His music was born of the fusion between the Rag-time technique of the early 1900s and the lyricism of Blues, Soul and Jazz in its more traditional form. The typical pre-jazz and stride-piano sounds of Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Art Tatum and Mary Lou Williams, and the Blues of Ray Charles and Roosevelt Sykes, are brought up to date by Raphael Gualazzi with an extremely personal style in which tradition co-exists with the most innovative influences of such eclectic artists as Jamiroquai and Ben Harper.Since 2005 Raphael Gualazzi has taken part in important festivals such as Fano Jazz, the Java Festival of Jakarta and Argo Jazz, Ravello International Festival and others, and in France in 2008 his compilation ‘Piano Jazz’ was released on the Wagram label. Raphael Gualazzi took part in the Young Talent section of the 2011 Festival of Sanremo with ‘Madness of Love’, a track written, produced and arranged by Gualazzi himself. This song has also been included in the soundtrack of the film Manuale d’Amore 3, starring Robert De Niro and Monica Bellucci, and is distributed throughout Europe.
The Tinariwen: fierce nomadic desert tribesmen toting guns and guitars, Ghadaffi’s poet-soldiers spreading their gospel of freedom throughout the world, turbaned rock’n’roll troubadours, Stratocaster on one shoulder, Kalashnikov on the other, 17 bullet wounds and rawest desert blues on earth. In the desert oasis of Tamanrasset, southern Algeria, three aimless teenage friends in exile – Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, Hassan Ag Touhami aka ‘The Lion of the Desert’ and Inteyeden – write songs about their own lives and about those of their friends, the modern Touareg youth, no longer lording over the desert on their camels, but living the clandestino life far from home, surviving by any means necessary, longing for friends and family, dreaming of retribution, of freedom, of self-determination. They are Kel Tinariwen, the ‘desert boys’.
John Cale è forse uno dei musicisti più importanti ed influenti della storia del Rock, una vera icona, un Padre fondatore.
Il giovane Cale si trasferì dal Galles a New York City negli anni '60 e lì entrò subito nel circuito avanguardistico di La Monte Young che dirigeva il Theater of Eternal Music.
Conobbe Lou Reed con cui fondò i Velvet Undergroud, e nel gruppo suonò viola elettrica, piano e basso, ma soprattutto spinse verso uno sperimentalismo che mischiato allo stile di Reed creò il tipico e riconoscibilissimo "suono" dei Velvet.
In seguito i contrasti nel gruppo ruppero l'alchimia e portarono a un secondo disco ("White light/White heat") dalle sonorità più acide, più "sporche" e ancora più sperimentali. Nel 1968, dopo la pubblicazione del secondo disco, Cale lasciò la band per divergenze con Lou Reed.
Dopo l'esperienza con i Velvet, John Cale ha intrapreso una brillante carriera solista, alternando album rock a collaborazioni e musiche da film, e ancora oggi alterna la sua attività tra produzioni musicali, sperimentazioni e avanguardia sonora e visiva.
Il nuovo album, che vedrà la luce nella primavera del 2012 (Domino Record), è stato anticipato dall'EP Extra Playful che contiene il primo video (girato dalla figlia di Cale, Eden) "Catastrofuk".
The enduring success of Incognito is one of the great stories of UK music during the last 20 years. Look at the recent history of soulful UK artists and you will find any number of short-lived acts that have achieved pop success. Narrow the list to those that have created a uniquely British sound and that have endured as a global phenomenon on their own terms and the list becomes short. Dues, then, to Jean-Paul 'Bluey' Maunick and Incognito, formed in 1980 and celebrating 25 years of positive vibes and undiluted jazz funk in 2005.
The original brain child of the writer Rina Durante, Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino is the foremost and longest standing traditional music band from Salento, in Puglia, coming together some 35 years ago.
In 2007 the lead passed from the original founder of the band, Daniele Durante, to his son Mauro ( already a highly regarded frame drums player and violinist who has played with numerous artists, such as Ludovico Einaudi, Piers Faccini, Stewart Copeland and La Notte della Taranta).
With a range from the energetic pizzica pizzica, to the tenderness of songs of love and longing; from the festa like exuberance of a local band to an ironic glance towards modernity, Canzoniere provide an intense and atmospheric spectacle.
With 15 albums and numerous performances in Europe, the Middle East and the USA, Canzoniere have always evoked an enthusiastic response from audiences and sensitively admiring reviews from the music press.