| Jazz |
There is something disarmingly familiar about the world suggested by the cover art of this Italian trio’s new album. It recalls the illustrated fantasies of the 1980s, those comic-book universes where interstellar vessels roamed among improbable constellations, where anonymous heroes leapt from one planet to the next, always on the brink of discovering a red, forbidden world posing what Isaac Asimov once called “The Last Question.” The reference is no accident. But before following those fictional vessels into deep space, it is worth pausing to consider the music itself, which, despite its conceptual framing, speaks with a clarity, precision and emotional intelligence that feel grounded not in the fantastical, but in something far more human.
The first impression is one of architecture. The compositions are built with the sort of structural awareness more commonly found in classical music than in the improvisatory language of jazz. And yet jazz is undeniably present: in the rhythmic elasticity of the trio, in the pianist’s sudden bursts of imagination that seem to fling open trapdoors in the score, in the instinctive exchanges that animate each piece. What emerges is a sound as vivid as it is deliberate, illuminated further by the presence of trumpeter Giovanni Falzone, whose commanding tone cuts through the trio’s textures like a guiding beacon.
This is what one might call concert jazz, for lack of a more precise term, a music that requires physical space to unfold. One imagines it less in a cramped basement club than on a stage where sound can breathe, where resonance can expand outward rather than collide with walls and bodies. There is value in distance here, in watching the musicians from far enough away to perceive the subtle, almost telepathic glances they exchange before entering a new section. The trio’s internal communication is constant and electric; it gives the music a sense of propulsion that feels less like performance than conversation.
The musicians themselves articulate the project in a strikingly contemporary language: “The Last Question is our second album, a sonic and imaginary journey through some of the most fascinating themes proposed by science fiction, inspired by images, ideas, and concepts drawn from literature, cinema, and contemporary reality. The album takes the form of a concept record exploring the universe, artificial intelligence, human nature, knowledge, time, and transcendence. The title is drawn from Isaac Asimov’s famous short story The Last Question, which grapples with entropy and the ultimate fate of the universe across billions of years.”
Reading their statement, it becomes clear that this is not science fiction as escapism but as a lens, one that reframes anxieties of our own era. We live at a time when artificial intelligence questions not only our future but our agency; when the scale of cosmic time feels uncomfortably close to the ecological fragility of the present; when entropy has become more metaphor than abstraction. And perhaps it is no coincidence that musicians so deeply rooted in the classical heritage of Italy should turn toward speculative fiction, a genre that has always sought to reconcile imagination with existential doubt.
There is a symphonic quality to these pieces that makes one believe they could be orchestrated without losing their essence, yet something crucial would vanish in the process. Much of the trio’s power lies in its spontaneity, in the way ideas flicker between players like signals exchanged across a dark void. The score provides trajectory, but the journey itself is shaped in real time. This is why the music retains such emotional freshness: it is not a monumental edifice but a living organism, flexing and adapting moment to moment.
Italian jazz has long distinguished itself through its lyricism, its willingness to embrace melody, even introspection, with a kind of unapologetic openness. What the Nugara Trio accomplishes here is something more elusive: a fusion of structural discipline with imaginative volatility, a balance between intellect and intuition. The result feels unmistakably Italian, yet unlike anything one might attribute to national tradition. It stands apart, occupying its own aesthetic orbit.
To listen closely is to perceive how none of the musicians is submerged by the written material. The pianist’s touch alternates between crystalline restraint and sudden turbulence; the bassist anchors the music with authority yet resists the temptation to dominate; the drummer shapes time with an almost architectural sense of proportion. Together they support Falzone with an attentiveness that is neither deferential nor cautious but collaborative in the most rigorous sense. One senses an ensemble unwilling to allow the presence of a guest to distort its center of gravity. Instead, everything converges, as Enrico Merlin wrote in Jazzit Magazine: “like the vertices of a triangle meeting at a single point, where multiple musical languages coexist in an expanded vision of the contemporary piano trio.”
And then there is the emotional residue the album leaves behind. Despite the retro sci-fi imagery adorning the cover, the music reveals itself as something far more cerebral, almost austere at times, yet always delivered with an openhearted sincerity. It possesses the clarity of thought one associates with intellectual jazz, but without the distance or coldness the genre can sometimes cultivate. Instead, the trio offers something bright, precise, and curiously tender, as if the musicians were laying bare their own artistic vulnerability.
Listening to this album late in the afternoon, sun drifting toward the horizon, light catching in the branches, I found myself thinking of an eagle gliding across a sky slowly cooling into dusk: effortless, assured, but never aloof. The Nugara Trio achieves something similar. Their music soars, but it remains unmistakably grounded in the human experience: its uncertainties, its hopes, its quiet astonishments.
In the end, The Last Question feels less like a speculative journey into cosmic entropy than a reminder that imagination and intellect are not opposing forces. They coexist, shaping one another, giving form to questions we may never fully answer. And perhaps that is precisely where this trio’s singular beauty lies.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, December 1st 2025
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Musicians :
Francesco Negri (piano)
Viden Spassov (double bass)
Francesco Parsi (drums)
Guest: Giovanni Falzone (trumpet)
Track Listing:
Echoes Before The Dawn
Three Laws
String Theory
Flame Of Discovery
Here We Are
Nebula
Eyes Do More Than See
The Time Traveller
Let There Be Light….
Recording Data:
Recorded on July 1st & 2nd, 2025, mixed & mastered on August 7th & 8th 2025
Artesuono Recording Studio – Cavalicco (UD) Italy
Sound Engineer: Stefano Amerio
Artwork & Graphics: Studio Clessidra
Produced by GleAM Records
EAN 8059018220452
Catalogue Number: AM7044
Printed in Italy 2025
With the contribution of Nuovo IMAIE – Nuove Produzioni Discografiche 2024 – 20