Concerto Piccolo is a live album by European jazz group the Vienna Art Orchestra recorded at the Zürich Jazz Festival in 1980 and released on the Hat ART label.[1][2]
The Allmusic review stated: "Recorded live at the Zurich Jazz Festival in 1980, this was America's first taste of the wild abandon that is the Vienna Art Orchestra and expatriate Lauren Newton's glorious vocal instrument. This is a 13-piece big band led by the beautifully weird compositional, instructional, and arranging craziness of Mathias Rüegg. They trash and revere all traditions -- both historical and avant-garde at the same time -- while using them both along with carnival and circus music, classical forms and fugues, and French salon music. ... There are colors, harmonies, and polyphonal systems at work here that will be recalled as the glory years of Euro big-band jazz in the future, and the evocative timbral nature of Rüegg's compositions will be studied for decades to come. Truly, Concerto Piccolo is an amazing debut from a band that offers more than it could possibly receive".[3]
Track listing
All compositions by Mathias Rüegg except where noted
