NEW RELEASE – ENRICO LENOCI

Young LeNoci modernizes that good ol’ jazz guitar style in his own fashion.

Guitar players are an endearingly wacky lot. They are crazy about their iconic wooden toy, which replaced the saxophone as the lead instrument of popular music in the fifties and never looked back. I remember John Scofield telling me that he regarded himself as a guitarist first and foremost. (“My roots are the blues and Cream, I didn’t start off with bebop.”)

Enrico LeNoci, whom fellow Italian jazzers may soon dub “il nostre uomo a Den Haag”, is a guitarist that oozes the jazz feeling from the golden age of mainstream jazz. At the same time though, there is ample evidence of a passion for blues and blues rock. His debut album features veteran drummer Eric Ineke, mentor of generations of Hague students, penultimate sideman that played with Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin and Chet Baker, among countless others. Ace organist Arno Krijger and tenor saxophonist Pietro Mirabasi complete the line-up.

Sprightly hard bop tunes are marked by the juicy sax of Mirabassi and sassy playing by LeNoci. In The House is sweet as honey, a string of melody lines that are as charming as the solos are enchanting. It has LeNoci replacing sassiness for tender and thoughtful romanticizing. Keys is comprised of fluid lines that bite each other’s tails, as if one hears Jimmy Raney working on a tune with Atilla Zoller, discussing various keys. The beautifully paced solo by Krijger steals the show. Here’s a band that fluently shifts through lanes, not least because of chauffeur Eric Ineke, either burning rubber or honking horns to keep everybody on his toes or gently cruising the crew back home.

Sleazily bended notes, tad of Sco’, pinch of Robben Ford even. These are facets of Arjun’s Blues and Night Fears. They won’t earn LeNoci a place in the Blues Hall of Fame but are fine additions of a promising real jazz debut.