Inside Out
Bace Records 2022. Digital, Cd, Vinyl.
Jake Wark: Tenor Sax Ben Dillinger: Upright bass. Edinho Gerber: guitar. Tommaso Moretti: Drums, vocals, xylophone, guitar (2,8), samples. Ben Lamar Gay: cornet(4,6,8) Natalie Lande: Flute (2,7).
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"Inside Out is a studio album and a live performance that connects the dots between the intimate dimension of an inspiration and the aesthetic need to translate it into defined musical languages. It’s a quest to find the inner layer of humanity that allows a connection between the meaning of three words: Sentimento, Saudade, Soul.”
"Drummer Tommaso Moretti is from Italy but since relocating to Chicago in 2013 has become an integral figure on the scene."- Peter Margasak (DownBeat)
“It's a remarkably pleasing album, with tunes (all Moretti's) that sound altogether fresh but with a feel that nicely throws back to classic Blue Note sides of the 1960s. Inside Out likely won't top the charts, but it'd be a shame to let it pass by unheard.”—Kurt Gottschalk (Stereophile)
“ Inside Out is the most beautiful interweaving of the traditions of his homeland and his adopted home. But beyond that, it’s also a tapestry of styles across the decades, of avant-garde complexity and pop culture immediacy, and for all that, it’s an intimate personal statement too.”-Joe Muggs (Sound Of Life)
“An expressive, polyrhythmic intermingling of jazz and samba from the Italian-born, Chicago-based composer and his band.
Percussionist Tommaso Moretti takes listeners on a rhythmic trip around the world with a melange of jazz, samba, and canzone napoletana.”-(BandCamp New and Notable)
SemoComeSemo
Amalgam 2017. Digital, Cd.
Ben Lamar Gay: Cornet, melodica. Matt Piet: Piano, melodica. Devin Foster: Upright Bass. Tommaso Moretti: Drums, vocals, guitar (9)
SemoComeSemo in Roman dialect means we are what we are.
The project’s idea takes shape from drummer and composer Tommaso Moretti’s need to confront his artistic inspirations. The musical result is a natural reflection of the musician’s life evolution. Decontextualized Italian folk elements find their own way to interact with the Chicago avant-garde context through a balanced formula of open improvisation and detailed composition.Sharp angles of complex rhythms are softened by open hearted melodies inspired by the the pastel colors of the Italian 60’s surrealism movie scene.Time illusions and nostalgic harmonies are used by the musicians as a tool to open a gate and connect with the poetry of that dreamy dimension and its goofy characters.
"Italian drummer and composer Tommaso Moretti settled in Chicago in 2013 after playing with folks like Ken Vandermark and Ernest Dawkins in his homeland, but he didn’t come across my radar until last year, when he appeared on the eponymous debut album of Bottle Tree—a smart, progressive R&B trio with multiinstrumentalist Ben Lamar Gay and singer A.M. Frison. He shows a different but equally satisfying side of his musicianship with his new album SemoComeSemo (Amalgam Music), a dynamic jazz-quartet recording of original compositions that deftly infuse sleek postbop with Italian folk traditions. Moretti’s music alternates between brisk hurtling movement and buoyant swing. Pianist Matt Piet underlines that sense of propulsion, adding hints of Monkish tartness and soul-jazz flavor and conveying melodic ebullience in tandem with the sounds of Gay’s joyful, bright-toned cornet in one of the strongest instances of pure jazz playing from both of them that I’ve experienced. Bassist Devin Foster deftly holds down the bottom, letting the drummer accelerate into giddy wildness on the spirited “Appocundade.” Many of the pieces, including the one tune the leader didn’t write—the bossa nova-kissed “Ma La Vita Continua” by film composer Nino Rota—add dollops of avuncular humor a la Italian Instabile Orchestra (which made an art of braiding Italian music with vanguard jazz). “The Cowboy Twist” pushes more explicitly toward pop music, using English lyrics and a puckish bridge. Given the combination of elements, one might think it would resemble a theme to a spaghetti western, but instead it evokes Sonny Rollins playing Johnny Mercer’s “I’m an Old Cowhand.”
Peter Margasak for the Chicago Reader
Open Secret - Bottle Tree (Gay, Frison, Moretti).
International Anthem 2017. 7"vinyl, cassette (sold out).
Bottle Tree is a new collaboration conjured from the Southside Chicago storefront chapel of singer/scholar A.M. Frison and composer/cornetist Ben Lamar Gay.
With Italian expat Tommaso Moretti on traps, the sound-rendered folklore of Bottle Tree embodies a heart beating to West African mutated funk with the spirit of avant-garde jazz and a Motown-molded melodic mind — like a futuristic fantasy of Stevie Wonder backed by Don Cherry and Novos Baianos in the early 1970s.
"Open Secret," the lead single from their forthcoming full-length album, is an agnostic prayer penned by Frison against false borders between faiths.
"What one imagines the great Art Ensemble of Chicago would have sounded like if asked to write a 'hit.'" - Piotr Orlov, AFROPUNK
Tasty Gasoline
Self release 2015. Digital Album, cd (sold out)
Richard Malstrom: Guitar, vocals. Miles Kean: Bass. Tommaso Moretti: Drums, vocals.
Artwork by Kait Doyle
Math Rock trio defined by abrasive riffs, rhythmical complexity and melodical lyricism.
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