For a bass player to play with maestro Pieranunzi means recognition as a top professional. The bass is Pieranunzi’s favourite instrument, and the bar is set high for any member of the basso profoundo fraternity who aspires to perform with him. Since moving from Italy to Denmark, the land of the late Niels Henning-Ørsted Pedersen, he has found no shortage of top notch players.

Perhaps that’s why he moved there. He quickly reached a meeting of minds with Thomas Fonnesbæk, whom he described as the very best in the NHØP tradition, and with Jasper Somsen, a prolifically gifted player and composer. This is Pieranunzi’s fourth album with Somsen (their second on the Challenge label), and with their shared mastery of the classical tradition in mind, Somsen contributed a suite of nine movements of dances popular in the Baroque era – ‘Menuet,’ ‘Valse,’ ‘Sarabande,’ ‘Courante’ and so on. Conceptually bold, it is executed with great musicality, a perfect marriage of classical forms and open improvisation. It serves to highlight the commonalities between the disciplines of classical and jazz with a flair that offends neither.

Although they are Somsen’s compositions, the shrewd arranging skill Pieranunzi often reveals itself, adding lustre to the proceedings.