In 1993, saxophonist-composer Claudio Fasoli, guitarist Mick Goodrick, bassist Paolino Dalla Porta, and drummer Bill Elgart released Cities on RAM Records. The album was recorded at Studio Barigozzi in Milano, Italy by Giancarlo Barigozzi, produced by Fasoli.
The album features ten compositions by Claudio Fasoli, each inspired by a different international city, including Amsterdam (“Amstel”), Siena (“Buildings”), New York (“320 CPW”), Venice (“Venezia”), Arnhem (“Surfaces”), Warsaw (“W-WA”), Mexico City (“Cuicuilco”), Milano (“20121”), London (“Londoner”) and Paris (“Rue Lepic”).
At this time, the CD release is out of print and a digital download has yet to be issued.
A short preview of Cities album featuring Claudio Fasoli on on tenor and soprano saxophone, Mick Goodrick on electric guitar, Paolino Dalla Porta on double bass, and Bill Elgart on drums is on YouTube:
More Music from the Same Artists
The following year in April, Claudio Fasoli, Bill, Elgart, and Mick Goodrick returned to the studio, this time in Parma, Italy.
The three tracks Fasoli, Elgart, and Goodrick recorded later appeared on Fasoli’s Trois Trios compilation album, released in CD by Splasch Records in 1999.
The 15 April session at MM Rec. Lab in Parma also saw Fasoli, Elgart, and Goodrick joined by bassist Henri Texier and trumpet and flugelhorn player Kenny Wheeler. Two days later, the tracks that would comprise Claudio Fasoli’s Ten Tributes album were complete.
This album, released by RAM Records in 1995, is also out of print, although Amazon USA has copies of each in stock at last check.
All three CDs can usually be found on auction sites such as Discogs and eBay worldwide, as well.
“Yesterdays,” the opening track of Claudio Fasoli’s Ten Tributes album, has been uploaded to YouTube:
One month after recording Cities, Paolino Dalla Porta and Bill Elgart returned to Studio Barigozzi and recorded Tales, with Kenny Wheeler and pianist Stefano Battaglia.
This album was reissued by Soul Note in CD in 2009 and is now available as a digital download.
All eleven tracks from Claudio Fasoli’s Trois Trios, which also features Henri Texier and drummer Aldo Romano in one trio and the saxophone player with pianist Stefano Battaglia and vocalist Jay Clayton in another, have been generously uploaded to YouTube by the artist:
Remastered Kenny Wheeler Albums include Pair with Claudio Fasoli & Pair with Bill Elgart
In 2015, Black Saint and Soul Note, two of Italy’s most prominent jazz labels, jointly released Kenny Wheeler’s The Complete Remastered Recordings on Black Saint & Soul Note 5-CD set.
The set of five remastered Kenny Wheeler albums, each housed in a replica sleeve of the original vinyl release, includes two with Claudio Fasoli and another two with Bill Elgart. Fasoli plays tenor saxophone on the 1987 album Welcome released by Fasoli, Kenny Wheeler, J.-F. Jenny Clark, and Daniel Humair.
Claudio Fasoli plays tenor and soprano saxophone as well as conducting the European Music Orchestra’s Guest, a 1994 album with Kenny Wheeler, Aldo Romano, and a host of players from across the Continent.
The Kenny Wheeler Quintet’s 1988 album Flutter By, Butterfly, featuring Bill Elgart, Dave Holland, Stan Sulzmann, John Taylor, and Wheeler, is also included in this very competitively priced set. The remaining albums include the aforementioned Tales, with Stefano Battaglia, Bill Elgart, Paolino Dalla Porta, and Kenny Wheeler, plus Wheeler’s All The More with Furio Di Castri, Joe LaBarbera, and John Taylor.
Claudio Fasoli’s “Invisible Sound” from Welcome, featuring Jean-François Jenny Clark on bass, Daniel Humair on drums, Fasoli on saxophone, and Kenny Wheeler on tumpet, is online:
Fasoli Founding Member of Prog Rock Band Perigeo in 1972
Born in Venice in 1939, Claudio Fasoli’s long and distinguished career in music began doing session work and as a sideman with a number of prominent players in his native Italy. Fasoli first achieved national and international attention as a founding member of Giovanni Tommaso’s progressive rock band Perigeo. In 1972, Claudio Fasoli played alto and tenor saxophone on Perigeo’s debut album Azimut, along with drummer Bruno Biraco, pianist Franco D’Andrea, guitarist Tony Sidney, and group leader Giovanni Tommaso on bass and vocals.
Through Perigeo, Claudio Fasoli was able to perform across Europe and around the world, in addition to gaining invaluable experience both as a soloist and as a composer. After the group disbanded the first time in 1978, Fasoli led a number of jazz trios and quartets with musicians including Palle Danielsson, Lee Konitz, Tony Oxley, Henri Texier, Manfred Schoof, and Bobo Stenson, among others.
A partial discography at Wikipedia and Fasoli’s own site lists more than 30 albums Claudio Fasoli has made as a band leader between 1978’s Eskimo Fakiro by the Claudio Fasoli Jazz Trio and 2016’s Inner Sounds by the Claudio Fasoli Double Quartet. This is in addition to eight albums with Perigeo as well as appearances as a sideman in several projects.
Starting in 1978, Claudio Fasoli has also been responsible for teaching tenor and soprano saxophone and master classes in improvisation at the Siena International Jazz Clinics conducted in Italy and in other countries. Between 2003 and 2010 Fasoli was the Artistic Director of the Padua Jazz Festival.
A live version of “Azimut,” the fourth track on the album of the same name–most recently remastered and reissued in CD by Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso in 2015, is on YouTube:
Claudio Fasoli Four + Alex Sipiagin Live in 2013
In May 2013, the Claudio Fasoli Four plus special guest Alex Sipiagin played live at the Centro Culturale Candiani in Mestre, Italy.
The quartet features Gian Ranier Bertoncini on drums and electronics, Lorenzo Calgaro on double bass, Michele Calgaro on electric guitar, and Fasoli on tenor and soprano saxophone, plus Alex Sipiagin on trumpet.
A video of the performance by the Claudio Fasoli Four with Alex Sipiagin shot by Claudio Sichel has been uploaded to YouTube:
This article initially appeared 27 January 2015 on http://hapsnowswhirlwinds.com, which spawned Bill’s Blue Note as well as sister site http://the6thdimension.com.
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