Tommaso Starace is an efficient and fluid saxophonist with a passion for both cinema and black and white film. This album, his second to use photography as a source of inspiration, is a filmic journey through his Italian past, inspired by the evocative black and white photography of Gianni Berengo Gardin, whose movement, sharp lines and unexpected contrasts and are steeped in mid-century Italian atmosphere. Starace does his best to keep up, capturing the Italian theme by emphasising melody and European form, though, as often as not, the musical interpretations are fairly literal. A photograph of a couple dancing on a beach to a wind-up gramophone starts with a sample of a scratchy 78, that of a child driving three adults on a motorbike intersperses be-bop (Starace fluent; trumpeter Paulo Fresu muted and Miles-like) with discordant thumps from the piano and growlly sustained brass. And ‘Interius Tranquillitas’ is indeed tranquil. The music does, however, stand on its own, with pleasant themes, a tight rhythm section and interesting ideas. ‘Olivetti's Touch’ twins fluent soprano with two-beat ragtime piano, ‘Amused Gypsy Girl’ romps along like a Shorty Rogers classic, and guest trumpeter Fresu is a master of atmospherics. Nice listen, check out the photos!