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RICCARDO DEL FRA

SONGS FOR CHET, SONGS FOR NOW

Here are three albums, three fragments of a single path, each marking an essential page of my life and my musical journey.

From the intimate duos of A SIP OF YOUR TOUCH to the orchestral writing of MY CHET MY SONG, where reimagined standards and original compositions intersect, respond to one another and sometimes merge—until MOVING PEOPLE, whose resolutely modern music draws inspiration from a dramatic present that, sadly, seems without end.

Songs for Chet, a romantic poet of music and silence.

Songs of empathy and hope for our time.

Riccardo Del Fra

CHET VISIONS

Corso Vittorio. Roman springtime, blue sky overhead. I’m driving calmly in my dark green Alfa Romeo Giulia, windows down, keeping an eye on the car tailgating me. At a red light, as I reach for a cigarette, a head suddenly leans out of the Citroën behind me and shouts a string of exuberant Roman-sounding nonsense. It’s Chet, smiling broadly. The light turns green, he pulls away fast toward Largo Argentina.

Until then, he had been following me because he didn’t know the way from the radio studio—where we had recorded that morning—to his hotel near Via Veneto. We had only been playing together for a few months, and it was the first time I saw him joke like that. He spoke some Italian—probably learned years earlier, in Lucca prison—but his playful onomatopoeia was far funnier than any Roman insult.

Chet was not talkative; he was rather taciturn. But he loved to smile. He had a beautiful smile. When he did speak, it was like his music: saying a lot with very little. Very cool. I remember clearly the feeling from the very first bars we played together: comfort, suppleness, a relaxed swing, impeccable tempo. The clarity of his phrasing and the endless flow of melodic ides in his solos led me to play exactly what was needed—and nothing more—so as not to endanger the beauty unfolding around me. Playing well felt natural, effortless. I felt that sense of well-being almost every time we played together, even in the most difficult moments, when his body was exhausted or in pain.

He mastered silence and yet possessed a “feline” speed. He knew precisely where to stop a phrase, when to change its direction, where to place an accent, how to straddle the bars while remaining acutely aware of harmonic depth. Beyond his immense musical talent, Chet had extraordinary mental strength. This explained his ability to recover—sometimes miraculously—after moments when he seemed utterly broken. “Everything is in the mind,” bassist Jean-François Jenny-Clark once told me. Chet was living proof.

Chet never proselytized about drugs. He knew they weren’t for me. Once, in Holland, when a dealer approached me in his presence, Chet shouted: “Hey man! Leave him alone!”

Knowing such a poet deeply transformed my aesthetic vision and my work on sound. Above all, he taught me the relentless search for sound quality, for vocality in instrumental gesture, for long phrases that breathe

naturally and are always measured against an absolute reference: silence. Technique matters, but you need to have it in order not to use it. Music, written or improvised, must have substance and meaning. Through sound, the deepest part of ourselves speaks.

A SIP OF YOUR TOUCH

Chet, elegant master of music and silence. After his passing, I felt sadness and absence, but also the need to take stock, like a sailor charting his course.

A Sip of Your Touch—an incomplete anagram of The Touch of Your Lips, one of Chet’s emblematic tunes—reimagines the harmony, turns the ballad into a waltz, and unfolds a new melody conceived as if Chet were scatting.

Each piece carries memory: Akita View, born during a snowbound Japanese tour; Piantranese, inspired by the chestnut forest of my father’s village; standards associated with Art Farmer, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson, Billie Holiday.

This album remains a marker for me – a reminder that freshness and sincerity are as precious as depth and relevance. To tell a story is always, in some way, to tell one’s own.

MY CHET MY SONG

When the Marciac Festival commissioned me to write an orchestral tribute to Chet Baker, the challenge was clear: how to honor him without falling into pastiche? How to revive familiar songs with renewed freshness?

I chose to work on form—introductions, interludes, transformations—allowing new material to grow from old cells. My Funny Valentine became a complete rewriting: My Tragic Valentine, but also My Hopeful Valentine.

Surrounded by exceptional musicians, the writing remains at the service of improvisation. Airelle Besson, Pierrick Pédron, Billy Hart, Bruno Ruder—each brings a vivid voice. My bass is happy among them. Pages turn.

Windows open. Between chance and necessity, we vibrate. Therefore, we are.

MOVING PEOPLE

To compose is to signify. Every melody, harmony and rhythm carries meaning—words, emotions, visions, human lives. Moving People was conceived around the balance between writing and improvisation, simplicity and complexity.

The title piece unfolds from a naïve, repetitive melody—“people moving”—gradually expanding in rhythm and harmony. Ressac meditates on tragedy and compassion. Children Walking (Through a Minefield), entirely written, evokes innocence shattered by violence. Elsewhere, the music explores migration, memory, hope, and fragile refractions of perception.

In an era of rising divisions, jazz remains inherently international and inclusive. Musicians from five countries, three generations, different histories—together creating a living current of sound.

We are all shaped by movement.

We are all Moving People.

Riccardo Del Fra

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS

Chiaroscuro, chiaro e scuro, clear and dark, like meteor, lightning dazzling and blinding, from the hyper white to the deep black, light and shade, your life, going through all those lands, all those things and all those people.

Forever young, like your silhouette, young, until the end.

Despite the creases on the face, rivers of sculpted shadows.

From bright sunlight to backlighting. Angelo affascinante ou povero diavolo?
The price to pay for your insolent freedom that will prevent them from capturing and taming you?

While others found oasis – or mirages – of flattery and applauses, you kept walking straight on your back roads, in an unsharable solitude of which it’s known the very probable coda.
Despite the love of love.

Medium of a resounding message who touched those who were close to you and open to you, orphans at the terminus of a path made of revelation, where from we leave again full of unsayable, knowing that it’s not necessary to look backwards to keep on seeing you, while we move forward.

“Nice and easy”, the sound of your voice, just before the tune starts.
But where is that trumpet sound that no recording, even the most wonderful one, can reproduce? That sound, so full of meaning, that sound, when you are close to it.

Best beloved of the Muse.
Loved and badly loved, anti-model of a world that goes where it goes.
The light continues his drawing, despite the shadows.

CD 1 - A Sip Of Your Touch

 1. A Sip Of Your Touch
(Riccardo Del Fra) 5’34

 2. Do You Feel What I Feel
(Rachel Gould) 2’41

 3. I’m Old Fashioned
(J. Mercer - J. Kern) 7’33

 4. Lover Man
(J. Sherman-J. Davis - R. Ramirez) 6’01

 5. Chet (Enrico Pieranunzi) 4’41

 6. Leaving (Richard Beirach) 5’15

 7. But Not For Me
(George & Ira Gershwin) 3’25

 8. Akita View (Riccardo Del Fra) 5’45

 9. Piantranese (Riccardo Del Fra) 2’27

10. I remember You
    (J. Mercer-V. Schertzinger) 5’15
11. There Will Never Be Another You (Warren-Gordon) 3’53
12. But Not For Me
    (George & Ira Gershwin) 5’15
13. For All We Know
    (J. Fred Coots-Sam M. Lewis) 5’09

RICCARDO DEL FRA:

Double bass

Featuring

DAVE LIEBMAN:

Soprano Saxophone (3 – 6 - 12)

ART FARMER:

Flugelhorn (4 - 10)

RACHEL GOULD:

Vocals (2 – 7 - 13)

MICHEL GRAILLIER:

Piano (1- 8)

ENRICO PIERANUNZI:

Piano (5 -11)

Recorded directly to two-track digital tape on October 5^th (3-6-12), 28^th (2-5-7-11) and 29^th (1-8-13), and November 25^th (4- 9 -10), year 1988 by Hervé Le Guil at Gimmick Studio (Yerres-France)

Produced by Philippe Vincent

CD 2 - My Chet My Song

1. I’m A Fool To Want You
   (Jack Wolf / Joel Herron /
   Frank Sinatra) 11’10
2. Love For Sale (C. Porter) 7’40 /
   Wayne’s Whistle (R. Del Fra) 2’52
   - TOTAL: 10’32
3. I Remember You
   (Victor Schertzinger /
   Johnny Mercer) 10’10
4. Wind On An Open Book
   (Riccardo Del Fra) 4’59
5. For All We Know
   (J. Fred Coots / Sam M. Lewis) 12’10
6. But Not For Me (G. & I. Gershwin) 4’00
   / Oklahoma Kid (R. Del Fra) 3’39
   - TOTAL: 7’39
7. The Bells And The Island
   (Riccardo Del Fra) 2’52
8. My Funny Valentine
   (Richard Rodgers / Lorenz Hart) 5’27

RICCARDO DEL FRA: double bass, arran­gements & compositions

Featuring

AIRELLE BESSON:

Trumpet & Flugelhorn

PIERRICK PÉDRON:

Alto saxophone

BRUNO RUDER:

Piano

BILLY HART:

Drums

Deutsches Filmorchester

Babelsberg

Torsten Scholz: Konzertmeister

Quintet and orchestra recording and editing at the Studio of Filmorchester Babelsberg, Potsdam, by Falko Duczmal assisted by Jonathan Feurich

Duo recorded by Vincent Mahey & Laurent Guigonnet at the Studio Sextan (Malakoff-Paris)

Mixing and mastering: Gérard De Haro & Nicolas Baillard at La Buissonne (Pernes-les-Fontaines), March 2014

Produced by the Association Résonance E-Motion (Riccardo Del Fra - Brigitte Glass - Jean Vincent)

With the support of ADAMI and FCM

CD 3 - Moving People

1. Moving People (Riccardo Del Fra) 7’48

Kurt Rosenwinkel, guitar; Tomasz Dabrowski, trumpet; Jan Prax, alto sax; Rémi Fox, baritone sax; Carl-Henri Morisset, piano; Riccardo Del Fra, double bass; Jason Brown, drums

2. Ressac (Riccardo Del Fra) 7’15

Tomasz Dabrowski, trumpet; Jan Prax, alto sax; Rémi Fox, baritone sax; Carl-Henri Morisset, piano; Riccardo Del Fra, double bass; Jason Brown, drums

3. The Sea Behind (Riccardo Del Fra) 7’59

Kurt Rosenwinkel, guitar; Rémi Fox, soprano sax; Carl-Henri Morisset, piano; Riccardo Del Fra, double bass; Jason Brown, drums

4. Children Walking (Through A Minefield) (Riccardo Del Fra) 4’37

Tomasz Dabrowski, trumpet; Jan Prax, alto sax; Rémi Fox, baritone sax; Carl-Henri Morisset, piano; Riccardo Del Fra, double bass; Jason Brown, drums

5. Around The Fire (Riccardo Del Fra) 1’59

Riccardo Del Fra, double bass

6. Ephemeral Refractions (Riccardo Del Fra) 4’24

Rémi Fox, soprano sax; Kurt Rosenwinkel, guitar; Carl-Henri Morisset, piano; Riccardo Del Fra, double bass; Jason Brown, drums

7. Wind On An Open Book II (Riccardo Del Fra) 5’26

Kurt Rosenwinkel, guitar; Tomasz Dabrowski, trumpet; Jan Prax, soprano sax; Rémi Fox, baritone sax; Carl-Henri Morisset, piano; Riccardo Del Fra, double bass; Jason Brown, drums

8. Street Scenes (Riccardo Del Fra) 3’09

Kurt Rosenwinkel, guitar; Tomasz Dabrowski, trumpet; Jan Prax, alto sax; Rémi Fox, baritone sax; Carl-Henri Morisset, piano; Riccardo Del Fra, double bass; Jason Brown, drums

9. Moving People - Epilogue (Riccardo Del Fra) 2’52

Kurt Rosenwinkel, guitar; Tomasz Dabrowski, trumpet; Jan Prax, alto sax; Rémi Fox, baritone sax; Carl-Henri Morisset, piano; Riccardo Del Fra, double bass; Jason Brown, drums

10. Cieli Sereni (Riccardo Del Fra) 2’03

Riccardo Del Fra, double bass

RICCARDO DEL FRA:

Double bass & Compositions

Featuring

Special guest:

KURT ROSENWINKEL:

Guitar (courtesy of Heartcore Records)

TOMASZ DABROWSKI:

Trumpet

JAN PRAX:

Soprano & Alto Sax

RÉMI FOX:

Soprano & Baritone Sax

CARL-HENRI MORISSET:

Piano

JASON BROWN:

Drums

Recording and editing at the Studio La Buissonne by Gérard de Haro assisted by Anaëlle Marsollier

Mixing: Gérard de Haro and Riccardo Del Fra

Mastering: Nicolas Baillard at La Buis­sonne (Pernes-les-Fontaines - France) May, June & July 2018

Produced by the Association Résonance E-Motion

(Brigitte Glass - Petra Kremer-Driess - Alain Michalowicz)

Artistic Direction (Reissue):
Riccardo Del Fra
Coordination: Augustin Bondoux
Production & Distribution:
Frémeaux & Associés

www.riccardodelfra.net
www.fremeaux.com
www.cristalrecords.com