities. Eternal Love is a tribute to Africa, its culture, its music and its people, in an era of migrations and racial intolerances that seems to bring us back to the America of the '50s and' 60s, by Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. With a selection of compositions by Don Cherry, Abdullah Ibrahim, Charlie Haden, John Coltrane, Dewey Redman, Elton Dean and original pieces, in an exciting journey that invites listeners to go beyond the notes, looking for an inner depth without which it is difficult to be able to propose as models to new generations, not just artists.
In recent years, Roberto Ottaviano has returned to occupy that leading role on the Italian jazz scene that competes him. In addition to the victory last January in the annual "critics poll" of Musica Jazz, it is also the latest triumph of the saxophonist in the "readers poll" of Jazzit, the other magazine dedicated to jazz in Italy: critics and fans, everyone agreed. But what counts most is the quality of his music that imposes itself, the result of lucidly calibrated projects and happy encounters with important music partners, starting with the English pianist Alexander Hawkins, the wonderful rhythmic Giovanni Maier - Zeno De Rossi always in the ball , while extraordinary is the Roman clarinetist Marco Colonna, here alter ego of Ottaviano.
"In stark contrast came alto-soprano saxophonist Roberto Ottaviano whose Eternal Love band was arguably the hottest of hot tickets. Featuring the outstanding clarinetist Marco Colonna, who also played solo the day after, and the excellent British pianist Alexander Hawkins, they performed a set of covers that included anthems by Old And New Dreams, Mal Waldron and Abdullah Ibrahim. The band burst into life with such energy that the audience was up and dancing to the township jive that proved an irresistible climax to a raucous evening.”
Kevin Le Gendre - Jazzwise
