Have you ever been nostalgic over something you never experienced? Then Anemoia by Italian musicians Andrea Zacchia, a guitar player, may be your cup of tea. This is not a mere piece of music – this is the landscape of emotions with sound colors. Based on a very lively Hammond trio and featuring Pietro Caroleo on organ and Maurizio De Angelis on drums, Anemoia brings together modal jazz, post-bop grooves and soulful improvisation to make something classic but utterly personal.
In guitar playing Zacchia has a powerful expressive energy that swings between smooth lyrical phrases and aggressive phrases that capture the ear. You hear the heart in every note, whether it is a fragile reminiscence or a lapse of full-blooded fervour. The album has a gentle start and gradually grows in complexity yet it continues warm and flowing. It can remind rosy sunset when you remembered an especially real dream, but somehow surreal, too.
Some of the tracks such as Reveries, Full House and Longato are enhanced by a combination of the two elements; melody and emotion. The particular association of the tune tradition that goes back to the early playing days of Zacchia in Gaeta lets Longato, in particular, add elements of rock energy into a jazz context in a manner that is very true-to-life and organic.
This album is appropriately named Anemoia, which is an invented word that refers to nostalgia of something that never happened. The music is so familiar and at the same time absolutely new. Even songs such as Sonny Rollins Oleo or Wes Montgomery FullCouse do not seem retrospective ones- this is contemporaries in dialogue with the past.
Anemoia is a soulful jazz album with wishes and visions with a wide extent of storytelling. Even if you aren t a jazz lover and simply a person who likes to hear music that gives you emotions, this album deserves your time listening to it.
