Thanks to Jan van Leersum and Rootstime.be for reviewing the latest quartet CD “Dynamics in Meditation”. The review in in Dutch however I’ve added a excerpt here below in English. If you want to read the full review in Dutch please click here.
The idea to form this quartet came about in 2019 and came from the Italian bassist Gianmarco Scaglia and the American drummer Paul Wertigo (1953) whose collaboration started about 10 years ago. Scaglia wanted to take a different direction and to that end he added 2 harmonic instruments, Simone Gubbiotti’s guitar and Mirko Pedrotti’s vibraphone, both Italians. Scaglia has been active in jazz for 40 years and that with a great flexibility in terms of styles, Wertigo is best known for his long stay in the Pat Metheny Group, but he was also part of the Polish progrock group SBB and played with many greats from the free jazz, Gubbiotti is best known from mainstream jazz and Pedrotti has a classical background. So four different perspectives and that also has its consequences, as I will explain below.
It is obvious that the two namesakes of the quartet are the driving forces, more than usual bass and percussion play a leading role here. This can mainly be heard in the uptempo opening track “Black Two” with a staccato bass rhythm and a fully responsive drum part by Wertico, actually a continuous drum solo….