Emanuele Maniscalco & Thomas Morgan: Copenhagen Season

Copenhagen Season is a series of three improvisations played by Italian pianist/drummer Emanuele Maniscalco and American bass player Thomas Morgan. The two met in Copenhagen in summer 2012 at a release party, when Emanuele had just relocated to Denmark and was about to start a Postgraduate program in Music Performance at the Rhythmic Conservatory. A few months later Thomas was in Copenhagen again and Emanuele decided to invite him for a short session. They met in a rehearsal room and just started improvising. After the first tune, Emanuele thought it would have been good to record the rest of the session, and so he did, by plugging a tiny cardioid stereo microphone into his smartphone, and placing the device on the piano, with Thomas standing with his bass just a few centimeters apart.

The result was an uncompromising blend of truth and mystery, imperfection and life. Fragility is a crucial element in the music: the way it can be explored and used as a force, without indulging into comfort zones, represents the art of interplay in its most unforgiving and fascinating form. Emanuele and Thomas did not need to discuss that point, since they both experience music as a natural and clear connection between body and mind, meaning and singing.

Various excerpts from the original raw recording have been available on Soundcloud for more than a year. Now, after being mastered by John Fomsgaard, the full album is marking Emanuele’s debut on ILK, only in digital format.

Catalogue#: ILK236
Release date: 15-12-2014

Credits:
Recorded in Copenhagen by Emanuele Maniscalco on October 26th, 2014.
Mastered by John Fomsgaard at Karmacrew, Spring 2014.

Press:
"An adventurous musician with a bent toward exploratory modern creative jazz and rock".  - Matt Collar, Allmusic

"With adherence to the jazz tradition more indirect and distanced, Masson, Pianca and Maniscalco represent the next wave, one that references more contemporary sources as merely a starting point for something else entirely". - John Kelman on Third Reel (Maniscalco’s debut on ECM), AllAboutJazz (4 stars)