adEIdJ – Associazione delle Etichette Indipendenti di Jazz

Press Release

Koro Almost Brass is an unusual group, especially in the jazz scene, where saxophone quartets are more common. It is somewhat similar to brass quintets in classical music, from which it stands out for having replaced the second trumpet with the alto sax. One of the main goals of Koro is to build bridges between jazz, improvised music par excellence, and European classical music, which is entirely written. Trumpeter Fulvio Sigurtà, alto saxophonist and arranger Cristiano Arcelli and trombonist Massimo Morganti are jazz musicians who need no introduction as they are among the greatest virtuosos on their instruments, non only in Italy, while the younger musician Glauco Benedetti is one of the few Italian Tuba soloists. The French horn enriches the already wide expressive range of the ensemble, a truly equal collective, and strengthens the bond between classical and African American music. It's played by the talented Giovanni Hoffer, a world-renowned classical musician but also the most important jazz horn specialist in Europe.
The music of Thelonious Monk, which occupies the repertoire of the whole album, is made up of fragments. It is not whole music that stays broken once it shatters. It's a music-constellation, an enigmatic order of shards arranged according to a logic that has to be unraveled every time. This is where its strenghth lies, and what makes its interpretation difficult: the arrangement of the constellation, however eccentric it may look, seems untouchable, otherwise the structure will crumble. Therefore, playing it as it is, or on the contrary, ignoring its rules, seems the only options. This group has realized that Monk's constellations actually are in movement: fragments can be detached and reassembled, shifted and connected in different ways without compromising the identity of the compositions. Monk's music, refracted in the prism of the five wind instruments, comes out of it reassembled and revamped, but preserved in its true nature.

Track List

1) I Mean You
2) Bemsha Swing
3) Reflections
4) Epistrophy
5) Worry Later
6) 'Round Midnight
7) In Walked Bud
8) Rhythm-A-Ning

All compositions by Thelonious Monk
Arrangements by Cristiano Arcelli 

Personnel

Cristiano Arcelli (alto saxophone)
Fulvio Sigurtà (trumpet, flugelhorn)
Giovanni Hoffer (French horn)
Massimo Morganti (trombone)
Glauco Benedetti (tuba)
 

Recording Data

Recorded at Ritmo&Blue Studio, Pozzolengo (Brescia), on 13th and 14th November 2024; mixed and mastered at Studio della Giraffa, Cagliari, on 25th January 2025.
Sound engineer: Marti Jane Robertson