It is right that it should be a great jazz player like Nunzio Rotondo to have the possibility of releasing a second record in our prestigious series. Thanks to the first – Nunzio Rotondo: Sound and Silence – the praise, and the tangible signs of gratitude (to jazz and its protagonist rather than to us) have been so eloquent and full of enthusiasm as to make us understand that we were on the right track. To publish a record of the Roman trumpet player is in any case an event, an event in itself within the world of jazz and also for the professional life of this extraordinary musician. Indeed, because the torment of true jazz fans is that, maybe, meritoriously, in over fifty years of activity, the work of Rotondo might have deserved a greater coverage in terms of records. If one takes a more careful look, the records of his music that have been released are not that many, not because he was short of offers or proposals, quite the contrary, it was simply because Rotondo, immaculate jazz player and bashful artist that he was, preferred it that way. No doubt, with hindsight, it would have been good to have a wide range of records with his works, above all considering the needs of professionals and fans, that in his case are by no means few. But perhaps it’s better like that. Exceptionality is Nunzio Rotondo’s unique characteristic. The Legend picks up the thread where the preceding album left off. The characteristics, the sound, the feeling, the universe of sonority, we could indeed say that jazz mood, recall the previous work. First and foremost the swing, the true bonding element of the record, which luckily never falls short, and above all that depth, articulated through a precious and sought after soloist texture, always capable of exploiting that wealth of accords and of structure that constitute its essence. The vibrant wealth of the language, the ability of being able to create with but a few essential traits an unmistakable expressiveness. Rotondo is all of this and this time too he does not renounce his poetic world, leaving aside the superfluous and the ornamental so as to concentrate on the triumph of measure, through which the extreme poetic veracity of his music finds expression. The Legend, both in terms of repertoire and of themes, but also for the musicians used, does not differ greatly from the previous record. The pieces belong to a truly extraordinary period, chosen with great care in perfect agreement with and under the supervision of the selfsame artist. As to the musicians, there are old faithfuls among those who had the possibility of working alongside the trumpet player. Fans will no doubt concentrate their attention once again on Franco D’Andrea and Gato Barbieri. As concerns the pianist from Merano – whom it is right to consider one of Rotondo’s discoveries– one can but add that the swing, the rigour of the phraseology, that highly personal way of launching the leader are already in effect here. Among other things D’Andrea for the first time plays the electric piano, which was to become his instrument of reference many years later, as part of the Perigeo, the famed electro-acoustic jazz group of the seventies. Of Barbieri – whom Nunzio, with a touch of affectation, has always called Leandro (his real name) and never Gato – we can once again underline his Latin impetus and, albeit under the influence of John Coltrane, his efforts at trying to create a language of his own, a nonconformist modus operandi, which he was later to find and that is here already evident. The repertoire, equally divided between American themes and pieces written by the trumpet player, contains some surprises. Even though he has often been described as a difficult musician, impenetrable, tied to precise affinities, in truth Rotondo has always had respect for the ‘beautiful’, the genius of others, the melody to which to add a calibrated solo, without disrupting it. A consideration that fits Flamingo perfectly, this so well known piece, which we owe to Ted Grouya, the piano professor at Bucharest Conservatory, and Ed Anderson. The piece was released in 1951 and the year after it had already become a hit in the instrumental version by Earl Bostic, the first jazz sax player to have addressed a broader public. Yet Rotondo never heard the original version by the sax player from Tulsa but the one by Stanley Turrentine, the prodigious tenor who was decidedly undervalued. Flamingo has over the years gone round the world, above all thanks to great international singers, among them Mina, and the way the piece was so singable does indeed seem to be Rotondo’s element of departure. With I’ve Told Every Little Star we enter the world of the musical - in this case Music in the Air of 1932 – immortal theme by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, which has always been a hunting ground for improvisation for so many jazz players. Moonlight in Vermont, that goes back to 1944 and was written by Karl Suessdorf with words by John Blackburn, was first made a hit by Margaret Whiting with Billy Butterfield’s orchestra, but within just a few seasons it was to be elected to the role of standard thanks to the innumerable versions by famous jazz players. Looking at the pieces composed by the leader himself, listening to them one after the other, one can detect that rigour that took the Roman trumpet player first into to the group of the avantgardists, the boppers and later at the head of that evolved movement of which he was the irreplaceable fulcrum. He as usual started out from blues. But surprises are not missing. In Suono verde (Green Sound), for example, Rotondo, detaches himself from the scheme of twelve beats but not from blues, indeed expounding a theme in full blues language. Surprising. But The Legend presents an opening piece that is pure history of radio, as well as of jazz. It is Stelle filanti(Shooting Stars), for years the theme-song for the radio programme Appuntamento con Nunzio Rotondo, the famous Radio Rai jazz programme, in which Rotondo sent on air pieces of his own and by others – sometimes playing live – dispensing critical and musical commentary of considerable value. The piece was composed for participation in the 1952 Paris Jazz Festival, a memorable success, and subsequently adapted for radio in the vocal version by Wanda Romanelli. But before becoming that theme piece that fans will never forget it had to overcome a by no means secondary formality. The piece had been recorded with its original title, Cool Bass, that Rotondo, without malice, had chosen, in reference also to the jazz style most spoken about in those years. In Rai they were scandalised, they felt the title to be embarrassing and in the end it became Stelle filanti, the hasty invention of the critic Roberto Capasso, at the time the President of Rome’s Hot Club. The trumpet player’s intuition had been that of writing those famous vocals for Wanda Romanelli, a singer that had already gained fame with Francesco Ferrari’s jazz orchestra and Armando Fragna’s melodic one. But the heads of Rai did not always censure, at times they suggested with competence. The maestro Giulio Razzi, the famous director of the Radio but first and foremost a cultivated musician, did so. He “challenged” Rotondo in the field of melodic music, proposing that he should play, albeit in his own way, Bambina dall’abito blu (Girl in a Blue Dress), a piece by Gino Redi and Nisa. Rotondo accepted, for the first and last time launching himself into territory that was not his own. The result you have hear: a mix of melody and jazz sensibility. Rotondo is perhaps not such an easy musician, but every time he has felt the need to express himself he has always done so at a very high level. Leaving his mark. He has recently set up his own blog – www.myspace.com/nunziorotondo. It took only a few days for it to be swamped by the compliments and felicitations of hundreds of artists, from Quincy Jones to Sting, from Herbie Hancock to Toots Thielemans. Salutations that all begin in the same way and in which we join: “Thank you, Nunzio!”.