Tommaso Perazzo & Marcello Cardillo | "Portrait of a Moment"

Tommaso Perazzo/Marcello Cardillo/Buster Williams Converge Musical Visions to Capture

Portrait of a Moment

Enigmatic Debut Album Memorializes the Recording Session that Transformed Mentor and Students into Collaborators

Available May 30 via Red Records

In the legacy of jazz history, traditionally the elders of the cherished music bequeath it to emerging musicians who use the wisdom of their experience to find their own paths. Today, that passage of vision has become blurred. Many jazz icons have passed away, and the opportunities for younger players to be close to and mentored by the stars has dwindled.

That’s why the inspired new Red Records album, Portrait of a Moment, by a duo of young Italians on piano and drums—Tommaso Perazzo and Marcello Cardillo—buoyed by a master on the bass, NEA honoree Buster Williams, is so welcomed. It is, like the unique title suggests, a snapshot of congenial international, intergenerational jazz that is fresh and spirited. The recording came together as a result of the friendship of the New York-based Perazzo and Cardillo, both in their late twenties, working with the 83-year-old Williams as his students at the Manhattan School of Music in his ensemble workshops.

The album as a whole is a testament to a mentor becoming a collaborator with two talented musicians. Williams was not the leader, but rather the rudder for the adventurous trio. While Perazzo and Cardillo are Italian natives, they didn’t meet each other until 2015 when they attended the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. “We became close friends and got together right away,” says Cardillo, “We played in competitions,” Perazzo adds, “and hung a lot.”

The pair received their undergrad degrees, and they moved to New York in 2020. They kept up their musical friendship and pursued their masters at the Manhattan School of Music. This is when the pair began their comradery with Williams. Perazzo says, “I wanted to work with pianist Marc Cary and Phil Markowitz, and then also chose Buster to gain his unique approach to the music from another rhythm player.”

As a result, the pair enrolled in William’s ensemble course where he fully recognized their talent. “Both of them are great players,” Williams says. “I don’t look at those titles of mentor and collaborator. All I look at is they are great practitioners on their instruments. That’s all I need to know. Plus, we’ve become good friends. I like them.”

Cardillo got the recording project going by working with Steiner Studios in Brooklyn which offered him a day to record an album in 2023. They both agreed to ask Williams if he would be interested in joining them to form a trio. “We had played for him, but never with him,” Cardillo says.

“Of course, I said yes,” says Williams. “I knew it would be good because they’re such great performers. I also knew that Tommaso writes very well.”

The three met for a rehearsal before the recording date and agreed on the songs—three by Perazzo, one by Cardillo, two by Williams and two covers: Wayne Shorter and Mulgrew Miller.

They recorded in one day. “Just like the old days of jazz recordings,” says Perazzo. “We wanted to keep things fresh. Buster adapted into the music right away.”

With a few exceptions, most of the tracks were first takes. “We didn’t repeat songs,” Williams says. “When everybody speaks the same language, you don’t have to say the same thing over and over again. So you usually get it the first time, then maybe a second time if you need to.”

The album launches with the enthusiastic Perazzo tune “Back at the Right Spot!,” with the charged exclamation point signaling its vitality. “The great thing about this song is that I was in the right place at the right time,” he says. “I went to see Buster and his band play at Smoke. After the concert I felt super inspired and wrote this song with the bassline in mind. Whenever you are in doubt about how you’re playing, you need to go to a show to get yourself in the right spot.”

This exciting tune is followed by Perazzo’s “Alba Sul Mare” (translated as “sunrise on the sea”), a song he wrote in Italy during the pandemic in 2021. It’s fueled by his dazzling piano lines. “It was a very natural song to write with the melody and harmonies,” he says. “It starts softly and slowly like when the sun comes up.”

Cardillo contributes an atypical blues with his playful, upbeat “Kind of Blues.” The drummer blasts, the bass grooves with Williams who shouts a ‘yah’ during his splendid walking solo. “The melody has a rhythmic displacement of small melodic cells,” Cardillo says. “We wanted to swing throughout, and we added in a little spice when we changed the meter.”

The two Williams tunes are a study of contrasts that are prevalent throughout the album. Recorded in one take, the trio delivers the gentle bass reflection beauty “Christina,” arguably his most recognized composition that is dedicated to his granddaughter. To change the pace they launch into the potent 2018 “Where Giants Dwell” that swings with gusto in a colorful piano sprint. “It was fun to play,” Perazzo says. “Buster is so underappreciated as a composer. A song like this should be played more. The form is complex and it’s not a standard.”

The band members freely communicate to one another during the cover of Wayne Shorter’s classic “Footprints” that was composed with lots of space for each player to search and create. It was special to the pianist and drummer who got to experience a song that Williams played on with Shorter. “It’s a dream,” says Cardillo.

Mulgrew Miller’s bright “Soul Leo” grooves into a piano adventure for Perazzo. “It’s a fun tune,” he says. “And it’s the perfect contrast to Wayne.” The album ends with the most contemporary piece, Perazzo’s sublime “Ricordi” (translation: memories), played in ¾ time. It has a dreamy melodic motif repeating. “It’s connected to how memories can come back,” he says.

As for the naming of the album title Portrait of a Moment, Cardillo says, “We wanted to convey the vibe of having the opportunity to be in a classroom with Buster as our mentor and how that evolved into him being a collaborator in the studio. It’s unique. It’s a portrait of that day.”

What comes next? Williams says that he had enlisted Perazzo and Cardillo to play in Portugal last year after the recording. “It doesn’t take long to recognize great talent,” he says. “It turned out to be a winning combination.” This will continue as Williams and the two Italians will be touring in Italy this summer as well as performing a show in New York to celebrate the album.

The story of how Portrait of a Moment arrives via Red Records, the renowned Milano, Italy label, is a rarity in today’s record label market. The historic label had been home to such jazz titans as Joe Henderson, Chet Baker, Hank Jones, Cedar Walton and Kenny Baron among many others.

With the album, fully mixed and mastered, in hand, it was pitched to several labels, both in the U.S. and Europe without any success. Then Cardillo sent an email to Marco Pennisi, the owner of Red, which was immediately responded to. “He told us that he typically receives 10 proposals a week and rarely returns phone calls,” says Cardillo.

“But he called us, told us he really liked the record. He believed the project with Buster had a lot of potential and would help to expose us.” “That’s exactly what happened,” affirms Pennisi. “It only took a few bars of the first track to get my full attention. The music was vivid, sunny, elegant, and structured. Buster’s bass was like a rudder charting the course with authority and rigor; Tommaso and Marcello’s work conveyed freshness. The original compositions were somehow so mature that the first question I asked was, “how old were they?”

“For Red Records,” he goes on to say, “this album is a thread linking its storied past to the present: Buster Williams was featured on prominent records that shaped the label’s ‘journey’ — one as a duo with Kenny Barron, another in a quartet with Sphere.”

“Forty years separate those historic records from Portrait of a Moment. And within that vast time, jazz lovers can imagine so many stories, so many meanings, perhaps the most obvious is the wonderful ability of jazz to transcend time, age differences, and cultures as it renews itself. I cannot wait to hear this trio live on tour in Italy this summer.”

Perazzo, Cardillo, Williams – Portrait of A Moment Tour

June TBD – Peperoncino Jazz Festival (NYC)

July 6 – Levanto Music Festival – (Liguria)

July 7 – Pisa Jazz Festival – (Tuscany)

July 8 – Ancona Jazz Summer Festival – (Marche)

July TBD – (Rome)

July 11 – Masseria Torre di Nebbia – (Puglia)

July 12 – “Note di Luna Piena” – Santa Maria di Leuca – (Puglia)

July 13 – Peperoncino Jazz Festival – (Calabria)

About

Marcello Cardillo

Naples-born drummer/composer Marcello Cardillo, at only 28 years-old, has performed alongside some of the world’s most renowned musicians. Currently residing in New York City, where he regularly plays in some of the city’s most historic venues, he has been called “an Italian who bewitched New York,” by Napoli Today. He won many prestigious awards while still in college, including the Downbeat College Award and the Bucharest International Jazz Competition, and earned full scholarships to the Conservatory of Amsterdam, where he received his undergraduate degree, and to Manhattan School of Music where he earned his Master’s Degree. While there, he studied with contemporary masters such as Kendrick Scott, John Riley and Miguel Zenon. A regular face on the bandstand in New York City’s jazz scene, he’s performed at Smalls, Dizzy’s, The Django, Nublu, and Minton’s Playhouse performing with legendary bassist Buster Williams, Steve Wilson, Stacy Dillard, Logan Richardson and Fabrizio Bosso to name a few.

Tommaso Perazzo

Born in Angera, Italy, Perazzo , 28 years-old. started playing piano at five years old, showing a strong predilection for jazz and blues at that young age. After moving to The Netherlands for studies at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in jazz piano, he captured 1st prize in the best soloist category in the 2018 Keep an Eye International Jazz Award. In the same year, he also won the prestigious Massimo Urbani International Jazz Award in Italy. Subsequently, he recorded his debut album leading a trio, entitled What’s Coming Next? (Musicamdo Records). After graduating Cum Laude from the Conservatorium Amsterdam in June 2019, Perazzo moved to New York City to pursue a Master’s Degree in jazz piano at the Manhattan School of Music. While there, he studied with jazz luminaries like Buster Williams, and since then has been sharing the stage with great musicians such as Williams, Alvin Queen, Gregory Hutchinson, Miguel Zenón, Flavio Boltro, and Fabrizio Bosso. He has performed at prestigious venues in Europe and in the USA including the Bimhuis in Amsterdam, Torino Jazz Festival and Umbria Jazz in Italy, Moãna Jazz Festival in Spain, Guimarães Jazz in Portugal, and Dizzy’s Club in New York.

Buster Williams

An enduring American jazz bassist, composer, and educator, Buster Williams, at 83, has flourished through many periods of changing fashions in jazz due to his fat, authoritative, dark tone and his highly refined technique on the acoustic bass. Though he began his recording career in the early 1960s with Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, Sarah Vaughan, Jack Wilson, and the Jazz Crusaders, his earliest celebrity was as a member of Herbie Hancock’s exploratory Mwandishi Sextet from 1969 to 1973. As a leader, he began recording with a trilogy of albums on Muse Records in the mid-70s. Of these, Pinnacle, is widely considered a modern jazz masterpiece. His notable achievements include appearances as a member of Sphere for 1982’s Four in One, and later in the decade as a member of pianist Kenny Barron’s trio. In addition to working in Denny Zeitlin’s and Lenny White’s groups in the early 21st century, Williams released the celebrated Griot Liberte in 2004 with White on drums and Stefon Harris on piano and marimba. After a break from recording, lasting from 2009 to 2017, he focused on both teaching and touring until returning to the recording studio for Cyrus Chestnut’s There’s a Sweet, Sweet Spirit. Williams’ 2023 recording Unalome for Smoke Sessions, in a Downbeat review, received four stars citing his intuitive “balance and way of assembling and finding a center of expression for disparate musical tendencies.”