GleAM Records is proud to announce the release of The Legends of Otranto, the new album by the italian bassist and composer Ferdinando Romano, available in CD and digital download/streaming format from April 11th, 2025. His previous albums, Totem (2020, Losen Records) and Invisible Painters (2023, Jam/UnJam Universal Music) have been highly appreciated by critics and audiences, obtaining important awards such as "Best New Italian Talent 2020" in the annual Top Jazz of Musica Jazz magazine, the SIAE Award 2021, second place as "Italian Musician of the Year 2023”. Both records were included in the Top Jazz among the Italian Records of the Year and Invisible Painters also among the Italian Ensembles of the Year. The Legends of Otranto features a very original lineup with Finnish accordionist Veli Kujala, Estonian pianist Kirke Karja and an Italian rhythm section consisting of Ferdinando on double bass and Ermanno Baron on drums. The album is a suite in six movements, inspired by stories and legends related to the city of Otranto. It is a musical tale of this magical and ancient land in the deep south of Italy: The Snake's Tower, Idrusa, The Bauxite Cave, The Tree of Life, The Two Sisters, King Arthur are characters, places, and images that gradually come to life note after note. Some of these stories are rooted in the historical events that have characterized this area of Salento, others handed down by popular culture. The Legends of Otranto was born in 2023 upon a commission from AccordionFest Estonia, with the aim of creating an original composition for the accordion repertoire that could combine sounds of contemporary music with improvisation. The premiere was performed in October 2023 in Tallinn and broadcast live on Estonian Radio. Compositionally, the music is very heterogeneous, with its own characteristic character that is difficult to define, drawing from jazz, contemporary music, chamber music, experimental, drum'n bass, and rock. Fast-paced rhythms and interwoven polyrhythms, sound experimentation, atonal passages and improvisations alternate with minimalist and introspective moments. The suite is pervaded by careful writing and complex polyphony involving all the instruments, producing at the same time a warm and melodic sound, evocative of the folk narrative dimension of popular legends, between Mediterranean sonorities and northern European echoes evoked by the language of Veli and Kirke.