It is not often that a young jazzmusician, on his debut CD, presents himself with as much musical ripeness as guitarplayer Marzio Scholten does on his Motherland. In the first place there are the eight own compositions, each of them well wrought and elaborated with a different atmosphere and colouring. The broad emotional canvas is the most remarkable thing in Marzio Scholtens debut. As a soloist he is a strikingly strong storyteller, with a subtle feel for melody, who can handle pure poetry (On the first day of spring), melancholy (The end of an era) as well as a delicious today-groove (300 Miles). No surprise that starguitarplayer Jesse van Ruller, in his liner notes for Motherland, notes influences from Pat Metheny as well as John Scofield and Jimmy Raney. This is serious young jazz of today, sensitive, beautiful and intense. By an excellent quartet in which Scholten offers equal chances for all of the musicians and beautifully phrases lines together with reedman Floris van der Vlugt.