Italian jazz pianist and composer Gaslini has been around for a lot longer than his comparative obscurity outside Italy suggests - and his career has included taking jazz out into factories and hospitals in an attempt to extend the audience, writing operas, and membership of one of Europe's most fascinating cross-genre big-bands, the Italian Instabile Orchestra. Gaslini plays this set of Sun Ra compositions unaccompanied, the latest in his series of improv piano explorations of composers that has also included Thelonious Monk, Jelly Roll Morton, Albert Ayler and Schumann. The music is by turns wistful, tempestuous and bluesy - the flow of ideas constantly surprising. Monk-like dissonances turn into devious or thunderous blues-playing; playful figures noodling over softly rocking riffs give way to hymnal pieces that sound like a more ironic Abdullah Ibrahim; jumpy, boogieing blues are succeeded by fastidiously precise, trill-packed classical etudes. And Sun Ra's chemistry of the traditional and the new breathes through a highly personal interpretation. - John Fordham
Tracks
01. Out In Space 3:34
02. Images 5:04
03. A Quiet Place In The Universe 5:52
04. Medicine For A Nightmare 3:53
05. Yucatan 4:27
06. Kingdom Of Not 4:41
07. Lanquidity 5:36
08. Satellites Are Scanning 4:01
09. Saturn 5:01
10. When Angels Speak Of Love 3:02
11. Fate In A Pleasant Mood 4:49
12. The Perfect Man 3:31
13. Tapestry From An Asteroid 4:07
14. Discipline 27 3:50
15. The Satellites Are Spinning 4:25
16. Interstellar Low Ways 2:37
GIORGIO GASLINI piano
All music composed by Sun Ra
Recorded September 1 & 2, 2003 at Next Studio, Milano
Soul Note - 121490-2