Two days of music and seven live performances to immerse yourself in the avant-garde sound and explore all the new directions of jazz.
Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 April 2024 in Pisa kicks off the eighth edition of Fonterossa Day, the festival signed Fonterossa Records, a record label directed by Top Jazz double bassist and composer Silvia Bolognesi.
On Saturday 20th from 9.30 p. m. at theExwide Club (via Franceschi 13) and Sunday 21st from 5.00 p.m. at the Teatro Sant'Andrea (via del Cuore 1) for the event organised by Toscana Produzione Musica in collaboration with Pisa Jazz. On the programme there will be a roundup of the label's new releases alongside performances by giants of the calibre of Mike Reed, a drumming guru direct from Chicago, one of the founders of the Pitchfork Music Festival and special guest for 2024.
And that's not all: space will be given to new talents on the scene with the performance of Fonterossa Open Lab: an orchestra-laboratory dedicated to improvisation and the performance of unconventional scores that every year, from January to June, brings together a new parterre of exceptional teachers and opens its doors to the most promising musicians on the scene (info: www.toscanaproduzionemusica.it, tickets and presales on Ticketone).
Kicking off on Saturday 20 April at 9.30 p.m. on the Exwide stage with Icy Demons, a band led by producer, singer, bass player and keyboardist Griffin Alan Rodriguez, characterised by a mix of hip hop, kraut rock and progressive music. After three albums and tours throughout the United States and Europe, the band arrives in Italy with a new line-up featuring, alongside Rodriguez on vocals and bass, Giulia Galliani on vocals, keyboards and electronics, Maurizio Sammicheli on guitar and Daniele Paoletti on drums. This will be followed by Fonterossa Day #8 4tet, i.e. the four teachers of Fonterossa Open Lab 2024 together for an improvisation set: Silvia Bolognesi on double bass, Mike Reed on drums, and then Nino Locatelli on clarinet - among their collaborations are names such as Steve Lacy, Wolfgang Fuchs, Paul Lovens, Peter Kowald, Barre Phillips, Biggi Vinkeloe, Peter Friis Nielsen - and Paolo Botti on viola - over 50 records to their credit.
On Sunday 21 at the Sant'Andrea Theatre. At 5 p.m. kick off with Biagio Marino / Zeno De Rossi Duo: a blend of jazz, rock and free improvisation with a repertoire of original pieces. Marino on guitar and De Rossi on drums focus on the creative use of specific instrumental techniques and electric and acoustic effects. The project, born in 2021, culminates in the release of the first album 'Break Seal Gently' (Fonterossa Records, 2022). It will continue with Carlotta Vettori CB53, who at 5.45 p.m. will present to the audience 'Ruah' (Fonterossa Records, 2023), the flutist's debut record in which musical influences from classical to jazz and rock converge. 'Ruah' is a Sanskrit word meaning 'spirit', but also 'breath', essential elements in the way Vettori interprets music and the instrument. The pieces touch on different worlds of sound and style, with a coherence that represents the artistic maturity of the leader, flanked by guitarist Nicolò Faraglia, drummer Andrea Melani and double bassist Silvia Bolognesi. And again at 6.30 p.m., Panaleåke: a band devoted to improvisation in its most varied forms, formed by Tobia Bondesan on tenor and soprano sax, Jacopo Giacomi on alto sax, Glauco Benedetti on tuba, and Francesco Cigana on percussion, in a live performance during which one can encounter Tibetan chants, echoes of New York basements, futurist experiments, Berlin noise, tropical sounds, and apotropaic rituals.
The concerts at the Sant'Andrea Theatre continue in the evening. Opening at 9.15 p. m. is The Leaping Fish Trio, with Paolo Botti on viola and dobro, Enrico Terragnoli on guitar and podophono, and Zeno De Rossi on drums. Various influences enter the group's sonority with ease, from acoustic to electric, more acidic atmospheres, ranging from 'roots' settings to the most extreme experimentation. During a concert in 2013, the trio performed the Velvet Underground's 'All Tomorrow's Parties', later learning that Lou Reed had passed away during the same hours. Thus was born the idea of dedicating a work to the music of the great New York artist, a project that was realised in the studio in 2020 and that now sees the light of day in the CD 'Trees' (Fonterossa Records). At 10 pm closing in the sign of groove with Fonterossa Open Lab 2024: 30 musicians on stage together with this year's four directors - Silvia Bolognesi, Paolo Botti, Nino Locatelli and Mike Reed - for a show of pure creativity and experimentation.
Fonterossa Records is the label founded by Silvia Bolognesi in 2010 to guarantee artists freedom of production in full creative autonomy. It is a cultural space open to new musical proposals and to those who share a passion for improvisation and avant-garde jazz as contemporary research.
Toscana Produzione Musica (TPM) is a music production centre with an eye on the sounds of the world chaired by Paolo Zampini with the artistic direction of Francesco Mariotti and Maurizio Busìa and the support of the Ministry of Culture, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, Fondazione Pisa and Regione Toscana. TPM is a system of artistic residencies, support for the dialogue between music and the performing arts as well as for circuitation and distribution, a diffuse body, with PARC in Florence as its base camp in axis with La Città del Teatro in Cascina (Pisa), to promote an open artistic vision while maintaining as a fundamental element the relationship between excellence of form and depth of ideas and values intrinsic in individual projects.
