Presentazione
Herbert Greenleaf is an American tycoon, owner of a yacht building firm, with an highly significant name. For him jazz is just noise, but for his son Dickie it's a lifestyle, and his life will be brutally ended by the talents of Tom Ripley. Written by Patricia Highsmith in the Fifties, "The Talent of Mr. Ripley" has been adapted for the screen by Anthony Minghella who added the jazz theme, casting the music in an unusual and unsettling light, as the art of improvisation and impersonation, and as counterpart to so-called classical music. "An Insolent Noise" Festival, which will take place in Pisa will try to verify if jazz still has the spirit of eversion that made it so popular or if it has been neutered by the nostalgia business, cooped by the establishment: improvisors from the first generation of noisemakers – a word that brings to mind the “intonarumori” created by Futurists – will meet the last generation of adventurous musicians, grown in the age of digital music.
AN ISOLENT NOISE 2009 /
CHICAGO EDITION
The 2009 edition of An Insolent Noise, as it's made clear by the subtitle dedicated to the Illinois metropolis, is focused on the meeting between the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) of Chicago and the young Italian musical collectives from the jazz/improvised music field. Founded in 1965 by a nucleus including Muhal Richard Abrams and Donald Rafael Garrett, AACM became in time a global beacon not only for its music – to mention but a few, among its members we find Art Ensemble of Chicago, Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill and George Lewis – but also for its crucial concept of community service, based on education of young musicians, on collaboration with local schools, and on interaction between artists of different disciplines. Inspired by the AACM model simila associations of musicians were born all over Europe, and today in Italy as well we have groups that try to take back tha control on their music, promoting it especially with an intense use of the nets and of the new technologies.
AACM will be featured in four concerts: the solo performance of flutist extraordinaire Nicole Mitchell, tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson Trio, Quazar 1 led by Douglas Ewart and the Great Black Music Ensemble, 13 strong official AACM ensemble, in an original production dedicated to Fred Anderson, an institution of Chicago's creative music whose 80th birthday we celebrate in 2009.
Mitchell is one of the strongest and most original voices of today's African-american music; she operates in widely different context as improviser and composer, and right now is in the middle of an intensely creative season with her ensembles, Indigo Trio, whose memorable concert was one of the highlights of An Insolent Noise 2007, Black Earth Ensemble and Black Earth Strings. Douglas Ewart comes back to Pisa after being one of the leading figures of the programs of the International Jazz Festival held between 1976 and 1983; in the long time elapsed since then he became President of the AACM and kept developing his artistic approach through intense work in the community, musical and teaching experiences ranging from design and building of musical instruments to interactive electronic music. Fred Anderson is a crucial figure of free music in Chicago not only for his music but for the unique tenacity in keeping open through thick and thin an outlet for all creative musicians, the historical club Velvet Lounge. Musically he updates and transforms into historiginal concept the music of the great Chicagoan tenor saxophonists, from Gene Ammons to John Gilmore. The Pisa concert with Anderson as a guest soloist in the Great Black Music Ensemble is a world premiere of an original production and is included within the year-long celebrations of Anderson's 80th birthday.
Four are also the European proposals. Three Italian groups chosen in order to represent the new musical realities of our country: Riccardo Pittau Congregation, powered by Francesco Cusa on drums and with the original modified Sardinian guitar of Paolo Angeli; Eco d'Alberi quartet, in its first Italian concert after playing with success in festivals like Konfrontationen (Nickelsdorf), Vision (New York), Uncool (Poschiavo) and Taktlos (Zurigo); the powerful Orange Room sextet, lead by baritone player Beppe Scardino. And then the music beyond genres and classifications, of the French double bassist and vocalist Joëlle Léandre, influenced by Derek Bailey and Cecil Taylor as well by John Cage by Giacinto Scelsi: together with Mitchell and the strong female contingent in the Chicago delegation giving a meaningful picture of the more and more relevant presence of women musicians in jazz and improvised music.
But these extraordinary guests will not merely play their music in separate concerts, side by side: in the evenings of Friday, October 30th and Sunday, November 1st the guests from Chicago and the Italian musicians will actually play together, in partially structured and partially improvised performances, bringing in front of the audience their musical dialogue and their research of a common ground: improvisation is tendentially a democratic musical practice, an open situation where each individual develops his own voice within a collective effort where listening to the others is as relevant as playing one's own instrument.
This rich program is completed with other related events: art movies and documentary film projections, book presentations and conversations about Jazz and its history, and during the days of the festival two important meetings with Fred Anderson and Douglas Ewart, about their music, experiences and the AACM. To this last meeting, integrating and reinforcing the musical encounters on stage, delegations from Italian associations Bassesfere (Bologna), Casa del Popolo (Lodi), El Gallo Rojo (Venezia), Iato (Roma) and Improvvisatore Involontario (Catania).
The festival has been organized thanks to the Town of Pisa, the Tuscan regional Administration, the University of Pisa, Arsenale Cinema, and the Theatre of Pisa. From Chicago, we thanks Nicole Mitchell of AACM and Daniel Melnick of Chicago Jazz Institute. An Insolent Noise extends its thanks to Flu Graphic agency, Hotel Victoria, Caracol and Promorama, for their highly qualified professional work and for their emotional participation to the Festival's adventure.
Francesco Martinelli
(Artistic Director An Insolent Noise)