Umbria Jazz Festival 13th July

Monday at the festival and the first of three shows by Joe Locke, Dado Moroni and Rosario Giuliani. Joe has played at Umbria Jazz for the past four years and his contribution to the festival is now legendary. Playing and recording these three days with two excellent sparing partners in Giuliani on sax and Moroni on piano - this is a vibrant expansive trio with all three sharing the writing duties. The Cd which will come out on Agea will be well worth investigating - the trio are playing very contemplative music with excellent searching solos from all three.

On the main stage we had a very special show featuring two great exponents of the piano. On the left was Chick Corea, a pianist who's carear needs no introduction on on the right Stefano Bollani a hugely talented pianist (he won the jazz musician of the year prize at the North Sea Jazz Festival a few days ago) who is an electric a personality as he is a pianist. His style swings widely from classical to free improv but he never fails to impress or entertain.

playing a mixture of standards and self penned tunes the pair kept a constant conversation of music through the evening, with humour, inventiveness and sheer mastery of the instruments - this was pure magic. It could be said that they never let rip and 'rocked' for want of a better word, but they kept total control of what they were doing and made the music the event, not the players.





The midnight show on the other hand was a riot of up tempo (latin)beat music. Richard Galliano joined by regular companion Gonzalo Rubalcaba on piano, Richard Bona on bass and Clarence Penn on the kit. It may have been past midnight when the show got under way but the sheer vitality of the music had the whole audience swaying with the beat and the excellent soloing from Galliano, Bona and Rubalcaba. A great show, and the audience would have kept the band in the Morlacchi all night had they been allowed!