Is there a cooler instrument than the vibraphone? No, of course there isn’t! Enzo Randisi, a World War II-born Beatles despiser with a weakness for whisky, cigarettes and jazz, realised this at the latest when the Americans played him their Lionel Hampton records. That was a long time ago. So long ago, in fact, that Enzo Randisi has been buried for a few years now and his hometown of Palermo has been celebrating the »greatest unknown vibraphonist« for a long time. Still, it’s fair to say that Randisi is largely unknown outside Sicily, because you don’t have to know everything. That doesn’t mean you should ignore »Enzo Randisi«, the new album from Eating Standing, the tutto-italiano heir presumptive label. On the contrary: if you’ve never heard modal jazz to tickle your fancy, even on the major scale, here you’ll get the overdue kick in the ass on the – yes, yes! – other coolest instrument ever: the portable xylophone. Played by Enzo Randisi, accompanied by his son, who envelops the second coolest instrument around, a Fender Rhodes, in a thick cloud of Marlboro Gold. Then we switch on the daylight lamp, pour ourselves two or three limoncellos and think about our next holidays in Italy.
Enzo Randisi
