Clearly Recchia’s a limber, modern player who’s never at a loss for ideas. Furthermore, on his sophomore CD Ari’s Desire, he’s in fine company flanked on several tracks by U.S. trumpeter Alex Sipiagin and backed throughout by the two-Nicola rhythm tandem of bassist Nicola Muresu and drummer Nicola Angelucci.
In the above clip, Recchia as an arranger has given a little rhythm tweak to John Coltrane’s Lazy Bird, and on several of the disc’s other covers, he employs similar measures before he and his band get down to some heated post-bop soloing. Sonny Rollins’ Tenor Madness has been stretched a bit with some drum breaks and a few bars of Afro-Cuban grooving. Rollins’ Pent-up House gets a similar rhythmic makeover. Thanks to some truncated rests, Who Can I Turn To is missing a few beats through not just the heads but the soloing form too. Everything I’ve Got is opened up with a few drum breaks and punches. Overall, there’s nothing radical to these treatments — just enough to tell jazz fans that Recchia cares enough to personalize older material a bit.
Whether the saxophonist and his mates are tackling covers or Recchia’s direct, straightforward originals (the modal, minor-key, Trane-ish title track, the initially more placid Peace Hotel, the groovy, riffy Boulevard Victor, the floating ballad November, ushered in by a strong statement by bassist Muresu), the playing results in some nicely concentrated, potent, listenable post-bop, especially when Sipiagin’s added to the proceedings.
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