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.
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
Matthew Shipp’s new solo piano CD, "4D" is the complete synthesis and culmination of all of his past Thirsty Ear releases, with the added wrinkle of standards reinterpreted as only he could muster, while combining his own brand of composition to the mix. His musical language, having been as refined, and mutated as has his career, (notably alongside Thirst Ear’s own genre defying sensibilities.) continues to grow at exponential rates, allowing Mr. Shipp to fully explore the hidden aspects of jazz.
Matthew Shipp was born December 7, 1960 in Wilmington, Delaware. He started piano at 5 years old with the regular piano lessons most kids have experienced. He fell in love with jazz at 12 years old. After moving to New York in 1984 he quickly became one of the leading lights in the New York jazz scene. He was a sideman in the David S. Ware quartet and also for Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory before making the decision to concentrate on his own music.
Mr Shipp has reached the holy grail of jazz in that he possesses a unique style on his instrument that is all of his own- and he’s one of the few in jazz that can say so. Mr. Shipp has recorded a lot of albums with many labels but his 2 most enduring relationships have been with two labels. In the 1990s he recorded a number of chamber jazz cds with Hatology, a group of cds that charted a new course for jazz that, to this day, the jazz world has not realized. In the 2000s Mr Shipp has been curator and director of the label Thirsty Ear’s “Blue Series” and has also recorded for them. In this collection of recordings he has generated a whole body of work that is visionary, far reaching and many faceted .
Matthew Shipp is truly one of the leading lights of a new generation of jazz giants.
Rassegna Stampa Internazionale su 4D
Every aspect of music making sets off a calculation, in real time, for Matthew Shipp. “4D” (Thirsty Ear), due out on Tuesday, is his new solo piano release, described by its maker as an artistic culmination. (Mr. Shipp has also called it his last album, but he has said that before.)
With a track listing that puts “Prelude to a Kiss” alongside original themes like “Dark Matter” and “Equilibrium,” the album refutes hierarchy; every theme is subject to revision or recontextualization. (“Primal Harmonic,” Mr. Shipp’s oblique nod to Alice Coltrane, comes bracketed by stern readings of “Greensleeves” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”) The atmosphere is somber, thick, a little messy. But in the percussive nub and tangled undergrowth of his playing, and in his penchant for provocation, Mr. Shipp is finding success on his own terms.
Shipp's initial inspiration was Bud Powell, who to a great extent is the underpinning of his music. The unfettered approach of the formidable technician and free adventurer Cecil Taylor is a potent strain in Shipp's work, but no matter how far out he goes, Shipp's sense of chord and line movement puts him closer to Powell than Taylor ever was.
That is evident throughout the solo album 4D, nowhere more emphatically than in the roiling forward movement and occasional bebop phraseology of “Equilibrium," which also has hints of Thelonious Monk and Earl Hines. In its opening bars, “Teleportation" bows even lower in Powell's direction.
Throughout the album, Shipp glimpses other presences; John Coltrane in “Dark Matter" and “Stairs," Taylor in “Jazz Paradox," Ellington in “Prelude to a Kiss." But to dwell on evidence of his influences is to ignore Shipp's originality, which is bolstered by redoubtable technique. He sometimes holds his keyboard prowess in reserve, but when he unleashes it, as he does in a joyful “What is This Thing Called Love," it can be dazzling.
In addition to the two standards named above and his compositions (or spontaneous creations; it's difficult to be certain), Shipp applies his daring, ferocity and wit to “Autumn Leaves," “Greensleeves," “What a Friend We Have in Jesus" and “Frere Jacques." “Frere Jacques?" Yes. Shipp proves that it is possible to operate out there on the edge without losing sight of the fundamentals.
Jazz pianist, composer, and producer Matthew Shipp has been through many phases in his long career. Since he began his association with Thirsty Ear, he has curated its Blue Series. Through this endeavor, Shipp has not only stretched the definitions of jazz, but also exponentially advanced his own ideas about it conceptually and technically.
4D is divided roughly into halves: one is a series of original compositions; the other interpretations of standards and folk songs.
It sums up his musical sense, but more importantly, points to new horizons. The strident physicality of his early recordings has given way to a (somewhat more) nuanced touch and fluidity that relies heavily on counterpoint, expansive harmonics, and spaciousness. Dissonance still plays a necessary role in this work as it is heard in both aspects of the album, but it is heightened by a wonderfully complex lyricism that is now predominant.
The Monk-ish intro in “The Crack in the Piano’s Egg” offers a starting point for both harmonic investigation of theme, and a tonal pronouncement of rhythm and its relationship to his subtly expressed lyricism. He places large minor chords in the lower-middle register to push at the tune's time, contrasted by his quoting of Monk and Ellington with his right hand; then improvising with both.
The brief “Equilibrium” reveals classical notions of counterpoint and its relationship to the jazz tradition. “Teleportation” is an angular post-bop tune that nearly swings even in its labyrinthine dissonance and sophisticated technical facility.
In “You Don’t Know What Love Is” and “Prelude to a Kiss,” Shipp allows the original melodies to fully inhabit his improvisations -- especially in the left hand -- even as his movement of the tunes' architectures expands their margins with an elegant --if dissonant -- harmonic extrapolation. “Frere Jacques” becomes equal parts Bartók and a musical form of French rondelet, with startlingly forceful lower-register improvisation employed as a bridge.
A mysterious improvisation called “Primal Harmonic” (touching on Bach and Art Tatum) introduces an angular, yet lovely “Greensleeves” to close out this marvelous program. On 4D, Shipp nods to history with depth perception and articulates his new direction gracefully.
"The pianist digs deep, often bringing a molten motion to his work -- it's thick with ideas. On the upcoming 4d,you can hear this deliberate approach unfold; every left hand depth charge and right hand squiggle justifies their existence." -- Village Voice
The always searching vanguard pianist Matthew Shipp goes it alone on "4D" (Thirsty Ear, in stores Tuesday), offering an inventive and remarkably concentrated set of solo performances. Shipp has always connected the dots between the avant-garde and the maverick spirit of Thelonious Monk and others, but there is a special majesty and clarity in the synthesis here.
Working through a program of epigrammatic originals -- along with a few idiosyncratic readings of standards like "Autumn Leaves" and "Prelude to a Kiss" -- Shipp spins out discursive improvisations, balancing skittering and jabbing rhythms with stream-of-consciousness melody. Some pieces sway, some swoosh, some swing, some sigh. And the lyrical chords that open "Stairs" reach for the sublime.
"4D is a striking array of old and new allegories right and left with pianistics solely for the satisfaction immersion.It is flatly stunning." -- Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz blog
For a while around the turn of the millennium, avant-jazz pianist Matthew Shipp threatened to stop recording. One could understand why: he’s prolific beyond belief, and one could understand that an artist in the ‘out jazz’ realm might be fearful that an overly compendious catalog might be harmful to sales and recouping recording costs. Happily for those of us who wanted MORE from Matthew, he decided not to stay away from the studio, and has continued to record prolifically.
Shipp has also served as the curator of Thirsty Ear’s Blue Series, an imprint that has served to blur the boundaries of free and neo-trad jazz, and of jazz with other stylistic categories: electronica, hip hop, and even contemporary concert music. On his latest release, 4D, he’s continued in this vein. A solo outing, it presents both Shipp originals and standards. He even tackles venerable chestnuts such as “Prelude to a Kiss” and “Autumn Leaves,” as well as the gospel hymn “What a Friend we have in Jesus.”
"Shipp's playing is like some kind of inverted, dark-matter version of whatever you think a jazz pianist is going to sound like."
"The shape of the lines,the concept of melody,follows a strange original logic that is a tonic for so much else that deadens the ear." --Seattle Weekly
Drummer and composer Matt Wilson describes his eighth record as a leader on Palmetto Records, That’s Gonna Leave a Mark, in terms of honesty and family. The first album by Wilson’s Quartet since 2003’s Humidity, Wilson views it as “getting a chance to have this great band record again!” Alongside Wilson, alto saxophonist D’Angelo, tenor saxophonist Jeff Lederer and bassist Chris Lightcap are all in fine form. All the members of the Quartet have played together since the late 1990s, though this marks Lightcap’s first recorded appearance with the group.
The intimate bond between all the musicians is palpable on the album. Recorded by Matt Balitsaris at Maggie’s Farm, with the band all in the same room, That’s Gonna Leave a Mark has a live and energetic sound. The air moving between instrument and microphone, and the sensation of musicians playing into the room and to each other, gives the tunes added momentum. “I think it really captures us as close to being live as you can be. You really get to smell, taste and see the sound that way. You feel it coming in your ears from the instrument, rather than the little speakers on your ears. I think it really helps with the dimensions of the sound, how people can react to the sound other than just through their ears. Like on a gig, you experience it totally differently. The decision to do that was really great and I’m so glad we did it.” Many of the tunes are first or second take, with no edits. Shouts of encouragement and enjoyment are audible throughout the record – almost as though the listener were a guest on the control room couch of Maggie’s Farm.
The album contains a wide spectrum of repertoire, with originals by all of the members. “To have everybody else contribute a song too, that makes it more special,” Wilson opines.
“I think it’s much like the player, they have distinct personalities, and we blend together, but you can always tell the personality. That’s the way the tunes work together too.”
Matt Wilson drums Andrew D'Angelo alto sax, bass clarinet Jeff Lederer tenor and soprano sax, clarinet Chris Lightcap bass The Swayettes vocals, track 11 The Wilson Family Singers vocals, track 11
Martial Solal is a nuclear physicist of the piano. He tinkers with the subatomic structure of compositions, moving elements around, pulling them apart, and smashing them together in ways that both surprise and delight. Solal was born Algiers in 1927, settling in Paris in 1950 where he worked with Django Reinhardt and American expatriates Sidney Bechet and Don Byas. He has maintained an impressive creative profile for the past 50 years that involves solo, small group, and big band formats. Solal has also been a successful movie soundtrack composer, producing music for Les Acteurs (2000) and Ballade a blanc (1983). Now in his 80s, his performances take on the aire of a grand event. As such, it is fitting that his October 12, 2007 solo appearance at New York City's Village Vanguard was captured and released as Live at the Village Vanguard: I Can't Give You Anything But Love. His previous live recording at the Vanguard, NY1: Live at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 2003) was met with much adulation as was the show that generated it in the wake of September 11, 2001.
Relaxed and amiable, Solal banters with the crowd in his French-accented English, explaining that they both must be good as he is making a live recording. He then proceeds to stroll through a recital of seven standards are two original compositions in what can only be described as in a very post-modern, deconstructionist manner. His command of the material is paradoxically dense and atomized with playing that betrays a knowledge of all styles of jazz piano, which he picks and chooses to employ at his creative whim. That "whim" is very informed. "On Green Dolphin Street?" he turns the familiar melody inside out, re- harmonizing and redefining the piece well beyond its early 20th Century origins.
Solal transforms the interrogative "Lover Man" into a declarative statement of fact and strains the brains of Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight" through modernity's defining sieve, exposing all of the soft underparts Monk didn't. Solal extends the language of Monk further than any other pianist. His two original compositions, "Centre De Gravite" and "Ramage" are no less compelling, acting as an extension of Solal's artistic command. Live at the Village Vanguard: I Can't Give You Anything But Love is as perfect a jazz recording as we could hope for. Few giants remain, so let us honor Martial Solal
All About Jazz
"Mr Solal returns to the Vanguard without a bassist or a drummer, becoming only the second pianist to headline a week at the club as a solo act. It will be an occasion not just for admirs but also for new converts. And as far as pianism goes, it will probably stand as one of the jazz events of the year"
New York Time
The Pianist Mortial Solal opened his week at the Village Vanguard on Tuesday night by rolling through tunes that jazz musicians have been amusing and sharpening themeselves with for 50 years or more... One of the world's most imposing jazz musicians - being 80 has not dimmed his agility or his imagination - he interpreted easch passing moment of the songs as a provocation : spinning out a quick cycle of chords from just one, or interrupting the shape of a melody to add on a whole new structure, invented at breathtakin speed... "
New York Time
Martial Solal's early set at the Village Vanguard tonight was as exuberant as expected. The ghost of Tatum was riding high, as the French pianist, celebrating his 80th brithday with only his third appearance in New York city in the past 44 years, mad-dashed through a dozen or so standards in ways that no one has ever heard them, carving up the scores like a cubist ( more braque than Picasso, with shards of Duchamp tassed in for wit ), stretching and squeezing bars, yet somehow sustaining the tempo and the melody with tenuous but seamless aplomb. His music might be a mere virtuosic lark, were it not for his harmonies - brooding, bristling, caramel-rich chords, clusters of them, alternately embellishing, paring down, or playing against the conventional changes. The Vanguard was as packed as I've ever seen it on a weeknight..."
Stereophile
It was appropriate that Mr Solal chose "Here's That Rainy Days" as his third number : As 9 p.m. approached during his opening set on Tuesday, the Vanguard was packed to the walls with clods like myself, who, in our unrestrained zeal to catch Mr Solal in a rare New York appearance, neglected to bring our Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The Room was so full that no one apart from Mr Solal Himself and a few slim waitresses could even move.... a great quality of some of the best musicians in that you can hear the whole history of the music in their playing, and while that's certainly true of Martial Solal, what's even more remarkable is that you can get a sense of the future of the jazz piano as well, and it's hard to image a brighter one"
The New Yorker Sun
To label Martial Solal the greates European Jazz pianist does him disservice, the cognoscenti know he's the world champ. The Algerian native, who moved to Paris when he was twenty-two, celebrates his eighteth birthday here, presenting his staggering virtuosity and proudly idioisyncratic style in a week of solo performances. A live reconding is promised, but you'll be pleased to tell your grandchildren you witnessed the Master in Action
"I always heard about a musical encounter between Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis, which unfortunately never occurred. Likewise, I always wondered what may have resulted, happened, emerged, if it had really occured. Regrettably, due to the premature death of Hendrix, this meeting never took place. So, fascinated by these two musical icons and always having been intolerant of musical barriers, I decided to undertake a kind of imaginary journey around this "encounter" on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of Jimi Hendrix death, by creating and arranging an alternation of my compositions with those of Hendrix and Davis. For me, this project represented not only a way of satisying my great curiosity about music on a full scale, but also a different, alternative way of understanding the immense universe of Jazz, a musical genre that still retains that magic of continually metamorphosing its great wealth." Giovanni Falzone
Trumpeter and composer Giovanni Falzone began playing the trumpet at the Municipal Band School of Music in Aragona, at the age of 17. He then enrolled in the V. Bellini Conservatory in Palermo, where he graduated in a short period of time under the tutelage of G. Ciavarello. In addition, he graduated, with the highest honors, from the Jazz Studies Program (arranging, historical-formal analysis, and improvisation) at the G. Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He won first prize as "Best Talent at Umbria Jazz, 2000", earning a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music, in Boston. He also participated as a soloist in a workshop/concert held by Wynton Marsalis at the Morlacchi Theater in Perugia, and in a modern-jazz seminar held by saxophonist Dave Liebman.
Rita Marcotulli was born in Rome in 1959. She studied the piano from a very early age at the Santa Cecilia Academy. At first attracted to Brazilian music she turned towards Jazz at twenty… with great success. Her career got of to a flying start. Right from the start of the 1980s she had the chance to play with the cream of European jazz: Chet Baker, John Christensen, Palle Danielsson, Peter Erskine, Steve Grossman, Joe Henderson, Hélène La Barrière, Joe Lovano, Charlie Mariano, Tony Oxley, Michel Portal, Enrico Rava, Michel Bénita, Aldo Romano, Kenny Wheeler... Her intimate playing, of a great deepness, and her subtle arrangements that emphasise a note and amplify its emotional charge, allowed her to make many encounters, particularly with other arts, such as cinema, which she has done a lot of composing for: “My music was obviously influenced by the work of a number of great artists: Thelonius Monk, Elis Regina, Bill Evans, John Coltrane, just to cite a few. But above the world of sound, it has been influenced by so many other experiences, artistic, literary, visual and naturally cinematographic. In particular, I’ve always felt a great affinity between the poetic world that I try to express and that of one of the sharpest film-directors of all time, François Truffaut. Nostalgia for childhood, a vocation for flight, a respect for timidity, the ambiguity of love, the sense of life going by, the struggle between innocence and experience are all notions that can be found throughout Truffaut’s work and these same feelings are often to be found behind the notes of my compositions and arrangements”. Never had Truffaut’s cinema had such a great tribute as The Woman Next Door, recorded in 1997. The Italian pianist is also very attracted by dance. Her manner of occupying space, of drawing volumes of sound like authentic characters seduced choreographers such as Roberta Garrisson and Teri J. Weikel. With Rita Marcotulli, Jazz reveals its capacity to attach itself to bodies and to invest places, so as to create an atmosphere that carries the audience off into a world of feeling.
Mauro Ottolini is a multi-instrumentalist and his music - rising from the brass instruments he plays, is a varied as the instruments he plays. The use of the trombone and its various mutes, the flashing slide trumpet and the full-bodied but agile saxophone inspires Ottolini to create pieces that express his complex personality, the result of a personal musical history that includes classical, operatic, popular, jazz and Afro-American music. Within the complex identity game imposed on us by our times, the trombonist and composer's artistic response is to produce modern, dynamic music which passes agilely over stylistic, geographic and temporal frontiers. This doesn't mean casting a net in a post-modern spirit into the world of sounds and fishing out whatever comes up : Ottolini and his musicians ( among whom we find Daniele D'Agaro and Fulvio Sigurta', who play important roles ) move according to a very personal musical compass. This points towards New Orleans jazz ( recalled in a piece, bearing the same name by Carmichael, that begins as a ballad and ends in the sweltering streets of that famous southern city ) , not as a revival, but as a recovery of polyphony, hereby liberally using sound materials and exposing the musical roots of the music. Sousaphonix takes a non-linear route that passes through pieces by Duke Ellington, both lesser known ( Tina ) and Caribbean ( Jamaica Tomboy ), and a tune by Lester Bowie, drippin with groove and feeling ( Charlie M. ), or band-like and shamanic ( Silver Threads Among The Gold ), concluding with a tribute to Steven Bernstein. Little Slide Funk, the name of this chaotic, metallic, liquid piece - that opens ( not by chance ) the album - highlight other poetic trait of Ottolini and his group, in which the younger generation is represented ( Dan Kinzelman on reeds and the transversal Zeno De Rossi on drums ): acoustic instruments ( such as Vincenzo Castrini's accordion ) co-exist and dialogue with their electric counterparts ( Enrico Terranoli's electric guitar, Vincenzo Vasi's theremin ), weaving electronics and effects into the various pieces. The compositional and improvitional concepts may originate as acoustic, but they are subsequently developed along the circuitous paths of electronics and computers. But Ottolini's music maintains its fiery, forceful character, its popular roots and band extractions inserting themselves well into blues and reggae, with a strong narrative sense, demostrating a profound assimilation of the languages of jazz that the trombonist -together with Daniele D'Agaro's masterful tenor sax - manifests in various segments. In his recent book " Le eta' del Jazz. I contemporanei ( publ. il Saggiatore )", the italian music critic, Claudio Sessa identifies the traits of jazz over recent decades :"the exploration of a new freedom of timbre (...); the strong growth of what we could call "national Schools", aimed at (...) recovering various African roots prevailing to datev; the confirmation of sophisticated Mannerism flowing into the birth of "repertory" jazz, capableof interlacing philological research with the individualistic needs that have always existed in this music ( jazz ). This words pefectly describe Sousaphonix's music and attest to its fruitul rapport with tradition and the contemporary. Luigi Onoiri ( Music critic for "Il Manifesto), teacher of Jazz History at the consrvatory "L. Refice" in Frosinone, Italy )
A suite for rebellious women and men,whose names remain unknown. Rebels of a different time, from different parts of the world. A composition where the voices of anonymous women and men can emerge from silence, defining them and, at the same time, uniting them in a chorus for the same ideals that marked their lives. "The Unknown rebel" suite represents them, and us and all of those peolple whose commitment to the future is a passion.
Giovanni Guidi
Giovanni Guidi presenta il suo ultimo lavoro discografico "The Unknown Rebel" CAM JAZZ alla testa di un tentetto, denominato The Unknown Rebel Band. Il giovane pianista umbro è al terzo album per l'etichetta romana, dopo "Indian Summer" e "The House Behind This One" incisi in quartetto.
Attualmente, oltre a suonare con i propri gruppi, collabora con ENRICO RAVA NEW QUINTET, ENRICO RAVA SPECIAL EDITION, FABRIZIO SFERRA TRIO, GIANLUCA PETRELLA COSMIC BAND, MAURO NEGRI QUARTET, LELLO PARETI BAND.
Il CD racconta in musica storie di straordinarie libertà, lo spirito di ribellione e giustizia che attraversa e muove i popoli.
E' un lungo viaggio dalla guerra di Liberazione (IL PARTIGIANO JOHNNY, PAISA', NAPOLI 27 - 30 SETTEMBRE 1943), alla Primavera di Praga (PRASKE' JARO), attraverso i desaparecidos argentini (GARAGE OLIMPO), alla legge Basaglia (180 -75), che sancì la fine della segregazione per migliaia di malati psichici, alle lotte anticolonialiste nel Sud del mondo (SONO SETU UBUMNYAMA, QUEIMADA), al genocidio dei pellirossa (WOUNDED KNEE), alla rivoluzione in Messico (TIERRA Y LIBERTAD), alla guerra civile spagnola del '39 (GUERNICA) alla rivolta di Piazza Tien an Men - da qui la denominazione "The Unknown Rebel" dalla foto di quel ribelle sconosciuto in camicia bianca davanti ai carri armati, entrata nell'immaginario collettivo con una delle immagini più note e potenti della storia moderna.
Con Giovanni al pianoforte ci saranno Mauro Ottolini (trombone), Mirko Rubegni, Fulvio Sigurtà (tromba), Dan Kinzelman (sax tenore), che ha curato anche gli arrangiamenti, Daniele Tittarelli (sax alto), David Brutti (sax basso), Francesco Ponticelli (contrabbasso), Joao Lobo (batteria), Michele Rabbia (percussioni).
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.
He was born in Maddaloni (Italy). After having completed his studies in classical music, he moved to Rome where got his Diploma and Bachelor in jazz music in Jazz Music from the ”S. Cecilia Conservatory of Music”. He lives in Rome and he has attended various courses like the Berklee Summer School to Umbria Jazz, the Seminars and the two-year master of high improvement for Jazz Trios in Siena, the David Liebman Chromatic Jazz Master Class in the USA, The New York International Jazz Workshop in the USA, the Arrangement and Composition Course at the Music University of Rome, etc. He studied under international musicians like D. Liebman, F. D' Andrea, S. Battaglia, P. Damiani, J. Taylor, F. Jegher, D. Sanborn etc., and has performed in many important International Festivals such us the French-Italian Festival of Jazz and Improvisation in Rome with the S. Cecilia Jazz Orchestra; the Roccella Jonica Jazz Festival – where he opened the concert for Wayne Shorter Quartet and then plays with the ethno-jazz ensemble of D. Montenegro - in 2005; the Bitonto Jazz Festival 2007 – where he opened the concert for the Mike Stern Band; the International Music Fest of Rome. He was semifinalist at the TIM in Marseille as well as at the Montreux Jazz Piano Solo Competition 2005, at which he was the only Italian to compete. He has played in several line-ups including the S. Cecilia Jazz Quartet, in duo with Paolo Damiani and in the P. Damiani Group, in trio with Ettore Fioravanti, Roberto Gatto and in quartet with Aldo Bassi; he has played also with D. Torto, W. Paoli, P. Condorelli, A. Onorato; in the USA with Mike Stephans, Tony Marino, Tony Moreno, Marc Mommaas; in Canada with Alec Walkington and Dave Laing (McGill University of Montréal). He has played in several international theatres and concert-halls such as the Teatro Vespasiano of Civitavecchia, Anfiteatro Romano of Benevento, Teatro Cilea and Maschio Angioino in Napoli, Real Palace of S. Leucio Caserta, Villa Pamphilj – Rome, University of Cosenza, Rome Conservatory Academic Hall, Teatro dei Contrari, Villa Giulia and Palazzo Farnese in Rome, the Deer Head Inn in Delaware GAP – Pennsylvania, USA, Upstairs Jazz Club in Montréal, Quebec...Last year he was selected by the YAMAHA Corporation to be one of the piano and keyboard performers for Italy. He has played on programmes for Rai, Rai Sat and Mediaset. He has recorded the CD "MP2 live" for the Splasc(H) Records Label and the "Solinsieme" for the Domani Musica Music and Discography Editions, still in distribution, and many other self recorded CDs. In 2006 he won the International Competition of Composition "O. Sindici" – Ceccano and the price for which was publication of a collection of original compositions for piano solo featuring a language in the area between jazz and contemporary music, by BÈRBEN International Music Edition. In 2007 he was finalist in the Roma Soundtrack Competition for composers, with an original composition for strings trio and piano. He was been reviewed by some of Italian’s top critics such as Franco Fayenz, Giordano Selini, Vittorio Lo Conte… He was noted in the category ‘best new talents 2006’ in Top Jazz, the Italian Jazz Music Referendum. He is ranked in the list of the most Italian State Music Conservatories (Rome, Venice, Ferrara, Genova, Pesaro, Potenza, Fermo, Frosinone, Trieste, Brescia, Parma, Como, Bari, Alessandria, Torino...). Last April he held a seminar for the Jazz Music class of the ‘S. Cecilia’ Rome Conservatory, about the development of languages in jazz (the topic of his book). He composed Pianogrups vol. 1 e 2 published by Berben Editions, Birth from a bird for piano published by the Florestano Editions. Now, he is working for RAI as music consultant for Italian National Television and he is teaching - as Music Conservatory Professor - for the instruction of the ' jazz piano elements' discipline at the S. Cecilia Conservatory of Rome.
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
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.
Matthew Shipp’s new solo piano CD, "4D" is the complete synthesis and culmination of all of his past Thirsty Ear releases, with the added wrinkle of standards reinterpreted as only he could muster, while combining his own brand of composition to the mix. His musical language, having been as refined, and mutated as has his career, (notably alongside Thirst Ear’s own genre defying sensibilities.) continues to grow at exponential rates, allowing Mr. Shipp to fully explore the hidden aspects of jazz.
Drummer and composer Matt Wilson describes his eighth record as a leader on Palmetto Records, That’s Gonna Leave a Mark, in terms of honesty and family. The first album by Wilson’s Quartet since 2003’s Humidity, Wilson views it as “getting a chance to have this great band record again!” Alongside Wilson, alto saxophonist D’Angelo, tenor saxophonist Jeff Lederer and bassist Chris Lightcap are all in fine form. All the members of the Quartet have played together since the late 1990s, though this marks Lightcap’s first recorded appearance with the group. 
Martial Solal is a nuclear physicist of the piano. He tinkers with the subatomic structure of compositions, moving elements around, pulling them apart, and smashing them together in ways that both surprise and delight. Solal was born Algiers in 1927, settling in Paris in 1950 where he worked with Django Reinhardt and American expatriates Sidney Bechet and Don Byas. He has maintained an impressive creative profile for the past 50 years that involves solo, small group, and big band formats. Solal has also been a successful movie soundtrack composer, producing music for Les Acteurs (2000) and Ballade a blanc (1983).
"I always heard about a musical encounter between Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis, which unfortunately never occurred. Likewise, I always wondered what may have resulted, happened, emerged, if it had really occured. 
Rita Marcotulli was born in Rome in 1959. She studied the piano from a very early age at the Santa Cecilia Academy. At first attracted to Brazilian music she turned towards Jazz at twenty… with great success. Her career got of to a flying start. Right from the start of the 1980s she had the chance to play with the cream of European jazz: Chet Baker, John Christensen, Palle Danielsson, Peter Erskine, Steve Grossman, Joe Henderson, Hélène La Barrière, Joe Lovano, Charlie Mariano, Tony Oxley, Michel Portal, Enrico Rava, Michel Bénita, Aldo Romano, Kenny Wheeler... 
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.