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!
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)
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)
A new frame for a new tour (Non sento più Tour hosted by Kashmir Music) with… the amazing The Bluebeaters… The photo session (see below) dates back to June 1, 2023, during the show date of Trinity Tour.
Waiting for Stewart Copeland’s The Witches Seed première at Tones Teatro Natura (Oira Crevoladossola, July 22 and 23), you can read a preview of the interview with Mr. Copeland and singer and actress Irene Grandi which will appear in the autumn in the Swiss musical magazine Pnp. The soprano Maddalena Calderoni (artistic director of The Witches Seeds) and Veronica Granatiero will play alongside Irene Grandi the songs written by iconic Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders.
From rock music to Opera. And what’s more, an Opera realized in Italy, the country of Opera. Stewart, what can you tell us?
SC: Writing and composing an opera in Italy is a dream, a daydream, it’s the best I can aspire to, it’s the dream that comes true. The Witches Seed is a rock opera? Mmmm, maybe it’s a “rockopera”… Maybe a “ropera”… it sounds better, don’t you think so? Something partly new.
Opera combines music and words but does so with a different approach than the pop(ular) song. What was your approach for The Witches Seed?
SC: Language is melody, any language is a melody in its most intimate essence. Music, if you notice, helps dialogue. The music guides everything, music is a powerful storyteller, and it’s always the music in a dialogue that passes and filters good and bad feelings. This is an experiment, I admit it, an attempt to bring rock music and a rock mood into Opera and perhaps bring young people and rock audiences closer to “cultured music”, to Opera.
Irene, on what occasion did you meet Stewart for the first time?
IG: I met Stewart Copeland just when The Witches Seed was in preparation and I must say that he has a truly sunny character, full of interests and vitality. Stewart is a vibrant person, a person who has a beautiful relationship with creativity, a man who wasn’t just satisfied of the success achieved with the Police but always wanted to evolve his music and art.
How did you find yourself interpreting the lyrics written by Chrissie Hynde for the Opera?
IG: I was delighted to interpret the songs written by Chrissie Hynde, a singer and composer I love very much, since her beginnings with the Pretenders. I have always found Chrissie Hyde a great innovator, a woman and an artist able to bringing female rock towards a great diffusion on an international level with very distinctive and original songs. I must say that her voice, well, it resonates quite well with mine, as it has low tones that are a bit “unusual” for female vocal standards. So it was a gift, a huge gift, to be able to try my hand at her songs.
We’re back with a new f/50 photo project, Brave New World: this time John Meehan and I shot in color!
SEE: BRAVE NEW WORLD
Bluesman Joe Valeriano, live in Milan, early December 2017 (FujiFilm X30)
TELLING WITH MY EYES 