Festival Review: Patch of Fertile Ground 2003

By I Jul. 10, 2003

By Mitchell Feldman

The 6th edition of Patch of Fertile Ground took place at the Philharmonic Gardens in Rome from June 9-12. As in the past, the Franco-Italian festival showcased a first rate assortment of veteran and emerging jazz and new music artists from both nations. The event, co-directed by the Italian cellist, bassist and composer Paolo Damiani and Armand Meignan, director of the Europa Jazz Festival in Le Mans, France, put together a program that compared and contrasted the different approaches to improvised music that have developed in each culture. Two of the event’s more memorable concerts—the duo of virtuoso clarinetists Sylvain Kassap and Gianluigi Trovesi and a quartet co-led by drummer Daniel Humair and trumpeter Enrico Rava—paired musicians from each country. Damiani used the occasion to premiere his new sextet, the Paolo Damiani Orchestra, a tongue-in-cheek reference to his having led France’s Orchestre National de Jazz (ONJ) from 2000-‘02. This and an intense performance by the Louis Sclavis Quartet of his Napoli’s Walls project, an impressionistic suite inspired by painter Ernest Pignon-Ernest murals adorning the walls of Naples were among the other highlights.

Italy has no shortage of free players yet the contemporary creative music being performed there tends to be more melodic than the more cerebral sounds played by the current generation of French artists. Thus it was fascinating to see how the French multi-instrumentalist Médéric Collignon, a rising star at home who is notorious for being something of a musical anarchist, adapted to the folk-influenced set by the Italian trio Terre di Mezzo with whom he appeared as a guest. The collaboration featured some of the most soulful and lyrical playing heard from Collignon since he burst on the scene in Damiani’s edition of the ONJ. Two solo sets also provided vast contrasts in style with the talented French cellist Vincent Courtois tested the harmonic and textural extremes of his instrument while the Italian tenor saxophonist Daniele Scannapieco paid tribute to Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and other masters of his horn in a bluesy and soulful 20-minute outing.

Two big bands paid tribute to the writing and arranging skills of two Italian jazz artists whose careers ended prematurely with their untimely deaths. On the opening night of the festival the Santa Cecilia Jazz Orchestra, led brilliantly by the gifted saxophonist Mauro Verrone, performed a suite dedicated to Massimo Urbani on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of his death. The band’s members, all enrolled at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory where Damiani directs the jazz program, delivered a set of tight ensemble playing and inspired solos. The next evening the Maurizio Rolli Big Band, with Trovesi as guest soloist, explored the impressionistic landscapes of the late Alfredo Impullitti with tender reverence.

For the past five years the Italia Django d’Or Awards have been administered by Patch of Fertile Ground and this year a ceremony was held within the marble walls of the Hercules Salon of the luxurious French Embassy in Rome’s Villa Farnese on June 10th. Those who attended were treated to more than pro forma speeches and chilled champagne. After Enrico Pieranunzi and saxophonist Daniele Scannapieco were recognized as Italy’s established and new artists of 2002, the French violinist Didier Lockwood and his countryman clarinetist Louis Sclavis treated Ambassador Loic Hennekinne and his guests to an impromptu half hour of solo and duet improvisations touching on their country’s rich folk, classical and jazz traditions. Created in France in 1992 by Django Reinhardt’s son Bebik, the Django d’Or now organization now has foreign affiliates in Belgium and Sweden, in addition to Italy.