It’s a long way from the Adriatic splendour of Bari in Southern Italy to the smooth jazz intensity that is Los Angeles but this is a journey that Italian sax virtuoso Rocco Ventrella has made to record and release his latest album ‘Give Me The Groove’. It follows the ‘Tribute To Grover Washington, Jr.’ CD that he recorded, arranged and produced in memory of one of his all time musical heroes and two of the tracks from this five track sampler have made it across to ‘Give Me The Groove’. In fact the album owes much to the LA based producer and arranger Bruce Nazarian who plays keyboards throughout and co-writes three of the tunes with Ventrella. This mixture of well selected covers, Grover Washington tributes and four new compositions all combine to produce an end product that is totally pleasing.
Unusual choices such as his take on the Dizzy Gillespie standard ‘A Night In Tunisia’ and a stunning rendition of an Italian favourite ‘Alleria’ set the tone and set the standard. Its an album on which Rocco’s playing often sounds more than a little like that of Grover and this is particularly so with his faithful interpretation of the Record and Saunders classic ‘Soulful Strut’. Taken from Washington Jr’s 1996 album of the same name Ventrella captures the vibe perfectly and does so again both for ‘Winelight’ (which, courtesy of Gerald Albright, recently found a place on the ‘To Grover With Love’ compilation CD) and the chillingly beautiful ‘Come Morning’. Rocco ratchets up the enduringly smooth mood of the album with nice versions of two songs made famous by Roberta Flack, ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love’ and ‘Where Is The Love’, but is always at his very best when presenting his own music.
The unashamedly romantic ‘I Receive Your Love’ sits comfortably with the haunting melodic brilliance of ‘On The Night’ and when Ventrella turns up the tempo for the title track he creates a contender for best track on the album. Making good use of backing vocals that simply yet effectively call back the words of the title this is an extremely well constructed piece of hip contemporary jazz. That said a personal favourite is ‘Sensuality’. With a chilled out groove that oozes sex and playing from Rocco that’s right in the pocket this one really gets the job done.
In ‘Give Me The Groove’ Rocco Ventrella has created a superb example of smooth jazz music that is the perfect antidote to a stressful day. To buy it and to find out more about Rocco go to www.roccoventrella.com