Tiny Toys Alberto Forino

• 1 Orko 08:28
• 2 Miss the "rioso" Train 05:23
• 3 Mimo 05:12
• 4 Beautiful Are Those Who Fall 04:50
• 5 Nests 04:49
• 6 Entropy 04:34
• 7 A Blues Is a Blues Is a Blues 04:22
• 8 Dazing Dream 03:11
• 9 Beautiful Are Those Who Breathe 03:59
• Total Runtime 44:48

Info for Tiny Toys

"Tiny Toys" is an album in which syntactic and structural research dominates the sound material, seeking new forms of interaction in the piano trio and a new hierarchy of relationships between the minimal elements of melodic and improvisational construction. A different way of understanding freedom within new parameters of sound organisation and musical cells. In this lies its relationship with play, symbolically represented by the small three-dimensional wooden toys photographed on the cover. A symbolism of play, with and of the 12 notes of the musical scale. The tracks on the disc are in fact constructed to play on sequences and combinations of these twelve sounds. The shape and material of the toys is deliberately without a specific temporal or spatial connotation. The fact that they are three-dimensional also allows them to be observed and seen from many different angles, like an abstract sculpture. Like the latter, everyone can read their own interpretation into it, imagine its meaning.

The opening act of the album is “Orco”, which includes the partly cascading sequences performed by the pianist. In the background the bass player acts as second voice. If one compares what one hears with running water, which catches itself in rock basins, which are caught in narrow rock breakthroughs and flows rushing along, one has already found a suitable image for the music. In addition to the more dynamic passages, there are also lyrical-slow musical forms. These are interrupted by fulminant drum turbulences, which are inherent in the dynamics of a whirlwind. As a counterpoint, we experience the bass player in his two-tone syllable steps with a very moderate tempo. What we hear resembles the thick raindrops that drip from leaves after a summer shower and burst on the ground. In the second part of the piece it is up to the pianist to set the hatching of the sound. This has something gestural and is comparable to the happenings in art of the 1970s and 1980s.

Permanently moving in the depths of the bass – this is how bassist Giulio Corini appears in the opening of Miss the “Rioso” Train”. As part of the consolidation of the piece, the pianist and drummer step to the side of the bass player, who continues to act in the background. The pianist, on the other hand, draws a bundle of parallels; at the same time, we perceive “crystalline re-enactments,” seeing concentric circles of sound. In addition, the drummer ignites irrepressible Blechschwirren. Above all, however, it is the syllables of the right half of the piano that are placed in the foreground. Characteristic for “Mimo” are clay rollers, which equate to water flowing down a weir.

In Beautiful are Those who Fall, the bass player also explores the high registers of his woofer, while the pianist puts “drops of sound” here and there. Crystalline sound passages penetrate the listener’s ear. To this end, one or the other may think of an impressionistic view by Max Liebermann, in which points of light fall on the forest floor and light bands touch the trees. Yes, the title “A Blues is a Blues is a Blues” is programmatic, because we experience a Blues, especially thanks to Alberto Forino. Finally, it’s called “Beautiful are Those who Breathe”. (gleam-records.com)

Alberto Forino, piano
Giulio Corini, double-bass
Filippo Sala, drums

Alberto Forino
began studying music at a very young age, earning his diploma in principal piano with Alberto Ranucci at the Brescia Conservatory. He later went on to study jazz and improvisation in depth, first with Roberto Soggetti and later at the Civica Scuola di Jazz in Milan under the guidance of Franco D'Andrea, taking part in improvisation workshops held by Stefano Battaglia and earning his second level diploma in Jazz at the Vicenza Conservatory with Paolo Birro. Over the years, he has taken part in various courses, seminars and masterclasses on improvisation and composition with Pietro Tonolo, Lucas Ligeti, Rossano Emili, Roberto Dani, Kyle Gregory and others.

In the field of improvised music, he collaborates with guitarist Alberto Zanini, proposing a repertoire that blends contemporary jazz, free improvisation and songs. He has collaborated in a duo with Andrea Bolzoni and with the trio 'Ino' with Gabriele Rubino and Gionata Giardina, as well as in numerous occasional collaborations. He has performed several recitals dedicated to improvisation on film themes and music.

With Giulio Corini on double bass and Filippo Sala on drums, he is working on a forthcoming trio work on original music combining jazz, composition and free improvisation.

In recent years, he has particularly dedicated himself to a solo piano improvisation performance later called Egos: a research path in which his musical ideas and experiences converge and where the piano is explored both in the traditional sense and with extended techniques. For these performances he was invited to the Steinway Corner of PianoCity Milano at the Fondazione Pini in the 2016, 2018, 2019 editions. In September 2020, these performances were declined as a series of thirty concerts for a single listener at his private studio. The experiment of ad personam concerts was later also hosted at the Steinway showroom of Passadori pianos in Brescia.

In the jazz field, he is a member of numerous formations with different ensembles. He was a founding member of the Late Train Trio, which proposed a contemporary reinterpretation of songs from the 1920s and 1930s, with a focus on composers such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller.

He was a member of the Name Urge Quartet, a formation led by saxophonist and composer Giuseppe Santangelo, which proposed a repertoire entirely dedicated to original compositions. He has realised with several collaborators monographic concerts dedicated to the music of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Thelonious Monk and Wayne Shorter.

With Augusta Trebeschi and Paolo Cavagnini, he forms a trio that offers a repertoire of jazz and pop evergreens arranged in an acoustic key. In the field of pop and singer-songwriter music, he has collaborated in various formations: as a duo, with guitarist Paolo Cavagnini, he devotes himself to the reinterpretation of Italian singer-songwriter songs. He has been part of groups dedicated to the songs of Fabrizio De André and Francesco Guccini.

Since 2006, he has collaborated with Barbara Mino as a pianist in cultural promotion projects and invitations to reading, with improvisations, specially composed music and re-elaborations of soundtracks.

Also very active in musical theatre, since 2008 he has been collaborating with actor Antonello Cassinotti in the show "Pinocchio REadyMADE", a reinterpretation of Collodi's famous text in a radio key, combined with music entirely improvised on solo piano. In 2015, he began his collaboration with Giuseppe Goisis, creating the music for "Heroes", a tale made of text and music. Again with Giuseppe Goisis, he created the music for 'QSiN', a theatrical adaptation of a text by Tommy Wieringa.

In 2020, he wrote and performed the music for the adaptation of 'Oscar e la dama in rosa' for the Teatrale Forest company, directed by Andrea Frati. He has also written, edited and performed music for several other theatre productions, including 'Oh, what a beautiful war! ..." by Costanzo Gatta and "Le avventure dell'ingegnoso ed errante cavaliere Don Quixote della Mancia" by Angelo Facchetti for the Centro Teatrale Bresciano, "Alla ricerca di Ulisse" by Angelo Facchetti - a joint CTB and Teatro Telaio production; "Abbracci" and "Nido" by Angelo Facchetti for Teatro Telaio; "Attorno al concetto di colore" for SlowMachine with Elena Strada and the supervision of Rajeev Badhan; "Rivista... e corretta! " by Luciano Bertoli; "La guerra di Mario" by Stefano Corsini.

For several years, he has flanked his concert activity with an intense teaching activity.

This album contains no booklet.