PICTURES

RICHARD GALLIANO

WITH FURIO DI CASTRI

WITH MASSIMO MANZI

INFORMATION

DATE:
12 SEPTEMBER 1999
 

TIME: 21,15

PLACE:
Courtyard of Honour, Torrechiara Castle

PROGRAMME:
Jazz-Musette

and Tango

RICHARD GALLIANO ITALIAN TRIO

Richard Galliano was born in Le Cannet, France, on December 12, 1950. He was drawn to music at an early age, starting with the accordion at 4, influenced by his father Lucien, an accordionist originally from Italy, living in Nice.
After a long and intense period of study (he took up lessons on the trombone, harmony and counterpoint at the Academy of Music in Nice), at 14, in a search to expand his ideas on the accordion he began listening to jazz and heard on records the great trumpet player Clifford Brown. Fascinated by this new world Richard was amazed that the accordion had never been part of this musical adventure.
After years of study and apprenticeship, in 1973 came the big decision. He finally made up his mind to take the plunge and go to Paris where he made an important contact in the shape of famous singer Claude Nougaro; for threee years he played the roles of conductor, arranger and composer with Nougaro’s orchestra.
After Nougaro an important meeting with the great Astor Piazzolla. With Piazzolla, Galliano realized that he hadn’t gone to Paris to play second fiddle to other people, but to invent a kind of music which, altough deeply rooted in tradition belonged to him, and him alone. And Piazzolla told Galliano: “Your image as a jazz accordionist is far too Americanised. It’s no good at all. Rediscover your French roots. You need to take up the New Musette, just as I invented the Tango Nuevo”.
Today Richard Galliano can be proud. We have seen his bellows rise and his talent soar alongside the best, unique musicians, single and adventurous who like him have seen how to invent their own original musical worlds.
Richard Galliano, direct heir to Astor Piazzolla, interprets, composes and orchestrates music wich seems to casually mix reminiscences of swing, marked echoes of tango, French bistro waltzes, Bill Evans ballads, Keith Jarrett improvisations and the afro-american lessons of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, all is performed with a pleasing chromatic taste which goes back to best French tradition from Couperin to Debussy and above all to Ravel.
Richards greatest merit is therefore originality; synthesized all these experiences into a new European music made up of jazz improvisation and a great deal of Mediterranean tradition.
His second strenght is his use of the accordion (and the bandonéon), awkward instruments which have always had a difficult life in jazz and cultivated music. For years, the accordion was relegated to the lowest ranks of popular music, a pity for its typical colour of melancholy would lend itself wonderfully to creating atmospheres of blues. In the hands of Galliano the popular accordion first acquires the polychromy of an orchestra, and then the collected tone of chamber-like intimism.
Galliano’s record and concert collaborations are as follows in no particular order: he performed solo and as a guest in Joe Zawinul’s group at Umbria Jazz Winter ’95 and Umbria Jazz ’96 and then in the two editions of U.J. Winter first in a duo with Charlie Haden and then with the New York Tango Quartet, in both cases arousing unanimous enthusiastic public and critical acclaim. He has taken part in the last three editions of the Montreal Jazz festival; in ’97 solo, in ’98 five concerts with 5 different projects and in ’99 in a trio with George Mraz and Al Foster.
Other collaborations: Juliette Greco, Charles Aznavour, Ron Carter, Chet Baker, Enrico Rava, Martial Solal, Miroslav Vitous, Trilok Gurtu, Jan Garbarek, Michel Petrucciani, Michel Portal, Toots Thielemans.
He has participated in numerous other international festivals including Antibes, Montreux, Vienna, S.Francisco, North Sea, Melbourne, Tokio, Peking and Shanghai.

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