About Roses And Thorns
1995 · Unit Records (2) (UTR 4084 CD) · CD Album · Switzerland
Menico Ferrari
Tracklist
- You're Fucked Up / 2 Die Rückkehr Des Jungen Werthers / 3 Collage 114:27
- About Roses And Thorns6:20
- My Sweet Lullaby5:15
- 1 BCB / 2 Go Between / 3 Collage5:55
- She Is A Belle4:22
Personnel & credits
- Nathanael SuAlto Saxophone
- Rodrigo Botter MaioAlto Saxophone
- Herbie KopfBass
- Philipp SchweidlerBass
- Wolfgang ZwiauerBass
- Kaspar RastDrums
- Menico FerrariGuitar
- Alex KirschnerMastered By
- Menico FerrariMastered By
- Willy KotounPercussion
- Nik BärtschPiano
- Tamas SzöllösyPiano
- Menico FerrariProducer, Composed By
- Loren TaylorRap, Words By [Rap]
- Alex KirschnerRecorded By [Additional]
- Menico FerrariRecorded By [Noises]
- Urs WiesendangerRecorded By, Mixed By
- Roland PhilippTenor Saxophone
- Thomas Geiger (2)Tenor Saxophone
- Michael GassmannTrumpet
- Daniel MouthonVoice
- David ImhoofVoice
- Stephanie JappVoice
About this record
Press
“Bartsch reached the finals with Menico Ferrari's band Groove Cooperative”Wikipedia (Nik Bartsch) ↗
“wurde 1996 mit dem Werkjahr der Stadt Zurich ausgezeichnet”swissfilmmusic.ch (Domenico Ferrari wiki) ↗
Reception
No critical reviews of "About Roses And Thorns" could be located in any jazz outlet. AllMusic lists the album but returns a 403 to bots and shows no visible editorial review; All About Jazz, JazzConvention, Musica Jazz, jazz'n'more, jazzthing and Down Beat surface no dedicated review of this title. The CD appears only at catalog/retail level (Discogs, MusicBrainz, Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, the CadNor reissue listing). This is the expected outcome for a small Swiss independent (Unit Records) debut date from 1995. The most substantive corroborating context comes not from a review of the album itself but from Nik Bartsch's documented career: his Wikipedia discography lists "About Roses and Thorns (Unit, 1995)" as a sideman credit, and notes that in 1995 he reached the finals of the European jazz competition at the Leverkusener Jazztage with Menico Ferrari's band Groove Cooperative — placing the leader's ensemble (the same circle that made this record) on a recognized festival stage the year of release.
Recognition
No award, festival, or academic recognition was found for the album itself. Adjacent recognition: the leader Domenico/Menico Ferrari received the City of Zurich Werkjahr (work-year grant) in 1996, the year after release; and pianist Nik Bartsch reached the finals of the European jazz competition at the Leverkusener Jazztage in 1995 with Ferrari's band Groove Cooperative. Neither is a citation of "About Roses And Thorns" specifically.
Background
Leader Menico Ferrari is the Italian-Swiss guitarist/composer Domenico Ferrari (b. 1970, Zurich), who studied guitar at the Lucerne Jazz School 1991-1995; this 1995 record sits at the end of his jazz-school years before he turned toward electronic and film music (later scoring Vitus, 2006, and teaching production at ZHdK). The album was recorded and mixed in May 1995 at Fast Peak Studio in Zurich and issued on the Swiss independent Unit Records (UTR 4084 CD); Ferrari produced, composed, and played guitar. The band is a small ensemble of the Zurich/Lucerne school scene: Michael Gassmann (trumpet), Roland Philipp and Nathanael Su (alto/tenor saxophones), the then-emerging Nik (Niklaus) Bartsch on piano, and Kaspar Rast on drums — a lineup that overlaps with Ferrari's competition band Groove Cooperative. Five tracks, ~36 minutes, with provocative/literary German titles (e.g., "Die Ruckkehr des jungen Werthers"). Note: do not confuse this jazz Ferrari with unrelated Domenico Ferraris; and the Discogs/AllMusic/CadNor pages reliably co-list Gassmann on trumpet, confirming this is the correct trumpeter.