Luciano Biondini is one of the few outstanding masters of the accordion in Europe, a musician who is at home with jazz music as well as being deeply rooted in the music of his homeland: the mediterranean. After two CDs with Swiss drummer Lucas Niggli and French tuba player Michel Godard, Biondini has recorded a solo album for the Intakt label, dedicated entirely to the music of the area he grew up in: the city of Spoleto, in Umbria, Northern Italy. His plays some of the great Italian “canzoni” from the 60s, 70s and 80s, which are well know by everyone in Italy. These chart-toppers were sung by Gino Paoli, Domenico Modugno, Ernesto de Curtis and Pino Daniele, the icons of the “Cantautori” scene of that era. One tune is from Ennio Morricone - the melancholic title song for Giuseppe Tornatore’s movie "Cinema Paradiso".

Biondini plays it with passion and emotional power. Jazz critic Christian Rentsch says: “How Luciano Biondini manages it, how he doesn’t give the sentimental melody away right from the start but creeps up on the theme, so to speak, continuously bending it in the course of the piece, playing around it, making it disappear and magically reappear, this shows the mastery.”

Cover art and graphic design: Jonas Schoder
Liner notes: Christian Rentsch
Photos: Michelle Ettlin
Recorded December 1, 2, 2014 at Alte Kirche Boswil, Switzerland, by Willy Strehler. Mixed and mastered by Willy Strehler.