Sid’s Finnish-Italian jazz quintet Infinita played a thrilling performance at the Nuoro Jazz Festival in Sardegna, Italy on August 22nd.

Everything was right, the beautiful stage in the lovely garden of the museum Gracia Deledda, the light, the sound, the weather. And the band was in top shape.

The concert presented mostly material from Infinita’s debut CD ‘Time Continuum’, all music composed by Sid Hille with the exception of Lennon/McCartney’s ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ arranged (or rather re-composed) by Hille.
The CD had gotten raving reviews upon its release last year in Italy and Finland, thanks to a refreshing mixture of ‘nordic colors’, modern jazz, experimental improvisations and a fantastic sound, created by the legendary Jan-Erik Kongshaug in Oslo.

But as we’ve stated in an earlier post: Live is best!
In Nuoro the band had an at times explosive energy (as in the hip-hop grooved composition Dual Layers), or at other times a melancholic intensity (as in the beautiful Canciòn de Consuelo) that simply can’t be reproduced on a piece of plastic or even on vinyl.
(Well, okay, maybe on vinyl…;-)
But the educated and attentive audience and the charming surroundings of the Gracia Deledda garden contributed in a significant way to the concentration of the musicians and to the atmosphere of the whole evening.

The concert reached its climax in Hille’s intricate ‘Tango Mòrbido Y Cìnico’, a composition that had won him the first prize at the international composition competition ‘Scrivere in Jazz’ in the nearby Sassari, six years earlier.
This same competition by the way marked the beginning of Infinita, as it was there, when Hille and the orchestra’s tenorist Massimo Carboni met for the first time and started discussing the possibilities of a cross-european co-operation.

Since then Infinita is step by step building an international carreer, with tours in Finland, festivals in Italy and an amazing debut recording to show for.

Next, Infinita will be embarking on another Finland tour in March 2015, with the Sellosali in Leppävaara being booked already for March 6th. We’ll keep you posted.

Maybe a couple of festivals before? Any organizers reading this?

Massimo Carboni, Sid Hille, Paolo Spanu, Gianni Filindeu & Tero Saarti