After the preview on 30 November with the concert Le tre generazioni, the traditional appointment on the morning of 7 December, the day of Saint Ambrogio, the patron saint of Milan, will open the 18th edition of Jazz al Piccolo - Orchestra Senza Confini, a review centred around Enrico Intra's Civica Jazz Band, a group which brings together both students and teachers from the Civici Corsi di Jazz di Milano (an integral part of the Civica Scuola di Musica C. Abbado).
Tied as always to special projects which bring pure originality to the programme, the jazz season begins with the original version from February 1924 of the celebrated Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin, one of the most loved passages from the entire musical story of the twentieth century.
Performed with an eye for the original formation, it is further opened to the language of jazz by a version which takes on a decisively more modern and 'swinging' rhythmic than the original, without losing sight of the improvised piano elaborations, which were also present in the first performance played by Gershwin himself.
For the occasion, the orchestra will be enlarged with a small group of strings, present in the original score written and arranged for the Paul Whiteman orchestra, from the Civica Scuola di Musica C. Abbado, home of the jazz courses, and by two exceptional soloists: Marco Gotti, clarinet and saxophone player, and composer (leader of the J.W. orchestra), a regular guest of Intra's band, and Michele Di Toro, one of the most complete pianists of the contemporary Italian jazz scene. An excellent performer, a high-profile improviser, an authentic piano virtuoso, Di Toro is a specialist in the playing of the Rhapsody, as well as an accomplished improviser who will take on a number of particular passages by Gershwin, such as the ragtime Rialto Ripples and the second Prelude, opening them to the game of improvised variations.