Roberto Pistolesi is an Italian drummer who was educated in classical music since childhood, starting to play drums in his teens and professionally since 1999. In 2006 he began to travel to New York, where he deepened his knowledge of drums and music. . There he studied with Kenny Washington, John Riley, Dan Weiss, Sam Ulano, Ari Hoenig, Kendrick Scott, Michael Carvin, and Billy Drummond. He has played with Rick Margitza, Francesco Cafiso, Ivan Segreto, Steve Grossman, Tineke Postma, Dave Liebman, Jesse Van Ruller, Alina Engibaryan, Alex Britti, Enrico Rava, Paolo Fresu, Stefano Di Battista (with whom he has toured and recorded for more than a decade) among many others.
In addition to his work as an interpreter, he is very active in the world of teaching, giving free rein to the need to communicate his knowledge and discoveries. He defines himself as an eternal student, who investigates every day, in search of greater knowledge for himself and for his students. He has recently moved to the Netherlands, where he has set up his own studio, where he teaches, practices and rehearses.
He has just released the album titled “Open Lands and Moving People”, his first album as a leader. He is accompanied by Roberto Tarenzi on piano, Zack Lober on double bass and electric bass, Daniel Juárez on tenor sax, Pasha Shcherbakov plays trombone, guitarist Teis Semey and Sanne Huijbregts provides vocals and lyrics, as well as vibraphone.
On the album cover you can see two photos that transport us to two totally different worlds: on the one hand, a city with tall buildings and on the other, a country area with windmills. The first could be an image of New York and the second a landscape of the Netherlands, two locations that have marked Pistolesi’s professional life. The music on the album reflects in different passages, both worlds.
The idea of incorporating Huijbregts has been a success. He takes part in four cuts: “High Res Skies”, the song that opens the album, “And the Infinite Sadness”, “Latina” and “C-Ornette Alla Cream”. In general, Huijbregts brings calm and delicacy to some of the songs and a lot of jazz to others, thanks to a highly refined and effective scat. In the scats, his voice joins the rest of the instruments as if it were one more.
The cuts on the album usually start erratically, as if they had a hard time finding the way forward, but that feeling disappears after a short time and it is an instrument, which can be the double bass or the piano, who clears the path to follow for the rest. of the group.
The classical connotations are intermingled with jazz, Latin, rock and those typical of a modern jazz typical of Central Europe.
Virtually no song follows a continuous plot line, so that within the same cut, we find different rhythmic and melodic moments that never cease to amaze. In short, we are facing energetic compositions, of a certain complexity and sophistication, where improvisation is felt in a large part of the central nuclei of the cuts.
Pistolesi states: “Even the most modern and busiest city is built on land, and at some point it opens onto a field, a forest or open sea. The interaction between the ever-existing earth and the people who revolve around it is the inspiration to write for this project.”
An interesting job.