Piccoli Numeri - Allaboutjazz.com (John Kelman)

Despite a long career and lengthy discography, it’s always been curious that John Abercrombie has been a less influential guitarist than peers like Pat Metheny, John Scofield and Bill Frisell. With an instantly recognizable approach as fluid and adaptable as that of any guitarist alive today, it might seem that Abercrombie’s impact has been more felt than heard. Walter Beltrami is a rare occurrence—a guitarist who, if any single artist can be cited as a stylistic reference, is undeniably linked to Abercrombie. That said, Piccoli Numeri possesses more than enough personality to make Beltrami’s roots in Abercrombie just that: roots that are influential rather than directly imitated.
Beltrami possesses a similar innate lyricism, warm tone and sophisticated sense of harmony, and a comparable penchant for quiet introspection. Much of Piccoli Numeri is gentle and down-tempo, with an attention to space and clarity not unlike the transparency of Abercrombie’s label for over thirty years, ECM. Still, like Abercrombie, Beltrami can heat things up as he does on “Verbal Realities,” adopting a distorted tone and more aggressive stance supported by bassist Roberto Bordiga and drummer Emanuele Maniscalco, who are as elastic and dynamic as Marc Johnson and Joey Baron in Abercrombie’s current group on the superb The Third Quartet (ECM, 2007).
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