How amazing it is to be surprised and how great are those performances that raise your pulse and make you happy over and over again. That's what I felt when I listened to Stefano Bollani's album released in 2018, totally different from all his recent ECM recordings. The genius of the Italian pianist is shown in the bold new album named "Que Bom," a powerful hymn dedicated to life, full of effervescence and contagious joy. Bollani is an intuitive musician with a special melodic talent, characterized by lyrical accents and a light touch, but the warmth and celebration in his Brazilian-influenced music are more intense than ever. The passion for Brazil has always been in his multi-nuanced, dexterous music, but never as vibrant and uniform as in Que Bom. It's not the first production of its kind, considering the 2008 Carioca Project, but it is the best. With same remarkable rhythm-section comprised of drummer Jurim Moreira, bassist Jorge Helder and percussionists Armando Marcal and Thiago da Serrinha, Stefano Bollani also features some bigger names like Caetano Veloso, Joao Bosco, Jacques Moerlenbaum and Hamilton de Holanda, which brings us closer to the essence of Brazilian music. Bollani's 43^rd album tackles the musical traditions of Italy and Brazil in an accessible language, with inventive moments and unprecedented passion. Que Bom is a fantastic album, one of the pianist's best, and that means something, given the richness of his discography. The rhythmic-melodic familiarity is what attracts us, but the experimentalism is what keeps us engaged.