Bergonzi inherited his approach to playing the saxophone with a pianist’s mindset directly from the NEC, where he worked alongside Jaki Byard for many years. Byard’s idea that the blues and gospel were the logical foundation for improvising over open structures is strongly evident in ‘Jerry on Red’ through Pannonica’s reinterpretations of Monk’s works, but above all in ‘You’re My Everything’, which begins as a ballad in the style of the Miles Davis Quintet and ends with a breathtaking double-time section, or in ‘Dodo’s Waltz’, whose interpretation can be summed up as the ‘art of the well-tempered arpeggio’ with blues-tinged acciaccature and Bird-style triplet phrases
The interplay of this outstanding quartet on this album lies precisely in their shared vision of what jazz should be, balancing its origins with new approaches.
It is in their otherworldly thirst for interplay that the brilliance of these tracks lies: when one races ahead, the other gives chase, ultimately transforming the jazz of ‘Jerry on Red’ into a delightful game of references, evasions and allusions. What else?

Paolo Romano