Gaia Cuatro - Haruka

Gaia Cuatro is a reality that has already conquered half the world. Their music,full of charm, has a intensity and pleasantness that gets straight to the heart as it rarely happens. Listen to a concert or an album is a compelling experience. The union of two diametrically opposed cultures, that Argentinian and Japanese, creates to a sensational mix where the passion, warmth and rhythm of Latin music / American blend masterfully with the refined elegance of Asian musical tradition. The result is breathtaking. Haruka is further enhanced by the extraordinary participation of Paolo Fresu, who adds an additional note of class and expressiveness. Their previous work with Abeat (Udin, catalog Abeat 054) has had a great resonance between lovers audiophiles. Even that record will not betray the expectations of most demanding palates.

Gaia Cuatro are :

Carlos Buschini : bass, doublebass
Gerardo Di Giusto : piano
Paolo Fresu : trumpet on tracks 3,8
Aska Kaneko : violin,vocals
Tomohiro Yahiro : drums, percussions

Renzo Ruggeri - Kramer Project

Una Big Band di 12 musicisti (11 band+direttore) + special guest suona gli ARRANGIAMENTI ORIGINALI (unico progetto a farlo) trovati in casa Kramer in una vecchia valigia....e questo grazie alla fondazione Rivarolo Mantovano che mettendomi in contatto con Teresa e Laura Gorni, le due figlie del maestro che mi dissero che nonostante Kramer, come sovente accade a molti artisti, ha impiegato l'ultima parte della sua vita a disfrarsi delle proprie creazioni avevano il ricordo di una valigia abbandonata nella casa di campagna della famigia. Per me ciò ha significato la scoperta del leggendario tesoro del Capitan Flint
La storica sigla L'ORCHESTRA DEL CUORE introduce il cd che si alterna tra le composizioni proprie degli inizi (Pippo Non Lo Sa, Prime Lacrime), le commedie musicali (Un Bacio a Mezzanotte, In un Vecchio Palco della Scala, etc.) e la TV (Domenica è sempre Domenica, Tomorrow Night, etc.). Per quanto riguarda la metodologia impiegata in questo lavoro ricordiamo che Renzo nonostante non sia stato in grado di reperire gli arrangiamenti delle partiture krameriane ha scelto di avvicinarsi alla musica del Maestro nella maniera piu' fedele possibile, anche laddove ciò ha significato recuperarle attraverso l'ascolto di incisioni d'epoca. Il fatto poi che prima dell'incisione del cd gli artisti abbiano avuto la possibilita' di eseguirne in piu' occasione i brani durante vari concerti ha consentito all'orchestra di raggiungere quell'affiatamento che rende la musica piu' autentica e sentita. Un lavoro da 5 stelle che speriamo l'attenta stampa specializzata italiana non manche di prendere in considerazione.

"Questo spettacolo è stato cucito così bene con queste sequenze che si succedono attraverso gli anni che io ho vissuto con questo grande maestro, grande amico. Sono toccato e felice di essere insieme a questa bellissima orchestra con gli arrangiamenti che Renzo Ruggieri ha curato e con dei solisti... “sorpresa”.
Funziona benissimo. FRANCO CERRI (Pineto Accordion Jazz Festival, 25 luglio 2008)

Renzo Ruggeri - Accordion - Conductor - Musical Adaption
Massimo Moriconi - Double Bass
Massimo Manzi - Drums
Mauro De Federicis - Guitar
Alessandro di Bonaventura, Gigi Grigioni Faggi, Samuele Garofoli - Trumpets
Sabatino Di Donatantonio, Francesco Di Giulio, Michele Ginestre - Trombones
Gianluca Caporale - Sax and Clarinet
Fabrizio Mandolini, Alessandro Di Rocco, Riccardo Maggitti, Piero Delle Monache - Saxs

Jan Garbarek - Officium Novum

The inspired bringing together of Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble has resulted in consistently inventive music making since 1993. It was the groundbreaking “Officium” album, with Garbarek’s saxophone as a free-ranging ‘fifth voice’ with the Ensemble, which gave the first indications of the musical scope and emotional power of this combination. “Mnemosyne”, 1998’s double album, took the story further, expanding the repertoire beyond ‘early music’ to embrace works both ancient and modern.

Now, after another decade of shared experiences, comes a third album from Garbarek/Hilliard, recorded, like its distinguished predecessors, in the Austrian monastery of St Gerold, with Manfred Eicher producing. Aptly titled, there is continuity in the music of “Officium Novum” and also some new departures. In ‘Occident/Orient’ spirit the album looks eastward, with Armenia as its vantage point and with the compositions and adaptations of Komitas as a central focus. The Hilliards have studied Komitas’s pieces, which draw upon both medieval sacred music and the bardic tradition of the Caucasus in the course of their visits to Armenia, and the modes of the music encourage some of Garbarek’s most impassioned playing. Works from many sources are drawn together as the musicians embark on their travels through time and over many lands. “Officium Novum” journeys from Yerevan to Byzantium, to Russia, France and Spain: all voyages embraced by the album’s dramaturgical flow, as the individual works are situated in a larger ‘compositional’ frame.

"Hays hark nviranats ukhti" and "Surb, surb" are part of the Divine Liturgy of the Holy Mass which Komitas Vardapet (1869-1935) arranged on different occasions and for different formations. The versions here derive from those made for male voices in Constantinople in 1914/1915. "Hays hark nviranats ukhti" is a hymn traditionally sung at the beginning of the mass while the priest spreads incense. "Surb, surb" (Holy, holy) corresponds to "Sanctus" in the Latin Mass.

"Ov zarmanali" is a hymn of the Baptism of Christ (Sunday after Epiphany), sung during the ceremony of blessing the water, and "Sirt im sasani" a hymn of "Votnlva" (the bathing-of-the-feet ceremony celebrated on Maundy Thursday).These Komitas pieces are from the period 1910 to 1915, but their roots reach back to antiquity. Ethnomusicologist as well as forward-looking composer-philosopher, Komitas not only showed how Armenian sacred music had developed from folk music, but used folk styles expressively, to make new art music for his era.

Other music in the “Officium Novum” programme also spans the centuries, medieval music and contemporary music unified in the concentrated approach of Garbarek/Hilliard, now definable as a specific group sound. Jan Garbarek contributes two compositions. For “Allting finns” the saxophonist sets “Den Döde” (“The dead one”), a poem by Sweden’s Pär Lagerkvist (1891-1974). “We are the stars”, meanwhile, last heard on the saxophonist’s “Rites” album, is based on a Native American poem of the Pasamaquoddy people.

Longest piece on the album is the thirteen-minute “Litany” imaginatively bringing together works of spiritual and musical affinity: “Otche Nash” from the Lipovan Old Believers tradition is preceded by a fragment of the “Litany” of Nikolai N. Kedrov.
Kedrov (1871-1940) was a student of Rimsky Korsakov, a founder of the Kedrov Quartet, a vocal group that toured under Diaghilev’s direction, and writer of many compositions and chant arrangements which have since found their way into the repertoire of Orthodox choirs.

Arvo Pärt’s “Most Holy Mother of God”, a piece written for the Hilliard Ensemble in 2003, is heard in a pristine a capella reading. If the Hilliards have proselytized persuasively for Pärt’s music they have surely also been affected by the austerity of his writing.

The Byzantine “Svete tihij” (Gladsome Light), composed in the third century, is one of the oldest Christian hymns, and once accompanied the entrance of the clergy into the church and the lighting of the evening lamp at sunset. The Spanish “Tres morillas” from the 16th century “Cancionero de Palacio” radiates a different kind of light, as its dancing rhythm underpins a tale of lost love.

Perotin’s “Alleluia. Nativitas” is a new account of a piece which the musicians had previously recorded on “Mnemosyne”: the freedom of interpretation is testimony to the way the project as a whole has grown since its introduction on ECM New Series.

As for the saxophone, from an improvisational perspective this remains an exceptionally pure context in which to experience Jan Garbarek’s creativity. Garbarek is still approaching this music freely, improvising with the soloists, creating roving counterpoint, weaving in and of the web of vocal texture, and helping to shape what England’s Evening Standard called “some of the most beautiful acoustic music ever made”.

The album concludes with actor Bruno Ganz reading Giorgos Seferis’s “Nur ein Weniges noch”, from the Greek poet’s 1935 “Mythistorema” cycle, a poem previously embraced in ECM’s album devoted to T.S. Eliot and Seferis, “Wenn Wasser wäre”.


New discoveries continue to be mined by the Hilliard/Garbarek collective. In an era in which musical alliances are often short-lived or speculative, ECM is able to present “Officium Novum” as a CD production of a ‘working band’ continuing to grow after 17 years of creative collaboration.

Dave Douglas - Spirit Moves + Spark Of Being

Spark Of Being

On April 24th, 2010, Dave Douglas and experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison unveiled their multimedia collaboration, Spark Of Being, at Stanford University. On film, it stands as a reinterpretation of that Frankenstein myth using new, archival, and distressed footage. The themes, penned by Douglas for his Grammy-nominated band Keystone, integrate electronics seamlessly into the improvised music, piecing sounds and movement together to make three strikingly different Creatures.

Part 1: SOUNDTRACK (out June 22nd)
Part 2: EXPAND (out August 24th)
Part 3: BURST (out September 21st)

Spirit Moves

Spirit Moves features Douglas alongside Vincent Chancey (French horn), Luis Bonilla (trombone), Marcus Rojas (tuba) and Nasheet Waits (drums) paying homage to the brass instrument with eight new original compositions and three arrangements of classics by such disparate artists as Otis Redding, Hank Williams and Rufus Wainwright. Over the past several years, Douglas has steadily honed his work with Brass Ecstasy with appearances at the 2008 Chicago Jazz Festival, which commissioned new music from the group, Willisau Festival, Reggio Calabria Jazz Festival, and The Festival of New Trumpet Music. Informed by the evolving spirit of brass music and by his multi-faceted career as the director of The Festival of New Trumpet Music, label head of Greenleaf Music, a renowned composer, artist, and record producer, Douglas pens an ambitious collection of lyrical songs with impressions of folk, pop and soul music.

Tracklist :

1. This Love Affair 3:25
2. Orujo 3:38
3. The View From Blue Mountain 4:53
4. Twilight of the Dogs 4:06
5. Bowie 6:27
6. Rava 5:36
7. Fats 3:48
8. The Brass Ring 7:56
9. Mister Pitiful 3:05
10. Great Awakening 6:00
11. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry 4:18
12. Prayer for Baghdad (Subscriber Bonus)
13. Hope (Subscriber Bonus)

Ralph Alessi - Cognitive Dissonance

Ralph Alessi was born in San Rafael, CA, the son of classical trumpeter Joe Alessi. But after taking degrees in jazz trumpet and bass—he studied under the legendary Charlie Haden at CalArts—he lit out for New York, where he swiftly became an ubiquitous presence on the downtown scene and a leading figure in jazz education.
Alessi's longest apprenticeship as a sideman was in various ensembles led by alto saxophonist and “M-Base” founder Steve Coleman, but he’s also been a frequent collaborator with the likes of Don Byron, Ravi Coltrane, Uri Caine, Fred Hersch, James Carney, Jason Moran, Drew Gress, Scott Colley, Dafnis Prieto and Brad Shepik—most of whom have also played and recorded in Alessi’s own groups.
As a bandleader in his own right, Alessi has recorded six ( is out just now Cognitive Dissonance ) albums of originals which draw on everything from post-bop to neo-classical, while deftly treading—and occasionally crossing—the line between “inside” and “outside” jazz. Ralph prefers simply to think of his tunes as “organic”: he uses whatever fits his needs, including expanded forms, complex rhythms, and a broad harmonic spectrum, to explore the confluence of composition and improvisation. Jazz Times called his writing “as clean and airy and sophisticated and disciplined as post-modern progressive jazz gets” and named the group's debut outing one of the ten best recordings of 2002, while All About Jazz dubbed its 2007 follow-up Look “an outstanding work of intellect and fire.”
Although Alessi is an adjunct faculty member at NYU, his most significant achievement as an educator may be founding and directing Brooklyn’s School for Improvisational Music (SIM), which is playing an influential role in the development of jazz’s next generation. Instructors at the school constitute an all-star lineup of prominent jazz progressives, but what really distinguishes SIM is what jazz writer Chinen describes as its “determined spirit of collectivity”: the school’s mission statement asserts that “Students (through their own experiences together) can learn a great deal for and from themselves and needn’t always wait passively for instructors to provide them with answers.”

Ralph Alessi - Trumpet
Jason Moran Piano
Andy Milne Piano(on "Sir", "Same Old Story"),
Drew Gress on Double Bass
Nasheet Waits Drums.

Gidon Kremer / Kremerata Baltica – Hymns And Prayers

The Hungarian composer and pianist Stevan Kovacs Tickmayer from the Serbian province of Vojvodina has written eight hymns in commemoration of the film director Andrei Tarkovsky, an artist he has called a homo moralis whose remarkable visions cast a small but significant light on the tragic world of the previous century. The Georgian composer Giya Kancheli has written a silent prayer for two dear friends: the cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and the violinist Gidon Kremer. The meditative emotionality of the hymns and the ascetic tranquility of the prayer are offset by César Franck‘s Piano Quintet in F minor like a premonition of Beethoven’s Appassionata, whose second movement, marked Lento, molto sentimento, in turn takes up the mood of the other two works. This combination does more than provide a superficial contrast: it is beholden to an intrinsic principle of the sort that the painter Paul Klee developed in his theory of harmony in the visual arts: any compositional harmony will gain character through dissonances, with the balance being restored by counterweights. (from the liner notes)

This album “Hymns and Prayers” from master violinist Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica spans a characteristically wide range of music, from the spirited to the spiritual, all of it broached with conviction. The three featured works were recorded in 2008 at the Lockenhaus Festival, that annual event which ECM helped to put on the map a quarter-century ago, when Kremer and producer Manfred Eicher introduced the Edition Lockenhaus on ECM New Series.

Intensity and concentration, differently calibrated, are the watchwords here. At the centre of this disc is César Franck’s piano quintet, a work which ranks alongside the Brahms Quintet as one of the outstanding – and technically daunting – works of the late 19th century. It is a work that Gidon Kremer holds in special affection: it was one of the first pieces of chamber music in his own repertoire, and he performed it in Latvia when he was 16.

Kremer and Giya Kancheli have a long association that has already resulted in several recordings on ECM, including “Lament: Music of Mourning in Memory of Luigi Nono” (recorded 1998) and “Time...and Again” (1999) and “V & V” (2000) on the album “In l'istesso tempo”.

"Silent Prayer" was composed on the occasion of the 80th birthday of Mstislav Rostropovich and the 60th birthday of Gidon Kremer in 2007. After Rostropovich’s death that same year, the composer entitled the just-finished work "Silent Prayer." The world premiere took place on 7 October 2007 at the Kronberg Cello Festival which was dedicated to the memory of the late virtuoso, with Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica.

Kremerata Baltica will again be performing Kancheli’s “Silent Prayer” on their North America tour this autumn. Earlier performances have been much praised by critics. “The spare and ruminative music seems to drift off the stage with infinite slowness, like a mist. Kremer and his colleague, floating wispy lines from the highest reaches of their instruments, were compelling guides to this ethereal landscape”, wrote Jeremy Eichler in the Boston Globe.

Long a champion of original compositional voices, Kremer here presents also music of Stevan Tickmayer, born in the former Yugoslavia in 1963, and currently a resident of France. A musician of diverse background, Tickmayer has been studying with Kurtág since the mid-90s, and has had his own work played by ensembles from the Netherlands Wind Ensemble to the Moscow Soloists – but he has also collaborated with improvisers and avant-rock players including Chris Cutler, Fred Frith and Peter Kowald. On Kremer’s invitation he was composer in residence at Lockenhaus in 2003 and 2009.

Tickmayer began his “Eight Hymns” in December 1986, on learning of the death of his favourite filmmaker, Andrei Tarkovsky, and played the (unfinished) work in his solo concerts for several years. He revised it in 2003 after working with the musicians of the Kremerata, “the ideal messengers” – given their Eastern European backgrounds – for this musical mourning. The “Eight Hymns” is the first recording of Tickmayer’s music on ECM.

Gidon Kremer’s relationship with ECM dates back to Arvo Pärt’s album “Tabula Rasa”. This was followed by several volumes of live recordings from his famous Lockenhaus festival. Kremer’s second recording of the complete sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin by Bach, released in 2005 on ECM New Series, met with unanimous international acclaim. Kremerata Baltica which first appeared on ECM on the Kancheli record “In l’istesso tempo” (2005) made its official label debut in the same year with a highly original interpretation of Schubert’s G-major string quartet.

Founded in 1997 by Gidon Kremer, the Grammy-award winning chamber orchestra is one of the outstanding ensembles in Europe and beyond. Although it originally began as a "present to myself" to celebrate his 50th birthday in 1997, Gidon Kremer soon realized the potential of this ensemble of young musicians from the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as a medium with which to share artistic experiences, and, at the same time, to promote and inspire the musical and cultural life of the Baltics.

Francesco Cafiso - 4out

A young leader who has already conquered audiences across the world focuses on the most ambitious artistic project of his career. Herplay and an excellent technique for other undisputed talent in Europe. makes this record with the contribution of the young rising star Dino Rubino on piano and one of the most exciting, strong and creative Italian jazz rhythmic section: Paolino Dalla Porta ( double bass), has a story that really says a lot about his ability to bring inspiration and creativity. Again his personality gave harmony and elegance together with Stefano Bagnoli, ( the "Brushman" as people now call him), a drummer with an inte
This record represents a change of gear, a further step forward in artistic value Cafiso. His technical skills are admirably placed at the service of a great musical and compositional maturity as perhaps had never heard before and make it really now a lighthouse and a national pride of the jazz world. Cafiso Quartet 4out is giving us an expressive intensity that few in the world can communicate.

Joyce - Slow Music

Jobim, João Gilberto, Joyce – Brazil has given us so many brilliant composers, instrumentalists and vocalists. It is with great pride that Stunt Records releases this new recording by the revered Brazilian singer Joyce Moreno (previously known as Joyce), recorded in Rio last year with her own trio.
Joyce Moreno is a Brazilian vocalist and songwriter as well as guitarist and arranger. She was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1948, and since her debut in the late ‘60s she has been considered one of Brazil’s great singers. Joyce has made over 20 records. Apart from her impressive solo output, she has also performed
with artists like Elis Regina, Toninho Horta, Jose de Moraes and Yoko Kanno and appeared on soundtracks and composed for film and theater.
Joyce was introduced to music by her guitar-playing older brother, and by listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, and the whole Brazilian music tradition. In her formative years the new bossa nova wave impressed the young journalist student. Fortunately, she chose the music.
SLOW MUSIC is a very special and subdued recording. It does not exclusively feature original songs, but also includes more or less well-known but extremely
appropriate Brazilian songs and a few jazz standards. The music presents itself with a sophisticated subtle sensuality that nestles up to the listener. This is the calm and presence of a vocalist who has lived a long and persistent life with her music. She knows her instrument and her skills from every angle.
Joyce calls SLOW MUSIC her dream project. The dream began more than ten years ago, but only now has it come to pass. Joyce dedicates the album to Shirley Horn, Bill Evans and João Gilberto, which gives an idea of the mood. The record is based on silence and pauses, and has to do with how they may be used. Joyce says that the pause “is an important moment in music. Without silence sound does not exist. Without light and shadow, the colors would have no nuances. Refinement begets refinement”. She also explains how she read the Italian Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food Manifesto from 2000 in which is written, “…we have become slaves to speed, and everyone is infested with the same virus: A fast life, which ruins our habits, invades our privacy and forces us to eat fast food”. She was enchanted by the concept and began to reflect on the similarities between music and food. “For years the world has exposed our ears to junk music. Music is food for the soul. It is the best conveyor of emotions we know.”
This said, we may continue to point two: The songs and Joyce. The intention was to create a long reflection on love. She did not want only to sing songs about the desperate kind of love that makes people cut their wrists. To the contrary,
she wanted songs that give life to the doubts, the irony and the questions.
Thus the choices were made mainly on a basis of the beauty of the songs, but also with due respect for the lightness and reflection with which they deal with the oldest emotion on earth. And sung with great calm. To make this possible
some time had to pass. One cannot sing this kind of song when young, Joyce explains. One needs a certain critical distance, the possibility of a tender recollection with a touch of wisdom. The voice had to age, lose its youthful brilliance and “acquire a shell of patina. A little gravel in the throat, and a firm grip on the lyrics”. And the right collaborators were necessary. Through all the years of dreaming about this project, Joyce put it different settings from minimalistic to bombastic. Finally she reached the present format.
Drummer Tutty Moreno was part of it from the first minute, and he accompanied
Joyce on every byroad chasing this dream. The album is also his. No one else could have played with such precision, sensitivity and fragility. For him, the drums are a harmony instrument. Hélio Alves was an obvious choice. A rare case of a Brazilian pianist and a jazz musician meeting in the same person with expert abilities in both languages. A brilliant soloist. Jorge Helder on bass added the solidity that was necessary for “us to fly together”.
“Foi tudo lindo. Tudo slow. It was all beautiful. All was slow.”

Musicians :

Joyce Moreno (voc, g)
Hélio Alves (p)
Jorge Helder (b)
Tutty Moreno (d)

Tracks :

Slow Music
Amor, Amor
Medo de Amar
Esta tarde vi Ilover
Convince Me (Love is Inconvenient )
Nova Ilusão
Samba do Grande Amor
O Amor é Chama
But Beautiful
Olhos Negros
Sobras da Partilha
Valsa do Pequeno Amor
Essa Mulher

Elga Paoli - Profumo Di Jazz

Elga Paoli è una raffinatissima compositrice cantante pianista che con questo nuovo lavoro "Profumo di jazz" ci regala un progetto a cavallo fra jazz e canzone d'autore dove accanto alla figura del "crooner" la Paoli reinterpreta il ruolo con sonorita' proprie del mediterraneo. La formazione è piu' che eccellente con i migliri musicisti della scena romana e italiana con Gian Piero Lo Piccolo al sax, Roberto Palermo alla fisarmonica, Stefano Nunzi al contrabbasso, Francesco Puglisi ospite al contrabbasso il molti pezzi, Alessandro Marzi e Marco Rovinelli che si alternano alla batteria. Infine, non certo per ordine di importanza, i bellissimi camei di Fabrizio Bosso.

Forse il miglior modo possibile per descrivere questo cd è quello utilizzato dalla bellissima poesia di Beppe Liguorio :
"Non ci sono i colori
Quelli soliti....
C'è il bianco.... e le sfumature....
Il grigio che...si riempie della polvere
E con quella
Si veste per la sera
In grisaglia cangiante e corposa
Sinuosa.....
Sono queste le tinte del jazz
Almeno.... qui
Le note di onde di metallo
E la voce
Autrice di un magnifico stallo
Dove la mente sposta le quinte
A suo piacere"

Si tratta di un lavoro molto intimo, di un personaggio sicuramente schivo, che fa arte per amor dell'arte dove una voce bellissima trasforma in un canto angelico un grido ora di dolore, ora di supplica, ora di sorpresa per uscire da quella solitudine che alcune volte sembrerebbe essere il prezzo della liberta'.

Intak Novita' : Steve Lacy - Michael Jaeger Kerouac

Steve Lacy - November

The people who heard Steve Lacy’s final solo performance in 2003 at the “Unerhört” Festival in Zurich will not have forgotten the experience. This rollercoaster of emotions. It didn’t just go under the skin; it went straight to the heart. It was so moving to see and hear the love, serenity, trust and sense of adventure that the totally weak Lacy displayed for his music. This is what was so wonderful and magic about that grey, cold November afternoon: we all witnessed what it is like when a master of improvisation gets carried away by the power of music. He became one with the music, drawn to it like a magnet. How beautiful: sadness found joy. Coldness found warmth.
Tension found peace and serenity. And the big spotlights warmed the cold afternoon as if they were the sun.

Recorded November, 29, 2003 at Unerhört! Festival, Rote Fabrik, Zürich, Switzerland.

Michael Jaeger KEROUAC - OUTDOORS

Michael Jaeger keeps looking in the quartet KEROUAC with the pianist Vincent Membrez, the bassist Luca Sisera and the drummer Norbert Pfammatter since 2005 persistently and with more and more success for the labile balance between selffulfillment and control. Between freedom and structure. Between individualism and the collective. Today KEROUAC is on such an advanced level of the collective consciousness, that the four can launch each other almost telepathically into creative spaces. More than that: the collective understanding generates such a pull that even the guests Greg Osby and Philipp Schaufelberger are integrated almost on the spot, almost as if they were members of the band for years.

They make most inspired improvised or composed music that does not aim to anything but itself, let alone any ideology whatsoever. Their music is even allowed to swing every now and again, it often develops a bewitching melodiousness yet goes audaciously to the borders of the atonal or noise making. In other words: It roots in the centre of “jazz” and at the same time far outside any cliché, thus really happening in the very moment. So this is what Whitney Balliett, the doyen ofjazz criticism, used to call this music: “the sound of surprise”.

Recorded June 14, 15, 16, 2009 by Schweizer Radio DRS, Radiostudio Zürich

Marco Detto - In The Meantime

Marco Detto was born in Milan in 1962. At first he studied cello, then he totally devoted himself, as a self taught musician, to the study of the pianoforte. He began his professional career in 1982, collaborating as a sideman in many different jazz bands. In 1987 he "gives birth" to his own first jazz group, carrying his name, favouring the trio, and he performs in many jazz clubs, In 1992 he recorded his first work of standard songs“Falling in jazz with love” , with Marco Ricci and Giorgio Di Tullio and with this ensemble the same year he recorded an original piece of work “I sogni di Dick”. In 1994 Marco Detto begins to collaborate with Palle Danielsson and Peter Erskine, with whom he recorded the “La Danza dei ricordi”. In 1998 with Marco Ricci and Stefano Bagnoli, he recorded “Altrove”, a piece of work consisting mainly of very original compositions. In 1999 he recorded with the same group “In The Air”. In 2000 Marco Detto receives an invitation by Eddie Gomez in person to perform three concerts with his band featuring L.White and J.Steig, as a replacement for McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea at the IV . International Festival of classical and jazz music (IV. Festival internazionale di musica classica e jazz) on Elba island. From this very lucky meeting a new Cd took life in 2001 entitled “What a Wonderful World” which was recorded in New York with E.Gomez and L.White and presented in Italy through a concert tour. In 2003 he recorded the Cd “Django”, excellently reviewed by japanese jazz magazine Sunny Side, remained in their charts for 2 months on second position. In 2004 he recorded “Da Lontano” (Massimo Manzi drums, Marco Ricci bass). In 2005 the japanese label Sound Hills reprinted “ What a Wonderful World”. In 2006 he recorded BlueStones (Mauro Beggio drums, Stefano Profeta bass, Kyle Gregory trumpet, Antonello Monni tenor sax, Guido Bombardieri clarinet). "Lasciarsi andare” one song of this album, has won Honorable Mention in the Jazz category in the 2006 International Songwriting Competition (ISC). In 2006 he also published “ Ripples”, a piano solo album. He took part in many different radio broadcasts on Rai Radio Tre. He also took part in one theatrical project of a cultural association “NOEHMA Servi di Scena” directed by professor Teresa Pomodoro in the prisons of Opera and San Vittore, in theatre Strelher and at University La Statale of Milano. In parallel to such activities, that keep him busy as a leader, Marco Detto collaborates with historical guitarist Franco Cerri, with whome is recorded “Ieri e Oggi”, with singer Lorena Fontana, with whom he recorded “Guccini in jazz” and continues a collaboration with the saxophonist Antonello Monni, with whom he recorded “Friends”.
Now, Thank to Music Center Lissone Marco is out with this new work of good music and good feeling. Thank you Marco.

Marco Detto - In The Meantime.

Tacklist

Correndo Lontano
L'Equilibrista
Step By Step
Nel Frattempo
Luce
Mr Monk
Il Viaggiatore
Minella
L'Equilibrista ( Piano Voce )

Musicians :
Marco Detto, Marco Ricci, Antonio Fusco, Antonello Monni, Alessandro Castelli, Mario Mariotti, Matteo Schiatti, Ruggero Pari.

John McLaughin - To The One

With his new album To The One (Abstract Logix/Mediastarz), iconic guitarist and composer and 2010 Grammy Winner John McLaughlin looks backwards and forwards simultaneously. The six original songs are hauntingly evocative – with roiling rhythmic swells, modal expanses, and telepathic group interaction echoing the profound influence of John Cotrane’s 1965 spiritual jazz masterpiece A Love Supreme. Mostly written in July and August of 2009, the music composing To The One was set down in the studio in November and December, with very few overdubs, by McLaughlin’s current performing outfit, the Fourth Dimension: Gary Husband (keyboards, drums), Etienne M’Bappe (electric bass), and Mark Mondesir (drums). Compositional devices clearly inspired by Coltrane are fused with elements of McLaughlin’s own multi-faceted approach, all delivered with a group empathy and shared vision that harkens back to Coltrane’s fearless mid-‘60s quartet of Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, and Jimmy Garrison. The effect of Jones’ kaleidoscopic approach to rhythm and drumming is especially felt, brilliantly recast and explored via McLaughlin’s gift for complex metrical structures.

McLaughlin’s restless, enquiring spirit is captured with disarming immediacy on To The One, vividly enhanced by both the skill and soulfulness of the Fourth Dimension. From the surging opener “Discovery” to the gently propulsive title track which closes the compact, forty-minute program, McLaughlin’s own playing is at its very peak: emotional and probing, exploding into flourishes of rapid-fire sixteenth notes one moment, candid and unguardedly vulnerable the next. No slavish imitation or sentimental tribute, To The One is a fiery yet open-hearted work, taking on the artistic and spiritual challenges first offered by Coltrane’s jazz masterpiece while making extensive use of the pioneering musical and technical vocabulary that McLaughlin has honed since the beginning of his storied career.

John McLaughlin (Guitar);
Gary Husband (Keys, Drums);
Mark Mondesir (Drums);
Etienne Mbappe (Bass)

Track List :

Discovery
Special Beings
The Fine Line
Lost and Found
Recovery
To the One

Anna Garano Trio - Come Il Re Di Un Paese Piovoso

On February 10th, 2010 poet Philippe Jaccottet received the important èprize "Gran Premio Schiller" and has been mentioned as one of the most important poets in french of the 21st century. In this circumstance, Silta Records is pleased to produce this fine and delicate work of Anna Garano: a tribute in music to great writers like Verlaine, Baudelaire and Jaccottet, who personally expressed to the artist his appreciation for this work.

Come il re di un paese piovoso (Like the king of a rainy land) originates from a chance juxtaposition of a piece that I composed in 2003 for guitar and double-bass (recorded with
the title Clinique in the CD Sombra realized with Massimiliano Forza) and the reknowned poem Il pleure dans mon coeur by Paul Verlaine. Playing with relating them, I realized that
the rhythm of the melody amazingly matched the rhythm of the poem as well as the atmosphere of the piece recalled the resonance that the poem arouses in me. That day I decided to pursue this connection intentionally, and give voice to that affinity that draws me close to these poets: Verlaine, Baudelaire and the contemporary Jaccottet. Feeling of affinity that, as I verified later, connects Philippe Jaccottet to the poète maudit, who were considered by him fundamental benchmarks for his poetics.

Come il re di un paese piovoso besides being a tribute to these great poets, is what I regard as a homage to melancholy and uncertainty: the immersion in a frame of mind in the attempt to grasp its swings and the possible openings.Alessandra Chiurco and Flavio Davanzo have worked with me on this project from its beginning to share and nourish its development with their sensitivity and skill. On February 10, 2010, Philippe Jaccottet received the Gran Prix Schiller, and has been judged “one of the most important french speaking poets of the twentieth century”. This news fills me with joy and gives me the hope that his work will enjoy a greater diffusion in our country. When, a few years ago, I set out to use some of his poems and prose, I got through to him to ask his consent and I sent him a first recording of the pieces that concern him. Jaccottet answered with a warm letter, followed by another one after the reception of the CD. It means a lot to me that he appreciates our work, and, even if experienced only by a short epistolary exchange, our encounter moved and enriched me, at least as much as the encounter between my music and his words.

ANNA GARANO

The Wynton Marsalis Quintet & Richard Galliano - From Billie Holiday To Edith Piaf

In the summer of 2008 multiple Grammy award winning jazz artist Wynton Marsalis and his quintet teamed-up with French accordionist Richard Galliano at the annual Jazz in Marciac festival in Southern France to pay tribute to the late jazz legends Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf.
Richard Galliano, a renowned French-born accordionist who has collaborated with musicians including Chet Baker, Ron Carter and Charlie Haden. Hailed as an extremely versatile musician who is able to masterfully navigate many musical contexts and genres, Galliano is the recipient of the prestigious Academie du Jazz Django Reinhardt Prize awarded annually to the best French musician.

The result is a live recording, CD/DVD deluxe combination that captures this magical performance by two modern legends. The album, entitled The Wynton Marsalis Quintet & Richard Galliano - From Billie Holiday to Edith Piaf: Live in Marciac, captures the magical 9-song set, translating classic jazz vocal compositions into artful instrumental versions that are striking in their rhythmic variety.

From the dizzying waltz tempo of “La Foule” to the infectious swing of “Them There Eyes” to the haunting performance of “Strange Fruit,” the magic of this concert has been faithfully captured in sound as well as in video through a special bonus DVD and is a must-have item for serious jazz collectors and casual listeners alike.

Musicians:

Wynton Marsalis, Trumpet
Richard Galliano, Accordion
Walter Blanding, Saxophone
Dan Nimmer, Piano
Carlos Henriquez, Bass
Ali Jackson, Drums

Track List:

1. La Foule
2. Them There Eyes
3. Padam…Padam
4. What a Little Moonlight Can Do
5. Billie
6. Sailboat in the Moonlight
7. L’homme à la Moto
8. Strange Fruit
9. La Vie En Rose

Abraham Inc ( David Krakauer - Fred Wesley - Socalled )

Riproponiamo questo cd grazie al meraviglioso concerto che questo straordinario gruppo Klezmer Funky ha tenuto domenica 25 aprile a Milano presso la prestigiosa rassegna "Aperitivi in Concerto". Abraham Inc nasce dall'incontro tra David krakauer di radici musicali Klezmer con uno degli artisti funky piu' creativi sulla scena contemporanea Fred Wesley nome non sconosciuto a tutti i fans di James Brown. Ma a rendere ancora piu' unico e se si vuole contemporaneo il progetto è Socalled proveninete da area Hip Hop. La miscela che ne è scaturita è pura energia funky con la ballabilita' propria della musica Klezmer. Pronti allora per il party ?


An unprecedented collaboration between three cultural visionaries: DAVID KRAKAUER, champion of klezmer music and world-class clarinetist; legendary funk trombonist and arranger FRED WESLEY, celebrated for his work with James Brown and George Clinton; and hip-hop renegade and beat architect SOCALLED - Abraham Inc. heralds a time when boundaries are eroding, mutual respect is presumed, and musical traditions can hit with full force without concession or appropriation. Backed by a three-piece horn section led by Wesley plus musicians who collaborate frequently with Krakauer and Socalled - and the result is an all-out klezmer-funk dance party!
On the anniversary of James Brown’s birthday, it seemed fitting that one of JB’s most valued sidemen from the late ’60s, his former musical director and trombonist Fred Wesley (pictured), would be doin’ it to death at the legendary Apollo Theater. But on “Hava Nagila”? Oy!

This endlessly surprising yet highly successful hybrid of klezmer, funk and hip-hop had the enthusiastic crowd—young and old, Jews and gentiles, whites and blacks—dancing ecstatically in the aisles like it was a Jewish wedding. Wesley brought the funk while virtuoso clarinetist David Krakauer delivered the passionate intensity and deep Jewish soul that ties him to the lineage of klezmer clarinet kings like Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras. Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist and visionary beat architect Josh Dolgin, aka Socalled, provided a bridge between the klezmer and hip-hop worlds with his audacious Hebraic rapping while the Bronx-bred emcee C-Rayz Walz brought street cred to this unlikeliest of collaborations with his remarkable freestyling facility and stark urban imagery.

Krakauer, who since the mid ’90s has led renegade Klezmer Madness!, another experimental hybrid band that cleverly blends Eastern European Jewish music with avant-garde improvisation and surf-rock guitar styles, describes the adventurous Abraham, Inc. project as “a band where Jews make ‘phat beats’ and play funky lines while African-Americans play music from Yidl’ Mitn’ Fidl’ and sing Hebraic chants, interacting with the highest level of mutual respect and understanding for each other’s musicality, humanity, intelligence and rich cultural background.”

They did precisely that on the spirited opener, “Baleboosteh” (a Yiddish term meaning “the woman of the house”), which seamlessly blended funk rhythms, Eastern lines and Socalled’s call-and-response rap with C-Rayz. Their slamming, syncopated recreation of “Hava Nagila” was dubbed “The H Tune” while Wesley resurrected one of his classic James Brown funk horn arrangements on “Push,” in which trumpeter Curtis Taylor slipped in a quote from P-Funk’s “Flashlight” during his solo.

C-Rayz strolled the front of the stage on a funky rendition of Socalled’s buoyant klezmer number “Oyfn Hoif” and was later showcased on a powerfully moving rap about life in the ’hood, accompanied only by Socalled on upright piano playing Richard Rodgers’ stirring “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.” Krakauer, the homerun hitter of this crew, unleashed his jaw-dropping chops on the hypnotic “Table Pounding,” named for a Hassidic ritual involving much wine and the slamming of fists. At the peak of his soaring solo, Krakauer’s whole body quaked with visceral intensity, as if he were trying to leap into the air. And he wailed with unrestrained passion on the hauntingly beautiful “Ms NC” (named for his wife) and the rousing klezmer throwdown “Moskowitz and Loops of It,” which had Socalled switching to accordion. Wesley hit on a familiar theme with his downhome storytelling about his Southern family reunion on “Breakin’ Bread” while Socalled got the audience involved in his politically tinged rap “The Good Old Days.” And for a rousing finale, Wesley led the crowd on the chorus of his funky, JB-inspired “House Party.”

The stars of this show—Wesley, Krakauer, Socalled and C-Rayz—were ably supported by a stellar band featuring Jerome Harris on electric bass, Sheryl Bailey and Allen Watsky on guitars, Brandon Wright on tenor sax and Michael Sarin on drums. Following this world premiere of Abraham, Inc., they’re taking this funky show on the road. Watch for an upcoming recording and live DVD recorded at this Apollo gig.

JAZZ TIMES

Bob Mintzer - Dado Moroni - Riccardo Fioravanti - Joe La Barbera play La Vita E' Bella

t was by bringing together four outstanding international jazz masters, for a tribute to the purest jazz music in a true and simple way, that this project came to life. This album has been recorded “live” in a historical jazz club located in the town of Busto Arsizio ( Italy) and it’s imbued with those very genuine but volatile flavours such as : immediacy, complicity and the spontaneous feedback coming from the audience. These four talented musicians took on this nice challenge and the result is evident. Four musicians who are now a worldwide reference: saxophonist Bob Mintzer is one of the most studied for his modernity of language and arrangement. Dado Moroni is perhaps the most famous Italian jazzman and appreciated worldwide. Joe La Barbera is not only known for his intense collaboration with Bill Evans, but also because few people today are equipped with expressiveness and ability to enter the music like him. Riccardo Fioravanti is now one of the most solid rhythmic international reality and his collaborations and his records speak for themselves.
Original compositions( with the exception of two songs), a modern language together with a great respect for tradition are the ingredients savantly blended together as an example of a precise common intent.
The sound is enriched by this live recording that conveys its freshness, along with those surrounding “noises” leading to the overwelming climax bringing to memory some of those historical jazz sessions of the glorious past. The song titled "Life is Beautiful", soundtrack of the famous film by Roberto Benigni, as well as being the title track sums up the flavor of the cd.

Novita' da casa Silta Records

Guido Premuda - The next

The musician plays with the scent of music to make the mix of notes, of structures, accents, phrases, dynamics into a superfine dish and original. A collection which presents itself as a careful choice, with Middle Eastern fragrances, remote echoes of folk, brave and unexpected visits into musical passageways and along paths seldom, or never explored.
The musical suggestions which arise through listening to these original compositions leave an unusual listening flavour which leads to the desire to repeat the experience. The balanced “blend” of distant stylistic origins, the mixture of acoustic and electric instruments under the perceptive direction of Guido give us distinct flavours, but which derive from the stylistic direction of the innate talent of Guido for musical composition and creativeness.

Guido Premuda (guitar) Enrico Guerzoni (cello), Luigi Albertazzi (drums), Gilberto Grillini (double bass)
Tomaso Lama

Characteristic Pitches feat Robin Eubanks - Multitude

Three years after the release of “Night Dancers”, Boston based Italian drummer Paolo Lattanzi presents an entirely renewed group with an absolutely original repertoire. These captivating and flowing arrangements highlight the improvisational skills of the sextet, enriched by the presence of acclaimed trombonist Robin Eubanks (known, among things, for his works with Dave Holland).

Daniel Rosenthal (Tromba), Rick Stone (Alto Sax), Robin Eubanks (Trombone), Lefteris Kordis (Piano), Greg Loughman (Contrabbasso), Paolo Lattanzi (Batteria).

Gianni Virone - Frammenti

Frammenti ('fragments') is a peculiar work which deserves attention, no doubt. This music spreads an inner power and a modernity that being inside the border of Jazz language it allows to express fresh, original and surprising ideas.
Peculiarity in the peculiarity, the graphics are a work of the painter Mery Rigo, here inspired by the musical life of the Trio.

The idea to create this band started in 2003 right after a jam session where I had the luck to meet Mattia Barbieri. In that period I was already playing with another group with Davide Liberti and I decided to “put them together” and see what may have happened… This trio has been going on for a number of years thanks to the deep friendship among us and to the artistic affinity we discovered already at the first rehearsal. We all have more or less the same age and we live in the neighborhood of Turin and this surely helped our collaboration and the following work with other musicians.

During these years I noticed that our music was gradually changing, rehearsal after rehearsal, gig after gig, following the experience and the evolution of the single members and consolidating a real ‘band sound’. The compositions were having every time a new shape because having a lot of improvisation and each musician has the freedom to bring the music towards many directions. In this way, each composition is simply a kind of “fragment”, a musical idea to develop, the subject of a conversation made with our instruments. From here, the idea to represent all this through the painting with the collaboration of Mery Rigo, outstanding Estractist painter, active on the domestic scene since many years.
With Mery we had the idea to represent the musical process and improvisation of a jazz band through the fragmentation and the re-organization of images showing the band members during the performance. In this way we wanted to point out how the musicians participate in different ways to the development of the solos.

Gianni Virone

Gianni Virone – saxes, alto flute // Davide Liberti – double bass // Mattia Barbieri – drums

Chiara Liuzzi - Elica

"It seemed that the living soul of the colors released a musical calling, when the relentless will of the brush took away part of their lives. Sometimes I would hear the quiet chattering of the colors as they would mix; it was a mysterious experience;
surprised in the mysterious kitchen of an alchemist." V.Kandinsky, The Spiritual in Art

ELICA is a product that is based on the perceptive dimension of sound through the holistic approach. The various sensorial sources that combine firstly to the sound perception and then to its production have been considered as the blades of a propeller (ELICA).
The association between the two terms of comparison weresuggested by the shape of the propeller itself, in which its blades are perfectly distinguishable when it is not working, while it confuses them into one another creating a circulation when in motion.
Looking at a color, listening to a sound, tasting food, smelling a fragrance, brushing against an object and trying to go past its outer shell and body, we face an emotional universe that is difficultly translated into words.
This cd is the result of a synesthesical and sensorial research on material, broadly speaking. Each musician individually transformed the perception of this, communicating it in interplay through impromptu.

Chiara Liuzzi

Chiara Liuzzi : Voice, sound objects Francesco Massaro : Baritone and Alto Sax, Clarinet, Sound objects Adolfo La Volpe : Guitar, Electronics, Banjo, Oud
Valerio Daniele : Sound Design

Stefano Pastor - Freedom

This project is witness of the artistic growth of Stafno Pastor, also confirmed by the many reviews he got (for instance, his duo CD with Borah Bergman by “All About Jazz New York”) and above all from the excellent ranking on Top Jazz 2009, with votes from the italian critics.
This music has a clear reference to Free Jazz form the sixties, here performed with freshness in a modern key.
Freedom: in a avant-garde setting redolent of the Seventies – but with a definite Chicagoan cast – inasmuch as it is an evolution from the American trends of the Sixties. A glance to tradition, by way of mirroring and further reflecting some methods and events of the African-American avant-garde, with its peculiar sticking to the groove of an historical continuum. (...)
The single or simultanous handling of the two instruments on Haslam’s part gets inside (or ovelaps) the nervous strain, unrelenting mostly on the ryhthmical level, built by the two other soloists, Stafano Pastor on violin and Claudio Lugo on curved soprano sax. It is within the collective improvisation of the three soloists (add the bass of Giorgio Dini working as a full-ranked and autonomous rhythm section) that takes place the ricovery of ‘dirtyness’, that is to say, of the less-than-perfect simultaneity of the performing artists, of the unclean attack of single notes; whence that impredictable richness in tone and rhythm, so peculiar to the free jazz tradition, wielded here as a radical instrument of expression.

(Erika Dagnino, from the liner notes)

Stefano Pastor (violin), George Haslam (baritone sax, tarugato), Gianni Lugo (alto sax), Giorgio Dini (double bass)

Parker - Lenoci - Curci - Magliocchi "Serving an Evolving Humanity"

“Serving an Evolving Humanity” is a suite in 3 parts, totally improvised in a concert recorded in Noci, Italy, in a summer night.
The four musicians, all well known for tghe fruitful experiences in the field of improvisation (even extreme!), meet for the first time and generate a great performance, where instruments sounds merge with the fresh air of the public square where the stage was built.
Peculiarity of the CD, the booklet contains poems by William Parker and Vittorino Curci, kindly provided by their editors, and chosen for the subject of the concert: for an evolving humanity!

Gianni Lenoci (piano, prepared piano, voice), Vittorino Curci (alto & soprano sax, voice, megaphone), Marcello Magliocchi (drums and percussions), William Parker (double bass)

Novita' ABeat For Jazz

Ars3 - Promemoria

The Ars3 trio (Grossi, Zanchi and Castiglioni) returned with their own collective intelligence, their own collective sensitivity, their own patterns, harmonies, melodies, their unrestrained curiosity, their osmosis, and that special aftertaste of melancholy savoured with those jazz musicians who do not give in to the tyranny of swing, but prefer its sound, colours, atmospheres and mood. Here they are, for the delight of music, back again with a work that involves the "rasping" voice of Gian Maria Testa and, in conclusion, the exciting - and in a way - excited voice of Sheila Jordan. A celebration of peace that is not ideological, not factious. It is instead an ontological, intellectual peace, one of feelings, peace in music, meant not as a battle hymn but as a dream-like spur. Opening with “Masters of War” by Bob Dylan and closing with “Peace” by Horace Silver. This is what makes this CD a new and different transition from pop music to great jazz something that is also difficult to define, but that is certainly an example of sophistication, sensitivity and creativity.

A.Zambrini- A.Di Biase- J.Scott - Songs from the Procol Harum book

Antonio Zambrini is esteemed one of the best italian composer. The last three recordings by Antonio Zambrini , “Quartetto”, “Due colori” and “Musica” ( all by Abeat records ) have been of great success either in critics and sales all around many countries. It’s the first time that Antonio Zambrini is recording some songs by other people’s.
To do that he choose the repertoire of Procol Harum, the band from England who, during the ‘60 and ’70 years, created some very well known songs all over the world such as “A Whiter Shade of Pale”, “Homburg”, “Salty Dog”, “Something’s following me” and many more…
Elegance of touch, accurate care of choosing notes, deep but peaceful improvisation, predilection of intimate situations, makes Antonio one of the most original pianist of the Italian scene. In this Cd Zambrini has been supported by the doublebass player Andrea Di Biase , who studied at the Guildhall School of London and by the English drummer Jon Scott. The typical italian mood of Zambrini takes more inspiration from the “British”climate of the rhithmic section.

Roberto Mattei Octet - A time remembered

A TIME REMEMBERED” is a project of extraordinary artistic force that revisits some between more celebrates compositions of Bill Evans in occasion of the thirty-year period from his disappearance, mixing two languages, that of jazz and classic music without to deprive them of their natural expressive characteristics. The formation combine traditional jazz piano trio with the addition of a guitar and a classic strings quartet. The arrangements are particularly fresh and effective. The fresh sound , the propulsive charge of the rhythmic section, contribute to giving the feeling of a work that pulls down every clichè and every element of adhesion to any style in order to give to the listeners only limpid sonorous forms. High audiophile profile.

Roberto Demo - Come se i pesci

Third work of Roberto Demo published by Abeat. His previous cds, “La porta” ( 2001) and “ Sono Un bluff ” ( 2005), have been very successful. Roberto Demo had been widely recognized by public and critics, also pointed to the top of the emerging talent at the top jazz referendum.
Roberto Demo è cantante sopraffino, with rare sensitivity, original timbre of voice, supported by a valuable sense of rhythm and a formidable jazz phrasing (… Franco D’Andrea ).
“Come se i pesci “is an enjoyable record that puts at its center, the "Italian song”, a real mix of melody, lyrics and well codified style.
Backed by an italian trio of excellent caliber and enriched by the presence of Tino Tracanna which is in contrast to the voice of Roberto Demo, thecd includes some original songs and some gems of the Italian repertoire such as “Nel cielo dei bar”, “Ragazzo fortunato” and “Rossetto e e cioccolato”, made famous
by Fred Buscaglione, Jovanotti and Ornella Vanoni.

Dulbecco-Ceccarelli-Belmondo-Bramerie - Canzoni


Since many years Abeat is publishing some appealing cds with world famous musicians. A stellar cast honors their cultures and musical traditions reinterpreting some of the most famous and significant immortal melodies of the italian and french repertoire : “Estate” by Bruno Martino, “La canzone di Marinella” by De Andrè e “Fiore di maggio” by Fabio Concato, “Tu t’laisses aller”and “Jolies momes de mon quartier” by Charles Aznavour, “What are you doing the rest of your life?” and “ You must believe in spring” by Michel Legrand, “Les feuilles mortes” by Kosma. Four musicians of immense value confirm that jazz has no boundaries. “Canzoni” is a disc of rare elegance and pleasure.

Rosario Di Rosa trio - Cabaret Voltaire

Rosario Di Rosa, one of the most creative italian reality of the last years. This new project with the double bass player Paolo Dassi and the drum player Riccardo Tosi takes its inspiration from Cabaret VOLTAIRE , the famous place, where in 1916, some intellectuals gave birth to the artistic movement called "Dada ". This becomes a pretext for un ironic reading of the today's reality that very often celebrates the superfluous and the ephemeral one. To serve as scenography to the all, the metropolitan and frantic rhythms of a great city that they become very often sonorous column of various reported histories in music. Every composition shows of it different angolature and perspectives through the use of references, cultures and worlds very distant among them as the room music, the drum'n'bass, the rock and the contemporary music. Rosario Di Rosa creates a music full of references to the past but, at the same time, he proposes a new suggestion, a strong and energetic motion of rebellion. A real work of art not only for the musical contents, Cabaret Voltaire dips the listener in a dense atmosphere of colors and tastes that postpone to the wealth of the earth of Sicily. A contemporary jazz that reassumes some typical Italian flavours and peculiarity , thanks to the talent of the rhythmic partners and the ingeniousness of the compositions.

Vittorio Mezza trio

Vittorio Mezza, is considered one of the most interesting and original pianist on the new italian jazz scene. With the help of two “supermusicians” as Massimo Moriconi and Ettore Fioravanti gave birth to a musical project of extraordinary artistic depht, great novelty both stylistic and of ideas. It’s remarkable a strong component of swing and interplay, a quality is becoming rarest.
The cd suggests some excellent original songs, some evocative themes by Petrucciani, Shorter, Monk and closes with an homage to Nirvana.

Bill Carrothers - Max De Aloe - Apnea

Max De Aloe, an ingenious and atypic musician within the italian jazz survey, regarded among the most meaningful harmonica-players in the European jazz scenery,carries out his new musical project, entitled "APNEA", involving one of the most accredited american pianists, Bill Carrothers.Two strong and leading personalities joined to create the coming shortly CD "Apnea", published by Abeat Records ( ABJZ 0072) ,in which all songs were entirely composed for this special purpose and are based on the novels of Haruki Murakami, a great japanese writer. A tribute hanging between literature and a contemporary jazz ,enriched with crosswise kinds of music ,that will surely enchant either the jazz novices and people keen on japanise literature.

Etta Cameron and Nikolaj Hess With Friends " Etta"

Etta Cameron is best known as a gospel vocalist with a contagiousenthusiasm, which can distill the ardor in any choir and lead them to rock even the smallest country church. When on the panel of one of TV’s many talent contests, lovable Etta
always gives top score to anybody exhibiting the smallest inkling of talent.
But more than anything else, Etta represents Black music.

Through a long career she has infused soul, gospel, blues and jazz tunes with her personal touch and richly dark, beautiful voice. All this experience helps shape her interpretation of this impressive string of jazz pearls.

Etta Cameron and Nikolaj Hess have worked closely together for 20 years. Nikolaj has accompanied Etta at countless venues – small and large – with large orchestras, trios and quartets, or alone behind the piano. Their mainstay is gospel, but when the
chance arises, they love playing a few jazz ballads. Often, they have rehearsed on the backseat of the car en route from one gig to the next, and that is also exactly how this album was born.

Nikolaj and Etta have often discussed recording a selection of especially beautiful tunes with the best possible line‐up. And so it came to be: Bassist Klavs Hovman and saxophonist Jens Søndergaard ‐ both regulars in Etta’s bands for years – were ready. Marilyn Mazur and Palle Mikkelborg were equally enthusiastic. And so Nikolaj started arranging for this particular line‐up. In May 2009, Etta and the musicians were ready
to visit Copenhagen’s Sun Studios and bring out the magic in tunes like “What a Wonderful World”, “Smile”, “Careless Love” and many others. The legendary sound wizard Bjarne Hansen engineered the session.

And the magic is unquestionable on this new CD, when the youthful vocalist with many years of experience behind her puts all her interpretive powers on the line. The production gives us a close‐up on Etta and her wonderful voice, as she invites us under the skin of the tunes and breathes a vibrant proximity into the lyrics. You will be astounded at the almost minimalistic framework, which enables Etta and a handful of Denmark’s leading musicians to strip each song to the bone.

Vocalists may compete for attention, but nothing beats experience, and when combined with breathtaking honesty, a sublime listening experience is right around the corner ‐ as on this CD featuring a genuine diva.

Tracklist
What A Wonderful World
Summertime
You’ve Changed
Love Me Or Leave Me
Smile
Out Of This World
Motherless Child
God Bless The Child
Careless Love
What Is This Thing Called Love
You Are My Sunshine.

Line up

Etta Cameron (vocal)
Nikolaj Hess (piano)
Palle Mikkelborg (trumpet, flygel)
Jens Søndergaard (sax, clarinet)
Klavs Hovman (bass)
Marilyn Mazur (drums, perc).

Ali Farta Toure - Toumani Diabate " Ali e Toumani"

Questa è la seconda collaborazione tra Touré and Diabaté dopo l’incredibile “In The Heart Of The Moon”, datato 2005 e può essere considerato a tutti gli effetti una sorta di testamento musicale del grande artista africano visto che si tratta delle sue ultime registrazioni fortemente volute nonostante la il notevole sofferenza causata dalla malattia. Il seguito del Grammy Award winner sopra citato ripropone le stesse magiche atmosfere di incontaminata bellezza dove ancora una volta si rinnova l’ispirata collaborazione tra i due più importanti artisti del Mali. Nonostante inizialmente la loro collaborazione fosse pianificata solo per un brano, la creatività di questi artisti non è di quelle che si possono contenere e dalle session è scaturito per nostra fortuna questo nuovo materiale che ha permesso la realizzazione di un intero album. Non ci sono state prove e le performance sono state improvvisate sulla base di un repertorio familiare ad entrambi gli artisti con un' atmosfera familiare quasi palpabile.

This self-titled album is a fitting tribute to Toure's and Diabate's genius and friendship and is a beautiful farewell.

All Music Guide

It's a simply formula but it works brillanty. One reason why it is that Diabate adds more than the dazzling cascades of notes that first catch the ear...an album of spellbinging

Uncut

So just what makes Ali & Toumani stronger and wiser than its predecessor ? Perhaps it's simply the diversity and intensity of the musical fantasia the two men create

Songlines

This is a deep, darkly beautiful work. The interplay between these two men is exceedingly rare in any type of music. Ali and Toumani is profound and powerful, with a soft

Pop Matters

"Ali and Toumani" is the seminal meeting of musical greats and the exquisite marriage of varying genres spenning continents and generations

Blues And Soul

Ali and Toumani is a document of friendship and a deeply personal statement that's intemational in scope. It's also effortlessly soulful.

Metro

It's as easy to get lost in telepathic interplay between Toure and Diabate as to let the songs wash over you in shimmering transcendent waves.

Philadelphia Inquirer.

Intoxicating and seductive tracks that we all should consider a privilege to add to our record collections

Vanity Fair

A lovely monument

Independent on Sunday

5 stars

Financial Times

This is a magnificent and poignant farewell

Guardian

It represents the last, precious testament of a hugely influential musician who helped reassert the African roots of blues guitar, captured here alongside his country leading

Independent

To quote The Small Faces, the music on this album really is "all too beautiful"

Daily Mirror

To their admirers, the union of Malian superstars Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate is comparade to Jimi Hendrix jamming with Eric Clapton

The Sun

Ali's vocals a reminder of an African great no longer with us

Evening Standard

Throughout, there is a light as a breeze quality to the music-making but also a timeless depth, a gentle profundity, it's irresistible.

New Jersey Star Ledger

To put it simply, Ali and Toumani is a quite, intimate, timeless record; a trascendent expression of cultural pride, deep friendship, and above all, breath-taking musical

Dusted Magazine

Buy without fear, then , and figure it out for yourself

The Times

When you're listening to this album it's like you're reading a book about Ali

AOL Shoutcast

These brillant, beautiful albums are the very opposite of musicianly duets; anachronous in the best possible way.

Observer

Beaufitully recorded, Ali & Toumani lives up to and perhaps exceeds expectations.

BBC Music Online

You get the feel of two of the world's greatest musicians in a room togegher, having a conversation and crating a document that will carry their legacy into the future.

Pitchfork

Catch it in the night mood and you'll fall blissfully in love

Dazed and Confused.

The pair's obvious.communication produces some of the richest music in Mali in these albums.

Arts Desk

Another mesmeric tribute to Ali's legacy

Observer Music Monthly

The 11 tracks weave a binding spell

Q Magazine

While the younger man's kora solos still dazzle, what Toure is doing in the other speakers is never less than mesmeric, his riffs and curlicues suggesting a wide smile across his...

Mojo

Discografia Ali Farka Toure

WC 007 ALI FARKA TOURE Same
WC 017 ALI FARKA TOURE The River
WC 030 ALI FARKA TOURE The Source
WC 040 RY COODER WITH ALI FARKA TOURE Talking Timbuktu
WC 044 ALI FARKA TOURE Radio Mali
WC 053 AFEL BOCOUM & ALI FARKA TOURE Alkibar
WC 054 ALI FARKA TOURE Niafunke
WC 070 ALI FARKA TOURE Red & Green
WC 075 ALI FARKA TOURE Savane

Discografia Ali Farka Toure e Toumani Diabate

WC 072 ALI FARKA TOURE & TOUMANI DIABATE' In The Heart Of The Moon
WC 083 ALI FARKA TOURE & TOUMANI DIABATE Ali And Toumani

Discografia Toumani Diabate

WC 074 TOUMANI DIABATE'S SYMMETRIC ORCHES. Boulevard De Indipendence
WC 079 TOUMANI DIABATE The Mandè Variations

ALI FARKA TOURE: 1939 - 2006

Ali Farka Touré was born in 1939 in the village of Kanau on the banks of the River Niger in the north west of Mali. He was his mother's tenth son but the first to survive infancy. '' I lost nine brothers of the same mother and father. The name I was given was Ali Ibrahim, but it's a custom in Africa to give a child a strange nickname if you have had other children that have died.'' The nickname they chose for Ali was 'Farka' meaning donkey, an animal admired for its strength and tenacity. ''But let me make one thing clear'' he said, ''I'm the donkey that nobody climbs on!''

When Ali was still an infant his father died while serving in the French army, and the family moved south along the river to Niafunké, the village Ali called home for the rest of his life.

With a population of over twenty thousand, Niafunké is one of the larger villages which scatter this sparse, arid semi-desert region. The fact that they have only recently installed telephone lines and electricity contributes to the tranquil atmosphere and there is always the cooling breeze from the river. People make their living by farming, cattle herding and fishing.

Ali was Niafunké's most famous citizen. Although internationally known as a musician he regarded himself as a farmer. In Mali, music is largely the monopoly of castes of hereditary musicians, but Ali came from a noble background. There is no tradition of music in his family, but he had a calling early on in life, becoming he said "drawn to music by its power". He was a 'child of the river'.

In Niafunké, as in the most of Mali, the dominant religion is Islam and Ali was a devout Muslim. But in this part of the world Islam co-exists with a much older indigenous belief system connected with the mysterious power of the Niger. It is believed that under the water there is a world of spirits called Ghimbala - male and female djinns with their own character, history, symbolic colours and ritual objects, all vividly portrayed in the local mythology. These djinns control both the spiritual and temporal world. Those who have the gift to communicate with the spirits are called 'children of the river'.

Ali had no formal schooling and his childhood was taken up by farming, followed by an apprenticeship as a tailor. But he was also mesmerised by the music played at Ghimbala spirit ceremonies in the villages along the banks of the Niger. He would sit and listen in awe as musicians sang and played the favoured instruments of the spirits; djerkel single string guitar, njarka single string violin and ngoni four string lute. His family did not regard music as a worthy occupation and the boy's interest was not encouraged. He was, however, a fiercely independent and self-determined youth and at the age of twelve he fashioned his first instrument, a djerkel guitar.

Ali found it very easy and natural to learn to play. Early on however he suffered attacks caused by his contact with the spirit world. He was sent away to a neighbouring village to be cured, and when he returned a year later he quickly became recognised for his power to communicate with the spirits. Ali was greatly influenced by his grandmother Kounandi Samba who was famous in the area as a priestess of the Ghimbala. But after her death, he was dissuaded from becoming a priest. ''Because of Islam, I don't want to practise this type of thing too much.....these spirits can be good to you or bad, so I just sing about them, but it's our culture, we can't pass it by.'' Many of his songs are about the spirits and he always travelled with his njarka violin as well as recordings of spirit music which he listened to whenever possible.

As a teenager Ali found work as a taxi driver and car mechanic and he also spent some time as a river ambulance pilot. He travelled widely in these jobs and continued to play music in ceremonies and for pleasure, with small groups and as accompanist to singers. By his early twenties he had learnt seven Malian languages fluently and had mastered the ngoni (traditional four string lute), njarka vioin and Peul bamboo flute. He was also well on his way to absorbing a vast repertoire of music and legend from the various masters he encountered on his travels.

'' I got to know music and to love it through so many heroes who passed on and who continue to live on the earth, because history remains. So it gave me the opportunity to get to know the culture of this music, its biography, legends and history.''

Ali was Sonraï, a people who form the majority of the population of Niafunké, but there are also many other peoples in the region speaking numerous languages - Peul, Bambara, Dogon, Songoy, Zarma, Bobo, Bozo and Tamascheq, the language of the Touareg. Touré sang in all these languages but the majority of his repertoire was in Sonraï and Peul.

In 1956 during his travels Ali saw a performance by the National Ballet of Guinea featuring the great Malinke guitarist Keita Fodeba. ''That's when I swore I would become a guitarist, I didn't know his guitar but I liked it a lot. I felt I had as much music as him and that I could translate it.'' He began to play using borrowed guitars and found it easy to translate his traditional guitar technique to the Western instrument. He said that his only problem was in keeping all six strings happy by touching them as he was used to only playing the monochord. At about the same time, he added percussion, drums (he made his own kit complete with cymbals and bass drum) and accordion to his musical skills (even making a few appearances performing Charles Aznavour repertoire!).

Upon Mali gaining independence from the French in 1960 the new government under President Modibo Keita initiated a policy to promote the arts and cultural troupes were formed to represent each of Mali's six administrative regions. From 1962 Ali worked with the Niafunké district troupe, which he co-led with Harbarie Labéré. He composed, sang, played guitar and rehearsed singers and dancers in a troupe numbering a hundred and seventeen people. He was extremely proud of the troupe which was successful in the biannual competitions held in Mopti throughout the 1960's. Ali also won numerous athletic prizes. ''I did this so my village wouldn't win zero. I'm very patriotic!'' In the sixties he also accompanied various singers and he had his own small group, a recording of which from the late 1960s includes a song sung in Sonraï to a Cuban salsa rhythm.

In 1968 (the year Modibo Keita was ousted in a coup by Moussa Traore) Ali made his first trip outside Africa when he was selected (along with the revered musicians Kelitigui Diabaté and Djelimady Tounkara) to represent Mali at an international festival of the arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. They performed arrangements of traditional music with Ali on guitar, flute, djerkel and njarka. It was in Sofia on 21st April 1968 that he bought his first guitar.

Also in 1968 a student friend in Bamako played him records by James Brown, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Jimmy Smith and Albert King. Ali remained a great fan of all these, partly he said because he heard so much of his own traditions in them. Of all this music, the one which struck him as most similar to his own, was the blues especially as performed by John Lee Hooker. He was immediately struck by the thought that "this music has been taken from here" and was surprised to hear singing in English.

In 1970 Ali's work took him from Niafunké to Mopti and later in the year to the capital Bamako. Here he began a decade working for National Radio Mali as a sound engineer. He also played as part of Radio Mali's orchestra until it was disbanded in 1973. Throughout the 1970's he brought his unique guitar style to the attention of the country via many radio broadcasts. On the advice of a journalist friend he sent a number of recordings of these broadcasts to the Son Afric record company in Paris.

In a matter of months the first Ali Farka Touré album (amongst the very first commercial records of Malian music) featuring Ali on guitar and vocals and Nassourou Sarre on ngoni was released. He continued to record in Bamako and send the tapes to Paris and a total of seven albums were released. Selections from the first five of these albums have been released by World Circuit as the CD 'Radio Mali'.

Throughout the 1970's Ali established a formidable reputation in Mali as a unique solo artist. He pioneered and perfected the adaptation of Sonraï, Peul and Tamascheq styles to the guitar. He remained uncompromisingly wedded to his traditional music, refusing to ''go commercial''. His songs celebrate love, friendship, peace, the land, the spirits, the river and Malian unity; all expressed in dense metaphors.

In 1986 one of his Radio Mali recorded albums (re-released on World Circuit as part of Red and Green in 2004), started to generate great interest amongst radio d.j.'s in London including Andy Kershaw and Charlie Gillett. It also came to the attention of Folk Roots magazine; with no information on the record sleeve the journal puzzled over this African musician who played the blues in such an individual way.

Anne Hunt from World Circuit travelled to Bamako to seek out this mysterious man. With the help of Toumani Diabate a broadcast was made on Radio Mali asking Ali to present himself. Ali had moved back to Niafunké four years earlier but at the time of the broadcast was visiting the capital. An invitation was made for Ali to perform in the U.K. and in 1987 for the first time since the Sofia Festival in 1968, Touré he played his first concerts outside Africa. Showing no signs of nerves or unfamiliarity with his surroundings, and with absolute and supreme confidence in his music, he played a masterful series of shows winning audiences everywhere. In the same year his first recording outside Africa was an instant success for the World Circuit label.

Since then he has undertaken extensive tours of Europe, U.S.A, Canada, Brazil and Japan and has recorded a further five albums for the label, including 'The River', 'The Source', and the GRAMMY Award winning 'Talking Timbuktu', a collaboration with Ry Cooder which served to confirm Ali's status as an artist of international repute.

Despite his amazing international success, Ali became increasingly reluctant to leave his farm in Niafunké. World Circuit's Nick Gold decided that the only way the make another record with him was to bring the studio to Niafunké. The studio was set up in an abandoned agricultural school, and the recording had to be fitted in between tending the land, with the crops always coming first. The resulting album 'Niafunké' was released in 1999.

After that, Ali returned to what he saw as his main role in life, looking after his farm and being with his family. Ali was actively involved with ongoing irrigation projects to better the agricultural situation in the Niafunké region and this culminated in his election in 2004 as Mayor of Niafunké.

Although choosing to retire from music as his full time career, and rarely playing live, Ali stated that should he feel suitably inspired, or have an issue that needs to be addressed he would record again. In 2003, he participated in the documentary 'Feel Like Going Home'. Directed by Martin Scorsese, the film traces the history of the blues from the banks of the Niger to the Mississippi Delta, and would bring Ali to an even wider audience. Ali had also been researching his local music and culture, with the aim of preserving it for future generations, and this had inspired him to play and record again. In 2004 after turning down endless lucrative offers to perform, Ali accepted an invitation to play at the tiny Privas festival in France for no fee. Ali began 2005 with his first major concert in Europe for five years, his show at the BOZAR in Brussels, which featured a guest appearance from Toumani Diabaté, was greeted with frenzied excitement from fans and press alike.

In 2005 the first of a trilogy of albums recorded at Bamako's Hotel Mandé was released. 'In the Heart of the Moon' a duet album with Toumani Diabaté won a GRAMMY award making Ali the only African to have received two such prestigious honours. Shortly following the album's release Ali played a series of brilliant European concerts with his unique down-home ngoni band featured on his new album, 'Savane' the third in the Hotel Mandé series. Toumani accompanied Ali on those live dates, prior to which they spent 3 days in a London studio recording the follow up to 'In the Heart of the Moon'. Featuring contributions from Orlando 'Cachaíto' López on bass, the album 'Ali and Toumani' is released in February 2010.

Sadly, Ali would not see the release of 'Savane'. Just a few weeks after winning his second GRAMMY and approving the album's final master, Ali succumbed to the bone cancer with which he had suffered from for the preceding two years. He died in Bamako on March 7th 2006 and was buried in Niafunké.

In Mali, Ali was accorded a posthumous Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Mali (the country's highest honour) and a state funeral attended by all the country's senior politicians and major music stars as well as thousands of ordinary people. The worldwide media coverage of his death was unprecedented for an African musician and messages poured in from fans around the world. All this for a musician who considered himself first and foremost a farmer.

Ali Farka Touré was a true original. An exceptional musician, he transposed the traditional music of his native north Mali and single-handedly brought the style known as desert blues to an international audience. He was a giant of African music and will be missed by fans throughout the world.


Original text by Lucy Duran
(updated by Nick Gold & Dave McGuire)

TOUMANI DIABATE

Toumani Diabaté is one of the most important musicians in Africa. Toumani plays the kora, a harp unique to West Africa with 21 strings; and more than any other kora player it is Toumani who is responsible for bringing this instrument to audiences around the world. He is a performer of truly exceptional virtuosity and creativity - someone who shows that the kora can rival the world's greatest instruments.

Toumani was born in Bamako, the capital of Mali, in 1965 into a family of exceptional griots (hereditary musician/historian caste); his research shows 71 generations of kora players from father to son. The most notable was his father, Sidiki Diabaté (c. 1922-96), a kora player of legendary fame in West Africa - dubbed King of the Kora at the prestigious international Black Arts Festival Festac in 1977, and a continuing inspiration to all kora players to this day. Sidiki was born in the Gambia of Malian parents. He settled in Mali after the second world war, where he became famous for his virtuoso "hot" and idiosyncratic style of playing (echoes of which can be heard in Toumani's style). After Mali became independent in 1960, Sidiki was invited to join the Ensemble National Instrumental - a government sponsored group formed to celebrate the richness of Malian culture - along with his first wife, Toumani's mother, the singer Nene Koita. Sidiki and Nene were much favoured by the first president, Modibo Keita - who gave them the land on which the family house now stands, underneath the presidential palace in Bamako.

This was the musical environment in which Toumani was raised - though in fact, he was self-taught, never learning directly from his father except by listening. In the 1960s, and more so the 70s, the Bamako music scene was being influenced by sounds from further afield, especially black American music: soul music was particularly popular as was Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Smith, and British rock acts such as Led Zeppelin. Exposure to these sounds, and Bamako's modern ensembles, would both be important to Toumani's musical development.

A child prodigy, Toumani began playing the kora at the age of five, and at that time, the Malian Government was engaged in an active programme of encouraging regional ensembles to represent local traditions. Toumani was recruited to the ensemble from Koulikoro (some 60 kms east of Bamako) with whom he made his public debut at the age of 13 to great local acclaim. In 1984 Toumani joined the group of brilliant young musicians who accompanied the great diva Kandia Kouyate, the best known and most powerful female griot singer in Mali, with whom he toured Africa extensively, still only 19 years old.

Although not learning directly from his father Toumani took from him the idea of developing the kora as a solo instrument, and then took it to another level. Toumani discovered a way to play bass, rhythm and solo all at the same time on the kora, a method which would take him to the world stage. Toumani first came to the Europe in 1986 to accompany another Malian singer, Ousmane Sacko, and ended up staying in London for seven months. During this period, at the age of 21, he recorded his first solo album 'Kaira'. This was a groundbreaking album - it was the first ever solo kora album and it still remains a best seller and one of the finest albums of kora music to date. In 1986 Toumani also made his first appearance at a WOMAD festival at which he made a significant impact.

During this period in the UK he met and worked informally with musicians from many different fields of music and encountered traditions that he had not previously known, such as Indian classical music, from which he derived the "jugalbandi" idea (musical dialogue between two instruments) that has since become one of his trademarks.

His first major recorded collaboration was with the Spanish flamenco group Ketama. When he first met them they immediately began doing "palmas" (interlocked flamenco clapping) to his music. Toumani couldn't believe that that they could have such an understanding of the rhythmic complexities of his music; it was as if they had always been listening to each other's traditions. The resulting album 'Songhai', with pieces like Jarabi, was a perfect synthesis of kora and flamenco.

For Toumani experimentation is simply part of the job of a modern griot, "The griot's role is making communication between people, but not just historical communication. In Mali I can work in the traditional way, elsewhere I can work in a different way. Why not?" In 1990 Toumani formed the Symmetric Orchestra. For Toumani the name evokes a perfect balance - a symmetry - between tradition and modernity, and between the contributions of musicians from a number of closely related countries. Senegal, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Mali itself, were all part of the medieval Mandé Empire. Toumani had the idea of recreating the cultural equilibrium of the Mandé Empire in a modern musical context - offsetting traditional and electric guitars with hard-edged sabar drumming; praise-singing and lute-riffing alongside pounding kit drums, with Toumani's own rippling kora phrases through it all. The orchestra name was first used on CD with the elaborate 1992 project, 'Shake The Whole World', released only in Japan and Mali. Maintaining a weekly residence at the Hogon in Bamako throughout Toumani's career, the group continued to evolve and grow over the years culminating in the release of the acclaimed album 'Boulevard de l'Indépendance' in 2005, and the extensive international touring that followed.

In the early-mid 1990s, in Bamako, Toumani began to gather around him a number of exceptionally talented musicians such as the brilliant Bassekou Kouyate on the ngoni, and Keletigui Diabaté on balafon, cultivating a certain sound and approach to his music -with a type of jazz-jugalbandi-griot instrumental ensemble which can be heard on his album 'Djelika' (as in the piece Kandjoura) released in 1995. In the same year Toumani travelled to Madrid to record 'Songhai 2'.

In 1998 he recorded a kora duet album with Ballake Sissoko; their two fathers released the 1970s classic Cordes Anciennes (Ancient Strings), so the new album was called 'New Ancient Strings', it was their tribute to the original record and an attempt at bringing such material to a modern audience.

The connections between the blues and West African music are well known. Taj Mahal had listened to, and played with, many great kora players, and what most struck him as bearing an uncanny resemblance with the blues was the plucking techniques of the kora and other Malian string instruments. "They say that blues and jazz came from Africa" says Toumani." "The kora and ngoni, they're very old, many centuries old. So maybe the blues were once being played on these instruments. Making the album with Taj is like bringing the old and new together." The album 'Kulanjan' was released in 1999.

Constantly looking to evolve and innovate, Toumani's next album 'MALIcool' with American free jazz trombonist Roswell Rudd saw him take another step out on the edge. The arrangements on this album are sparse, leaving everybody room to improvise, and there are a few unexpected pieces such as an interpretation of Thelonius Monk's 'Hank', a swinging version of a Welsh folk song, and a leftfield take on Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'.

Toumani has participated in many other recording projects both at home and abroad: he appears on Ali Farka Touré's eponymous debut album for World Circuit; he toured with Salif Keita and appears on both his acclaimed album "Papa" and his latest release 'Mbemba'; he was part of Damon Albarn's 'Mali Music' project; he is featured on Kasse Mady Diabaté's 2004 Grammy nominated album "Kassi Kasse", and in 2007 he featured on the track 'Hope' on Björk's album 'Volta' leading to an inspired guest appearance on her set at the Glastonbury Festival.

In recent years Toumani has been enjoying recognition for his contribution to the development of the kora, and as a key figure in African music. In 2004 he received the Zyriab des Virtuoses, a UNESCO prize awarded at the Mawazine Festival organised by King Mohammed 6th of Morocco. He is the first black African ever to be given the prize. Toumani is an active and dynamic member of the Malian musical community, and influential to the new generation. He has been taking steps to help preserve the legacy of traditional kora music in Mali, and to educate future generations of their rich musical heritage, whilst encouraging them to also explore the creative possibilities within music. He is President/Director of Mandinka Kora Productions, who actively promote the kora through workshops, festivals, and various cultural events. Toumani is also a teacher of the kora and of modern and traditional music at the Balla Fasseke Conservatoire of Arts, Culture and Multimedia, which opened in Bamako at the end of 2004.

2004 also saw Toumani begin working with World Circuit for a trilogy of albums recorded at sessions in the Mandé Hotel in Bamako. The first release from these sessions was the duets album 'In the Heart of the Moon' recorded with the great Ali Farka Touré, which won the Best Traditional World Music Album GRAMMY Award. Second in the trilogy was 'Boulevard de l'Indépendance' by Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra, packing the fruit of ten years of experimentation into some of the densest, punchiest, most richly textured music to have come out Africa (the third part being Ali's final solo album 'Savane'). Toumani accompanied Ali on his last concert tour in the summer of 2005 during which they spent 3 days in a London studio recording the follow up to 'In the Heart of the Moon'. Featuring contributions from Orlando 'Cachaíto' López on bass, 'Ali and Toumani' further demonstrates the magic bond between the two masters, the album sees its long awaited release in February 2010.

The Symmetric Orchestra proved to be a revelation on the international touring scene. Taking time out from their weekly residency at Bamako's Hogon club (recently moved to Le Diplomat), the band have been building a reputation for themselves at their own headline concerts at venues such as New York's Carnegie Hall, and festival appearances such as Glastonbury, Nice Jazz Festival, and Montreal Jazz Festival.

In addition to this hive of activity, Toumani was also busy working on his new album 'The Mandé Variations', released in February 2008. Having spent years refining and perfecting his technique to an unparalleled level Toumani's career comes full circle. 'The Mandé Variations' is all-acoustic, Toumani's first album of solo kora since his groundbreaking debut album 'Kaira' released over twenty years ago.

Both the album and subsequent solo recitals were met with universal critical acclaim, with the return to a more intimate setting also proving extremely popular with the listening public. Toumani would also go on to perform a special concert with the London Symphony Orchestra which may prompt further explorations in classical music; and the year came to an exciting end with Toumani being nominated for another GRAMMY Award and an NAACP Image Award for 'The Mandé Variations'. Toumani was appointed UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador in December 2008, using his music to spread awareness on HIV and AIDS, and he has already participated in various outreach projects in Mali.

Following the release of the album 'Ali and Toumani', Toumani Diabaté and his band will play his interpretations of the music of Ali Farka Touré in a series of special concerts starting in April 2010.

Throughout Toumani's career, each of the albums he has released are distinctly unique and highlight his diversity as a musician. This is indeed what Toumani is so good at - bringing together the old and new in timeless beautiful music, the very best that Africa has.

Based on original text by Lucy Duran;
adaptation and additional text by Dave McGuire