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On Marco Pignataro's previous ZOHO album, Almas Antiguas - an acclaimed 2018 encounter with old masters Alan Pasqua, Eddie Gomez and Adam Cruz - the Bologna-bred master saxophonist-composer celebrated his Mediterranean roots with a program that told, as he put it then, "a story of love" in notes and tones. On Awakening, which documents a virtual live concert at Boston's GBH Fraser Studio in July 2021, sponsored by JazzBoston, Pignataro meditates on the eternal subject of romantic love from a different angle. He showcases another stream of artistic expression, scripting a narrative that merges his intensely contemplative, metaphor-rich English-language poems with iconic songs from the canons of pop music from America and the British Isles and original material. It's cliche to call presentations like this "beyond category," but that's what Awakening is. That said, if an editor demanded a description, I'd call the proceedings highest-level chamber jazz, lyrical, melody-rich, harmonically sophisticated, masterfully executed, containing elements drawn from classical, gospel and opera, animated by a sensibility that embodies Wayne Shorter's manifesto, "the past is the flashlight for the future." Shorter's aesthetics are the lodestar of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute (BGJI) at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where Pignataro has served as Managing Director since 2009. With help from BGJI alumnus Chase Morrin, he scored the music for a multi-generational, inter-racial group of Berklee colleagues - iconic pianist-composer Kenny Werner, then 69, who contributes his Grammy-winning song, "Inspiration"; pellucidly soulful 30-something vocalist Nadia Washington, who also contributes on guitar; and 20+ bassist-vocalist Devon Gates, who harmonizes divinely with Nadia and anchors the flow with resonant tone and unfailing beat. "Stand By Me" reflects "importance of love and hope" during the turbulent chaos of the Covid era. Ted Panken

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