Notturni

NOTTURNI (2021)

ALESSANDRO MEROLI - Baritone sax, alto sax, flute, composition.

Meroli is an experienced musician with collaborations in various musical fields. He's been performing with Splatterpink since the '90s – one of the hottest Italian jazz-core groups ever conceived, and enjoyed two albums on Cuneiform Records with prog rockers Deus Ex Machina. For a decade he worked as musician, manager, collaborator and producer with the Italian pop star Neffa.

He's an experienced session musician in electronic dance and experimental music working for labels such as Irma Records, Compost, Yoruba (with the artists Osun Lade Atelewo), Sonar Kollektiv, Sony, Universal, BMG, Pasta Boys, Dj Rodriguez, Dj Volcov, Ohm Guru, Black Mighty Orchestra, LTJ Experience, Rima, Supabeatz, Frankie Valentine, Ninfa and Gunkhole.

He was a founding member of Faze Liquide, a nu-jazz outfit whose work has been released on the prestigious Jazzanova Sonar Kollektiv, and a founding member of the afro-jazz quintet Afronauti, whose work A Jazz Odyssey was broadcast by Radio Rai3 for Battiti and given rave reviews by the specialist magazine Musica Jazz.

- - -

This work reflects and is imbued with nocturnal atmospheres that are simultaneously rarified and crepuscular. This is an idea that has taken root in my thoughts, influenced by Chopin's immortal Nocturnes, a Journey to the End of the Night (Louis Ferdinand Celine), a solitary walk in the abandoned suburbs of a metropolis (Taxi Driver), or an escape at full speed on a fireball after a thunderstorm (A Clockwork Orange). A night experienced temporally and spiritually, from dusk to dawn, in all the colors and shades it offers. A physical, sleepless, mysterious, decadent and romantic night, the night of the soul with its anguish and infinite solitude. The night of lovers and dreamers, a night that gives way to the blinding light of a new day, to a new hope for a new life, for regeneration. This is a record enriched by my musical influences, from Duke Ellington to David Axelrod, from Bernard Herrmann to Pink Floyd. Jazz, electronica, psychedelia and oriental influences accompany us along the winding streets of the night and the unconscious. A layered, dense and simultaneoulsy evanescent and nebulous sound with composite rhythms that blend acoustic drums and drum machines, textural pianos and synthesizers, with melodies projected by wind sections and metallic dissonances that jostle with each other in the dark evening. A farrago of acoustic instruments and electronic effects and machines, the past and the present, the dreamt and the real, the deep shadows and the moonlight, the unbridled fantasy and the compulsive search for reality. This is floating, cinematic music full of modern echoes yet anchored to tradition, a bold attempt to make the dream come true and transpose it into sound.

I would like to thank all the musicians who participated in the recordings, and my collaborator Alberto Sansò in particular whose mastery and skill has enabled me to create this album.

Alessandro Meroli