Mal Waldron Trio

Discography (labels) from the 1960s

Album entitled "Mal Waldron Trio" recorded in the Dirmaphon Studios of Piero Umiliani by the trio formed by Mal Waldron (piano), Giovanni Tommaso (double bass), Pepito Pignatelli (drums) and released in 1966 by the Karim label.

Pepito Pignatelli, founder of the Music Inn, met in 1966 Mal Waldron in Bologna, the city where the American pianist has been living for some time and forges a human and professional relationship with Alberto Alberti and Antonio "Cicci" Foresti, founders of the Bologna Jazz Festival in 1958 (in that period Mal Waldron records the album "All Alone" in which there is the song "Due Torri" dedicated to the "Bologna stay"). Pepito Pignatelli, in addition to managing the famous Roman jazz club with his wife "Picchi", has already dedicated himself for several years to the activity as a semi-professional drummer. In the mid-fifties he had collaborated with the pianist Romano Mussolini and the double bass player Carlo Loffredo by licensing an Ep published by the RCA label (with only Romano Mussolini, "Pepito" recorded live in 1960, at Comblain La Tour in Belgium, the song "Crazy Rhythm", published by the RCA label).

Following the meeting in Bologna, "Pepito" proposes to Mal Waldron to follow him to Rome for a series of concerts and the recording of an album. The project takes shape in the same year with the creation of the album entitled "Mal Waldron Trio", released on the Karim label, founded by Ivo Chiesa, theater impresario and director of the Teatro Stabile di Genova (the label had produced the first works of the singer-songwriter Fabrizio De André). However, the record work turns out to be a fiasco with few copies printed and almost none sold, announcing the closure of the Karim label, which took place a few months later.

Contribution extracted from the book "Pepito - The prince of jazz" (Musica Minimum Fax) by Marco Molendini