| Jazz moderne |
This time I invite you to discover a musician truly unlike any other. To be clear from the outset, this is not an album designed to please everyone. It is radical in conception, unpredictable in its scope, and porous in its stylistic boundaries, drawing freely from jazz, pop, rock, and beyond. The bassist at the center of it all, Vincenzo Virgillito, is an artist nourished by a multitude of cultural influences, equally comfortable navigating the counterpoint of classical music as he is weaving through modern improvisational languages.
What makes this record stand apart is not simply its eclecticism, but its unmistakably personal universe. It is an album that insists on its own identity. Though resolutely contemporary, it avoids the trap of randomness that sometimes plagues projects leaning too heavily on improvisation. Here, every sound feels carefully considered, every phrase part of a larger design. The music finds a remarkable balance between thought and instinct, structure and freedom. A telling example comes at the very heart of the recording: a haunting rendition of “Danny Boy,” played entirely on the bass, conceived as a subtle homage to Bill Evans. Virgillito’s version is moving and lyrical, a moment of deep clarity before the album shifts into its second half, a sequence of five pieces titled “Reset,” each a sonic voyage suggesting otherworldly landscapes and forcing the listener’s imagination to focus on the essential.
What Virgillito proposes here is, in essence, an invitation to accompany him on his own journey of sonic exploration. The record unfolds like a succession of images, each one vivid, painterly, resonant. At times we find ourselves in a poetic, almost dreamlike environment; at others, in spaces urban, semi-industrial, alive with a different energy. He is an artist without filters, without concessions, and the result is a body of work that feels both uncompromising and masterfully executed.
Searching memory, it is difficult to find a close parallel for Virgillito. He is, in the truest sense, an intellectual of music, someone who seems to think deeply as he composes, for whom arrangements arrive with a natural inevitability, merging seamlessly with the larger arc of each piece. His musical DNA is complex: a constellation of influences spanning Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Radiohead, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Weather Report, Brian Eno, David Sylvian, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Caetano Veloso, Jaco Pastorius, and surely others could be added.
Italian by birth and training, Virgillito has since relocated to London, a city that connects him more directly to many of the currents that inform his artistry. In fact, in certain moments this album calls to mind More, Pink Floyd’s 1969 release, imbued with that same aura of exploratory spirit, though Virgillito’s work is different in many essential ways. Elsewhere, in the phrasing of certain passages, one might even catch an echo of Philip Glass.
Ultimately, what we encounter here is an artist in the act of continual invention and reinvention, one who shapes sound with a sculptor’s sense of form and texture. Vincenzo Virgillito is not merely a bassist, but a singular voice whose work demands attention, and rewards it with the discovery of something genuinely new.
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, August 31st 2025
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Musician: Vincenzo Virgillito
Track Listing :
Through Windows
Word Drops
Stars in the Mirror
Goodbye Pork Hat
Segment
Danny Boy (remembering Bill Evans)
Reset
Reset II
Reset III Of The Time
Reset IV Disc-on-net Space
Reset V Transiens
… and Then Stop and Go