Grégoire Maret & Romain Collin - Ennio [CD]

Act Music

£13.77

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: ACT9959-2
Barcode: 0614427995926
Release Date: 31 May 2024
Genre: Jazz

 How do you follow up a successful album like ‘Americana’? Released in April 2020, the LP not only received a GRAMMY nomination for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album, it has also registered streaming statistics approaching ten million. It brought together harmonica player Grégoire Maret and pianist Romain Collin, performing in a trio with Bill Frisell in which the three found happy common ground in their “shared love of jazz, song and pure melody” (Jazziz), and offered listeners a “gorgeous meditation on the American Dream.” (Bill Milkowski)
 ‘Americana’, and Maret and Collin’s subsequent work together, helped to cement a friendship between these two fine New York-based musicians with Francophone origins (Geneva and Antibes respectively). As Collin says: “There is something about the way we work together that feels very fluid and natural.”
 Maret and Collin established quickly that watching films featuring the music of Ennio Morricone had been an important part of family life for both of them, and a strong part of what had initially drawn them towards music. “Those movies, and the way they incorporated the music really stayed in my mind,” remembers Maret. And when the great man died in July 2020 at the age of 91, it affected them both deeply. Maret, for example, was to regret that a plan to include him in some of Morricone’s later concerts had sadly never come to fruition. But above all, the musicians felt a deep affinity for Morricone’s music: “We are both naturally drawn to the European sensitivities, the romantic language,” says Collin.
 The deeper you delve into this collection, the more unexpected treats and gifts come to light. Surprises, for example, come from the stellar array of guest musicians. Maret says he felt truly blessed to hear from Cassandra Wilson that she liked the idea of writing new English words for Mina’s ‘Se Telefonando’. And he was just as thrilled when Gregory Porter agreed to do the song as a duet with her. And the other instrumentalists bring magic too: drummer Marcus Gilmore “can do just about anything and he is an amazing person,” says Maret. Guitarist Marvin Sewell and bassist Burniss Earl Travis II are also Maret’s colleagues from Cassandra Wilson’s band and they make all kinds of intriguing sounds. And Collin has tricks up his sleeve as well: for example, he complements Maret’s sound on ‘Man with a Harmonica’ with the eeriness of 1970s/80s rarities: a Moog Cordovox White Elephant and a foot-operated Taurus analogue synth.
 Alessandro De Rosa’s sleeve note for ‘Ennio’ sums up the album very well: “[it] takes the listener through the complexity of Morricone’s multifaceted oeuvre and vividly portrays the emotional impact it has had on them. It is a journey that re-imagines and narrates this immensely significant contemporary composer in a way which is both new and authentic.”

Tracklisting
Once Upon a Time in America (Deborah’s Theme)
For a Few Dollars More: Watch Chimes
The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly: The Ecstacy of Gold Suoni per Dino
Once Upon a Time in the West (Intro)
Once Upon a Time in the West
Cinema Paradiso
Se Telefonando (feat. Cassandra Wilson & Gregory Porter)
Chi Mai – Le Professionnel
The Sicilian Clan
Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man
Man with a Harmonica