How not to end an artistic partnership? Simply by not abandoning the band! The Bluebeaters EXTRA TRAX (Caribb Roots Records/Universal)compilation was released for Record Store Day 2024. I took the band’s photo on the back cover. ENJOY!
BACKSTAGE. Dietro alla creazione di “MAC”, il nuovo album jazz di Frank Salis and James Andrews exhibiton (curated by Francesco and Gaia Di Gregorio), Lugano, Switzerland, MARCH 24 – APRIL 5, 2024
In collaboration with NicolaSound 2024
VERNISSAGE + SHOWCASE
Sunday, March 24, 6:30 PM
Atelier Cornici e Restauri, Via Luigi Canonica 12, Lugano, Switzerland
I felt like I knew him. Maybe I had met him at a political rally. Maybe at a live show. Perhaps I simply liked that man stroking his beard because he reminded me of the people on the island of Naxos. Sigá sigá, like the fishermen at the port on a scorching hot day. Sigá sigá, before taking the first note on the piano. Sigá sigá, before thinking of singing the first word. The young people dressed in white observe him, waiting for a first hint. A single movement from the beard to the piano key and the small orchestra starts to play. <…E tutto è stato un regalo, e tutto è stato un regalo…>, the man’s voice is that of an experienced sea dog. Sonic wave after sonic wave he shows to the white-clad crew the land of gratitude that stands on the horizon. There’s still time to sail and sing before landing. The sea whispers new melodies to be sung and played…
March 12, 2024. Hoepli International Bookstore in Milan. Contemporary artist Liu Bolin and his collaborators are preparing for a visual performance… Imagine disappearing… And start observing reality… (Shots taken with FujiFilm X-T1 + 7Artisans 35mm f 1.2)
An explosion of sonic gratitude. Fan Fath al Milanese ensemble and folk singer Vinicio Capossela introduced the audience to a musical ritual whose goal is an ancient ecstasy that can teach the contemporary world a lot. People sang “teach your children” in the Sixties and still want to do it today. After all, we are all children who want to listen to stories in music and dance.
(Special thanks to LabArca Teatro Musica and Sponz Fest)
There was a risk of making something trite… Taking the photo for the album cover of Frank Salis and James Andrews was an exciting challenge. I wanted to simultaneously convey the depth of New Orleans’ musical history and the Crescent City’s strong spirit of inclusion. The good soul of Dr. John was already present in the title. On a hot summer night I thought about Irving Penn’s shots of the hands of Miles Davis. What if those experienced hands had communicated with other hands eager to learn? While I was thinking about that, I was playing with a necklace from the New Orleans Carnival. Et voilà! EUREKA! The hands of James and Frank seal an artistic partnership between cultures and generations. Their hands are spontaneously sharing the soul of New Orleans. The MAC LP cover was done! Frank liked it immediately: <In my opinion it is a brilliant idea that came out of Matteo Ceschi’s brain, perpetually looking for new ideas. The image can be read in many ways, one of which is certainly the passage of something. I would say more of a passage of culture than a simply passing of the baton.>
– Frank Salis and James Andrews, MAC, produced by Frank Salis and Nicolas Gilliet, NicOLAsound Records 2024 © – OUT MARCH 25TH
(Backstage photography: Vincenzo Del Franco e Nicolas Gilliet, Lugano, August 13, 2024)
Sunday afternoon. Three AJ’s Toy Boarders surf plastic riders; a black toothpaste; a toothbrush; and a black cardboard. In mind an expression used by William Finnegan in his bestseller Barbarian Days: Surfing Life… “Sunburnt Pagans”… Fantasy rides anarchic waves… (Shots taken with Olympus OM-D E-M5 + Zuiko Marco 30mm f3.5)
Deconstructing David Bowie’s music to reconstruct David Robert Jones’s artistic legacy. Pierpaolo Martino (double bass, tapes) and Enrico Merlin (electric guitar) staged a show inspired by Karlheinz Stockhausen’s example but also by the pure joy of revealing the pop power of Bowie’s music. The spectators’ ears opened up towards new horizons when the duo revived Ziggy Stardust’s epic from those “dismantled elements”: everything that was not clear before is now recomposed and prepared for a sonic understanding. David Bowie was probably watching the performance at La Corte dei Miracoli and nodding his head.
Author, actor and comedian Germano Lanzoni at Teatro Carcano, Milano, May 25, 2022
The minutes before the show, when the man takes on the role of the character… Attention to detail; relax; and a phone call to a friend…. So the stage becomes as comfortable as mommy’s living room
Now in FREE DOWNLAOD my essay on photography TELLINGWITHMYEYES. NOTE PER UN FOTOGRAFO. Sorry, this time I wrote in Italian. ENJOY!
TELLING WITH MY EYES 