Fontessa
The 11-minute title tune by the group's pianist and musical director John Lewis was inspired by Commedia dell'arte, and the four characters depicted in it are pictured on the cover.[1] Lewis wrote of it in the liner notes: Fontessa is a little suite inspired by the Renaissance Commedia dell’Arte.Fontessa is the three-note main motif of the suite and is perhaps a substitute for the character of Colombine.The Modern Jazz Quartet later made a full album based on this theme, The Comedy (1962).The mono version of the album has a good recorded sound quality as one would expect from an important 1956 jazz release.The Allmusic review described the album as "a particularly strong all-around set", saying that Lewis's "Versailles" and the title track "show the seriousness of the group (and the influence of Western classical music)", while other pieces "look toward the group's roots in bop and permit the band to swing hard".