Jazz and brass band mashup in Piazza Angelio

Frank Viviano – barganews staff reporter writes; There isn’t much new under the sun, Italian or otherwise. So when the genuinely new transpires, and you have the enormous good fortune to witness it – and to hear it, in the case of Nicolao Valiensi’s “l’Anima dei Luoghi” – it has the force of a life-altering experience.

Put simply, “l’Anima” is an effort to bridge the gap between a rural Tuscan band, the popular music Valiensi knew as a child in the small Garfagnana town of Camporgiano, and the world he knows as an adult in the rarified universe of jazz.

But it is also much more than that: a bridge between tradition and innovation, between country and city, between the old world and the new, between the public space of the village square and the intimacy of a smoke-filled club, between folk wisdom and street wisdom, between so many alleged “opposites” that you could exhaust an enormous vocabulary before scratching the surface of “l’Anima’s” sheer, heart-thumping brilliance.

And this is its genius: to remind us, to insist, that there is after all a unity at work in our dream lives, a common set of principles. A common faith in the transcendent possibilities of art, music and poetry. You saw that faith in every corner of the Piazza Angelio, written in the faces of Nicolao’s audience, in their rapt attention and engagement in his every note, his every movement, in his own headlong plunge into the sounds that rose like an energetic prayer from the instruments of the Camporgiano Filarmonica Mascagni and their brothers Massimiliano Calderai on the piano, Alessandro Fabbri on the drums, Milco Ambrogini on bass and Renzo Telloli on sax.

Nicolao Valiensi and his musicians made believers of us, in a time of profound cynicism. In an hour of music unlike anything we’d ever heard, they gave us reason for hope.  – Frank Viviano – barganews staff reporter -

“Aspettando BargaJazz” “L’anima dei Luoghi” di Nicolao Valiensi per banda e Jazz Ensemble.The concert was dedicated to outsider musician Silvano Tognero who died last year.

More about outsider musician Silvano Togneri can be found here 

Filarmonica “P. Mascagni” di Camporgiano | Calderai Massimiliano – pianoforte | Fabbri Alessandro – batteria | Milco Ambrogini – contrabbasso | Renzo Telloli – sax  | Nicolao Valiensi – direzione

[xspf]_start(jazzmashup)[/xspf]

nicolao Set 21 2006 / 11am

Sono trascorsi ormai alcuni giorni da quel funesto pomeriggio.
Non riesco ancora a crederci, perche`un´anima cosi`
gentile, dolce e ricca di belle cose ci lascia,ci abbandona?
Il Silvano mi ha insegnato molto, mi ha fatto capire come la musica
possa essre suonata e vissuta in una dimensione cosi`profonda da
comunicare direttamente con l`anima. Lui era capace di fare cose
meravigliose, improvvisazioni che nessun`altro poteva solo immaginare.
La struttura delle sue canzoni aveva un senso, Silvano dava forma alla sua musica, i suoi nodelli una volta identificati avevano veramente un qualche cosa di incredibile, mi sono divertito ad ascoltarlo , abbiamo suonato insieme, la sua arte travolgeva ,elevava, ricomponeva e
raccattava in immersioni sempre piu`profonde.
Lo ascoltavo sempre con grande rispetto, lui era la mia connesione con
i miei monti, era l`uomo della scepe , cantava delle sue cose intime
superava tutti e anche di piu`.
Riposa in pace grande uomo, che tu possa godere della tranquillita`che
tanto cercavi, noi qui nel mondo ti conserviamo nel cuore.
Nicolao valie
nsi