Tuesday, ten in the evening GMT, five o'clock in New York City, Rossano Sportiello's popular weekly streamed concert is a product of lockdown. Holed up in his Greenwich Village apartment, Italian born, NYC resident Sportiello took to playing an online weekly concert. Post lockdown, this most elegant of piano players continues to connect with his worldwide fan club.
This evening our man gave a solo performance, more recital than gig. Opening with I Can't Get Started, Sportiello demonstrated just how good a player he is. Totally in command, left hand as graceful as his right, effortlessly weaving swing time sections with deft stride patterns.
Sportiello's one hour set embraced the Great American Songbook, an operatic interlude and a blues or two. Online requests don't go unanswered: The Entertainer and Leoncavallo's La Mattinata (not exactly Pavarotti, more like that other elegantly swinging pianist George Shearing). Sportiello's Bebop Dance did what it said on the tin (Bird and Dizzy would have been happy to play it!). Our man knows his jazz history, remarking how much he likes Vido Musso's playing with Stan Kenton on Come Back to Sorrento. Sportiello played it, excellent.
Rossano Sportiello is online most weeks, often with guests, it's well worth checking out. Russell
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