Enzo Zirilli’s Anglo-Italians, The Vortex - music review

A sparkling quartet drawn from top British and Italian talent led by two guitarists, Glaswegian genius Jim Mullen and Luca Boscagin, a young gentleman from Verona
Jim Mullen
David Redfern/Redferns via Getty Images
5 September 2013

Radio Londra, to give this band and their debut album its proper title, is a sparkling quartet drawn from top British and Italian talent. Drummer-producer Enzo Zirilli grooves stylishly alongside Ross Stanley, a versatile organist who creates propulsive patterns and can take a scorching solo. And up front, outstanding and upstanding, are Glaswegian genius Jim Mullen and Luca Boscagin, a young gentleman from Verona.

It’s a tale of two guitarists, different in style but similar in eloquence. Their opening number, Tenderly, is normally a ballad but was taken medium-fast with half-choruses rotating between keys a minor-third apart, a neat device favoured by the late great Bill Evans. Mullen, who never uses a pick, was soon cooking at full temperature, his thumb-driven ideas full of humour and soulful logic.

A gifted “quoter”, he occasionally injects snatches of familiar song titles into his line. This irritates some listeners but properly done, it adds wit and vitality to the performance. Last night he flipped My Favourite Things, Take the ‘A’ Train and Eleanor Rigby from his data-bank, and why not? Dexter Gordon did it, Sonny Stitt did it, and Charlie Parker did it better than anybody.

Stardust, by Hoagy Carmichael — “a fine old Scottish name”, as Mullen observed — was beautifully voiced in chords by Boscagin before the group’s blazing set-closer, the old Stones hit Satisfaction, rearranged at a tempo that would rock the composers’ socks off. Tune into Radio Londra. It’s a hard-swinging unit that can hold its own in any company.

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