TAPE 1
Never Let Me Go J. Livingston - R. Evans 5'20"
You've Changed C. Fischer - B. Carey 5'34"
Easy to Love C. Porter 4'44"
All Blues M. Davis 5'58"
Cry Me a River A. Hamilton 6'30"
Total Time 28'06"
This album is part of the recordings I made for the concerts of the 2019 Piaggio Fonè Music Festival.
I made this recording at the Piaggio Auditorium located inside the famous Pontedera Museum, where Piaggio was born and where it continues to produce today.
Inside the Museum, every year, audiences from around the world can admire Piaggio's production over the years, all the Vespa and Ape models, and all the Aprilia, Gilera, and Moto Guzzi motorcycles that have won national and international awards over time.
For this recording, I brought all my equipment, both analog (Ampex ATR 102 Electronic Tube Ampex Model 351-1965, 2-track, 1/2-inch, 30fps, modified by David Manley) and digital (Pyramix Recorder, dCS A/D and D/A converters).
For microphones, I used my original collection of Neumann U47, U48, and M49 microphones, as well as the Signoricci microphone preamp and cables.
I used pairs of Neumann tube microphones from 1947 and 1949 (U47, U48, and M49), with their very natural timbre, using two-microphone field-effect techniques.
These microphones have an important history: they were the original microphones used to record, among others, the Beatles' performances at Abbey Road Studio and by RCA for their "Living Stereo" recordings.
The sound I capture with these legendary microphones is perfectly in line with my sonic taste.
No other microphone has such a true-to-life timbre and the ability to capture all the nuances of sound and all the richness of harmonics.
The uniqueness of these microphones lies in their ability to create a perfect "sound photograph" and place the music perfectly in the chosen sound space for recording.
This is because for every recording I always create two masters: an analog master for vinyl and a DSD digital master for SuperAudioCDs.
The vinyl mastering was done by me using the entirely analog, tube-based Signoricci system.
A state-of-the-art system without sound manipulation, equalization, reverb, compression, or expansion... but with a natural sound and true timbre to best enhance the acoustics of the Piaggio Museum Auditorium.
For nearly 40 years, fonè has been offering recordings crafted with technological sophistication and aimed at recovering the original musical atmosphere.
For this recording, I also used a "field effect" recording technique... all this to allow the listener, through their home hi-fi system, to relive the live experience as if they were present at the performance.
The stars of this album are Julian Mazzariello on piano and Enzo Pietropaoli on double bass.
These two great jazz musicians have played and recorded many albums together, but this is the first time they've performed as a duo.
Frankly, it's an understatement to call them a duo because in every song they performed, they sounded like a single instrument.
The artists alternated pieces from the international repertoire; highlights include "Easy to Love" (Cole Porter), "I Loves You Porgy" (George Gershwin), and two pieces by Mazzariello and Pietropaoli themselves.
Their interpretation and the dialogue they each time "wove" between the two instruments were truly magical, a total fusion of timbre, music, and interpretation... a masterpiece!
The natural sound fonè fully enhanced the sounds of both instruments.
An album not to be missed!
Giulio Cesare Ricci
