Gato Barbieri - Standards: Lost and Found 1

“We saw a boy who looked small, brown, with glasses, a shy and completely normal air. He pulled out a very old saxophone, tarnished and kept on with pieces of string and scotch...” recalls Santucci. “We looked at ourselves with an interrogative air, and in the meantime he took the saxophone and made a note. We looked again, but this time with exclamation air: it was a perfect note, with an exceptional volume and sound. After that one note the boy remained quiet, absorbed, suspended over the people, listening to the other musicians who had begun to play.
He waited motionless that they let him do his solo – we were already a bit excited by the fact that he had not warmed the instrument, because only those who have a great mastery can play it without doing a few notes and scales first – and when it came its turn ... everything changed: the environment, the musicians, the climate, us. It was in front of us a voice of tenor sax as we had never heard before, an inexhaustible torrent of ideas, an incredible soul ... It made us think of Coltrane, but also something different, difficult to define and identify”.

From the liner notes, Marco Giorgi
These songs are magnificent.
Round midnight!!!
It gives me the creeps!
I feel like Gato had never left us ... here in the depths of every note, phrase and silence, you feel – between his ardent desire and need to express himself with the sax – his authentic bond and respect for Giovanni Tommaso, Franco D’Andrea and Pepito Pignatelli.

Laura Barbieri

Gato Barbieri, sax
Franco D’Andrea, piano
Giovanni Tommaso, bass
Pepito Pignatelli, drums

Recorded in Roma, Spring 1968
Remastered by Rinaldo Donati at Maxine Studio, Milano