Donna Lombarda

Genres: Folk

The making of this CD is part of a shared project with some American musicians who participated in a series of musical encounters held since 2002 at the Hospice Casa Madonna dell’Uliveto in Montericco di Albinea, in the hills south of Reggio Emilia.
At the concerts, the musicians involved made a recording session of original arrangements, composed by them, inspired by traditional Italian music from the Apennines.
The pieces identified were made available by the Ethnomusicological Archive “Giorgio Vezzani-Il cantastorie,” and the musicians, coming from different cultures, approached this traditional music as novices, curious and able to listen and understand the assonances between different musical worlds.
They are Duck Baker, Bob Brozman, Ed Gerhard and Woody Mann all fine interpreters of the acoustic guitar, who in the course of their careers have taken very different paths, developing their own unmistakable and original style of composition and performance, and Massimo Gatti, one of Europe’s best mandolin interpreters, who joined each musician for a duet.
Duck has frequented free jazz and Celtic music, Bob with his resonators, old time music and blues, Woody the roots blues and contemporary jazz, Ed melodic research through experimental tunings and acoustic slide guitar, and Massimo has developed considerable technique in the bluegrass style as well as being a valued performer in classical ensembles.
The result is a highly original acoustic guitar record that contains free arrangements, not at all conditioned by philological intentions. The song that gives the CD its title, Donna Lombarda, since it is an iconic song of Italian folklore, was treated as an obligatory standard as one would between jazz musicians and therefore interpreted by each. In summary, a quite extraordinary experience that was able to create an opportunity for dialogue between intense and at the same time different human and musical sensibilities, united by enthusiasm, love of music and solidarity.
In fact, thanks to the generosity of these artists, all proceeds from sales will be donated to the Our Lady of the Olive Grove Foundation, which supports Hospice.

from official site barcode records

TRACKS

Woody Mann