“City of Broken Dreams” is the ECM leader debut of the prodigiously gifted Italian pianist Giovanni Guidi. Much of the considerable charm of City of Broken Dreams is evidenced by the mastery of musical suggestion this trio commands. They make use of many different forms of music in their approach to jazz, if merely to use their colors, dynamics, and intonations to create something other. This a piano trio album that has plenty and gracefully relies on subtlety to express it.

The Giovanni Guidi Trio plays jazz of uncommon originality and reflective depth. On their second ECM album, they continue the work begun on the recording 'City of Broken Dreams', with pensive, abstract ballads which shimmer with inner tension. Each of the players - Italian pianist Giovanni Guidi, US bassist Thomas Morgan, and Portuguese drummer João Lobo - has a strong sense for the dialectics of sound and silence. The repertoire is mostly from Guidi's pen, but also includes the standard 'I'm Through with Love', Cuban songwriter Osvaldo Farrés' 'Quizás, quizás, quizás' (familiar to jazz listeners through, above all, Nat King Cole's version), and 'Baiiia' by João Lobo.