' The key to this CD with its blend of traditional flavour and modern taste is in the melody. In From a Distant Past the soprano narrates tales of sonorous landscapes, while the piano leaps from peak to peak through the history of jazz, reaching the high points of an evolution that is transformed into art. Thanks to Tommaso Starace’s mixed Italian and Anglo-Saxon background, his inspiration is both melodic and elemental. His music is without frills and goes straight to the heart. It describes the soul of things, the very essence of the past rather than the contours. His tender yet muscular sensitivity feeds on subtle signals, it captures the fine detail of history formed of apparently insignificant episodes, of adjectives rather than nouns, of objects and people in a half-light that obscures their better parts yet allows the imagination to reveal the spirit of their forms. The secret of this CD lies in the musical and cultural affinity between Tommaso Starace and Michele Di Toro. Each is an extension of the other; within each of their concepts of jazz they inspire one another in the search for the common thread that binds them - a thread of diverse sentiments combining Afro-American poetic elements and Mediterranean melodic and lyrical qualities. The sax and the piano compete with brush-strokes; those of the keyboard are thick, while those of the wind instrument are fine and contained. As in a painting, it is the contrasts that create the forms, that invent the dynamics, move the soul’s impulses and give life to the profound and vital sensitivity of 'From a Distant Past'.
By Flavio Caprera ( liner notes contained in the CD )
For an introduction to the album view the video below: