Stefano Tampelleni and Paolo Tognola - Miniature

 Released: June 6 

A collaboration between two long standing musical partners, Miniature is pretty much a mixed bag in terms of the music you get here. It opens up with a zany little freeform piece called “Afternoon” in which it feels like the saxophone and the piano are just trying to madly dance around each other as they zip through notes and super fast melodies. I don’t know what to say about it except that it is an incredibly fun piece that doesn’t really stop with the playfulness until the very end. So I thought the whole album might be a bit like this, but no. The very next track, “Oru,” slows things way down as the saxophone rings out with long and sustained notes at first and the piano follows along. It feels much more of a smooth jazz affair at first but there comes in that wild playfulness about a minute in, though it definitely doesn’t quite have the same energy as the opener, it gets a bit wild. 

It’s an interesting listen as a full album, if for no other reason than it has this rather unrestrained energy to it. The pieces can go from that calm and reserved smoothness to suddenly taken off with a dizzying energy. Or they start out with that dizzying energy and never really let up until they end. But you can definitely hear the familiarity these two player have with one another. It makes for this feeling that one is always kind of chasing the other in the more energetic moments and the leader and follower seem to switch places almost without notice. I enjoy this energy and I also quite liked the way the slower and more reserved moments contrast with this. Especially since the slower moments have this feeling of greater synchronization, rather than one trying to lead the other. That and I’m always a sucker for a jazzy saxophone.