Renato D’Aiello Trio, Kidderminster Jazz Club, St. Ambrose Parish Centre, Kidderminster, Worcs. 04/10/2024

Renato D’Aiello – tenor sax, vocals, Ross Stanley – piano, Lorenzo Morabito – double bass

Kidderminster Jazz Club’s October event featured this ‘chamber jazz’ trio led by saxophonist and vocalist Renato D’Aiello, an Italian musician who has been based in London for many years and who has become a leading figure on the UK jazz scene.

The event also marked the fifth anniversary of the founding of Kidderminster Jazz Club by vocalist and promoter Annette Gregory. Congratulations to Annette on keeping the Club going during difficult times that have included the Covid pandemic and numerous changes of location. It’s good to see the Club continuing to flourish at its new home, the St. Ambrose Parish Centre.

I first encountered D’Aiello’s playing five years ago when I saw him perform as part of an otherwise all Italian quintet led by the great American bassist and composer Eddie Gomez. The show in question took place at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho as part of the 2019 EFG London Jazz Festival. It was an excellent all round performance that constituted part of a wider European tour and D’Aiello’s contribution was particularly impressive. With this memory in mind I was therefore looking forward to seeing him leading his own group in Kidderminster. Meanwhile my review of the Eddie Gomez performance can be found as part of my Festival coverage here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/features/article/efg-london-jazz-festival-2019-day-ten-sunday-24th-november-2019

When researching D’Aiello online I found precious little information other than that he has released five albums as a leader and made numerous sideman appearances on disc.  Born in 1959 he studied the saxophone with Sal Nistico, Joe Henderson, Steve Grossman and Tony Scott and has played major jazz venues and festivals in the UK as well as working on the Paris jazz scene. For many years he ran the successful Monday night Late Jazz Sessions at Upstairs at Ronnie Scott’s.

The trio that D’Aiello brought to Kidderminster featured the estimable Ross Stanley on piano, a musician who has appeared on multiple occasions on the Jazzmann web pages, playing both piano and organ in a broad variety of musical contexts.

Completing the group was bassist Lorenzo Morabito, a long time associate of D’Aiello’s but a new name to me.  Morabito has also played with vibraphonist Nat Steele, pianist Hugo Jennings, guitarists Andrea Rinciari, Harry Diplock and Harrison Dolphin,  vocalist Jo Harrop, multi-instrumentalist Artie Zaitz, saxophonists Giacomo Smith,  Mark Crooks and Alex Garnett and with the gypsy jazz outfits the London Django Collective and The Already in Berlin Band.

Until this evening I wasn’t aware that D’Aiello is also a vocalist. Several of the items in tonight’s standards based programme featured his singing in addition to his saxophone playing.

Nevertheless the trio commenced with an instrumental, a piece that D’Aiello described as “a nice little warm up tune”. This proved to be the Hank Mobley composition “Greasin’ Easy”, a blues that appears on Mobley’s 1962 Blue Note album “Workout”. This saw D’Aiello soloing on tenor above Morabito’s walking bass line with Stanley acting as the saxophonist’s melodic foil and subsequently taking the second solo. Stanley then played a rhythmic role as he underpinned Morabito’s double bass solo.

Several of tonight’s pieces were performed in a similar format with tenor, piano and bass soloing in that order. The standard “If I Should Lose You” was introduced by a dialogue between tenor sax and piano, with Stanley responding to D’Aiello’s melodic lines. The leader’s statement of the main theme saw Morabito’s bass added, with jazz solos following from tenor sax, piano and double bass.

D’Aiello’s love of Brazilian music was first expressed by a version of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Corcovado” that also featured vocals for the first time. D’Aiello delivered the lyrics in Portuguese, accompanied by piano and bass. Stanley took the first instrumental solo on piano, followed by the leader on tenor sax and Morabito on double bass. D’Aiello then returned to sing again before the close.

Unaccompanied tenor saxophone introduced a fast moving instrumental arrangement of “I Remember You”, which was powered by Morabito’s rapid bass walk. D’Aiello’s opening theme statement was followed by a more expansive tenor solo, with Stanley and Morabito also making statements of their own.

A change of pace with ballad “Portrait of Jenny”, again ushered in by an unaccompanied tenor sax intro. Again D’Aiello’s theme statement was followed by a tenor sax solo with Stanley and Morabito once more following suit. D’ D’Aiello’s playing was particularly expressive on this piece, which concluded with an unaccompanied tenor sax cadenza.

The trio wrapped up the first set with an uptempo improvisation around the theme of George Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm”, again introduced by unaccompanied tenor sax, but with the solo order altered with Stanley going first, followed by D’Aiello and Morabito.

This well played set of familiar material was well received by the Kidderminster audience as we went into the break.

The second set was to feature more vocal numbers, beginning with D’Aiello singing the still rarely heard lyrics of “Body and Soul”, a song mostly performed as an instrumental. Solos then followed from piano, tenor sax and double bass before the return of the leader’s vocals.

“The More I See You” was also presented as a vocal item, but this time introduced by an extended passage of unaccompanied double bass from the impressive Morabito. D D’Aiello’s singing of the verses was followed by instrumental solos from piano, tenor sax and double bass.

The second Jobim song of the evening, “Caminhos Cruzados”, again featured D’Aiello singing in Portuguese with instrumental solos again following,  the order being piano, tenor sax, double bass, which seemed to be the general pattern for the vocal numbers.

The other composer to be featured twice in this evening’s set list was Mobley with an instrumental version of one of his most famous compositions, “This I Dig Of You” from the celebrated 1960 Blue Note release “Soul Station”. This featured expansive solos from both D’Aiello and Stanley plus an engaging series of tenor sax / piano exchanges between the pair. D’Aiello’s Italian heritage was acknowledged with a brief quote from “O Sole Mio” during the coda, a nice tongue in cheek touch that was warmly appreciated by the audience. When announcing the tune D’Aiello had informed us that Mobley was his favourite melodic saxophonist.  He’s obviously exerted a considerable influence upon the Italian.

The trio encored with a Chet Baker inspired arrangement of the ballad “I Fall In Love Too Easily”, with D’Aiello’s fragile vocals capturing something of Baker’s own bruised innocence. With the leader concentrating on singing the song was carried by Stanley and Morabito, with both also contributing instrumental solos.

This was a trio with a difference that had delivered an interesting and varied standards based programme. I have to admit that I sometimes missed the presence of a drummer, but this was compensated for by the fact that in this chamber jazz setting we got to hear a lot from Ross Stanley, one of the UK’s finest jazz musicians and a thoroughly nice guy into the bargain. Stanley is arguably best known as a Hammond organ player so it was very pleasing to be reminded of his immense talents as an acoustic pianist. Ross expressed his approval of “Delphina”, Kidderminster Jazz Club’s resident upright acoustic piano manufactured by the Hailun company.

Morabito also impressed with his immaculate time keeping and articulate soloing. He was a new discovery for me but is surely a musician that the UK jazz scene is going to hear a lot more of.

D’Aiello hosted the show in genial fashion and soloed fluently on tenor sax as well as adding his Chet Baker inspired vocals. His singing gave expression to his obvious love of his chosen material and although not technically a great singer his fragile vocals worked in a ‘Baker-ish’ kind of way. I have to confess that by and large I preferred the instrumental items, although his vocal rendition of “I Fall In Love Too Easily” was particularly effective.

My thanks to Renato and Ross for speaking with me during the interval and after the show and congratulations to Annette Gregory and Kidderminster Jazz Club as they celebrate their fifth anniversary.

 

 

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