PICTURES

THE GROUP

Rossana Casale:

vocals

Luigi Bonafede:

piano

Aldo Mella:

double bass

Enzo Zirilli:

drums

INFORMATION

DATE:
19 JULY 2004
 

TIME: 9,15 PM

PLACE:
Courtyard of Honour, Torrechiara Castle

ROSSANA CASALE

“Billie Holiday in me”

“Billie Holiday’s soul, so inscrutable and overwhelming (...) taught us that Jazz isn’t just music, but a pure expression of life. (...) Billie Holiday sang about love in simple words. And yet the deliberate pauses in her interpretation (...) gave depth to every single word. She used to say: ‘I don’t sing for a reason, I live everything through my skin’. It’s Jazz. This artist mapped out the choices I made in my musical life. Even today.” (Rossana Casale).
Rossana Casale’s new CD, Billie Holiday in Me, is a tribute to one of the greatest voices in Jazz and it re-establishes a link with earlier projects parallel with her pop career in which Rossana continues to tell us about herself and the great artists who influenced her.
With the unmistakeable sound of her voice and feeling as much at home with material by singer/songwriters as with Jazz classics Rossana Casale is one of the most relevant interpreters on the Italian musical scene today. During almost thirty years of artistic development, she has been privileged to be associated with Maurizio Fabrizio and has collaborated with the most prestigious names in Italian Jazz from Luciano Milanese to Luigi Bonafede.
Born in New York to an American father and Italian mother, Rossana appeared on the musical scene in 1982 with Didin, written together with Alberto Fortis; two years later she released her first album, entitled simply Rossana Casale and produced by the Premiata Forneria Marconi. The wider public came to know her above all thanks to her participation in various editions of the Sanremo Festival. She also appeared in the film by Pupi Avati “Una gita scolastica” (A school outing) and sang in the musicals “An American in Paris”, “Some Like it Hot” and “The Little Shop of Horrors”.
From the middle of the 90s there was a noticeable change of direction towards the genre which Rossana feels is more congenial, thanks to albums like Jazz in me, a work which revolves around American standards of the 40s and 50s, Jacques Brel in me and Strange Fruit, dedicated to those damned female interpreters of the century just passed.
This is Rossana’s take on her “break” with commercial music: “I returned to playing jazz in the clubs because that was the music which gave me peace, fulfilment and fun, I decided I no longer wanted to be part of the mad market which was spinning like a centrifuge. In spite of my fourtyfour years I’m still stubborn and Jazz remains my great partner”.
On stage with Rossana are Luigi Bonafede, Aldo Mella and Enzo Zirilli, musicians who have always stood by her desire never to abandon the music which is at the basis of everything she is searching for.
 

Translation by Sarah J Hyde - www.thelanguage.biz
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