Jazz, like any true artform, transcends all ethnic, geographic and religious borders. This is what Antonello Marafioti thinks.
I grew up in Italy in a post ’68 period.
A time based on humanistic thoughs, a lot of research about soul and other points of view, also through “altered states of perception”. A time in wich women started to be conscious and words like “negro” just meant somebody with a dark skin. A time in wich we strived to reach equality for all humans, taking care of eachother.
The way, of course, was still very long and we haven’t yet reached this equality. In some case it has even got worse. But I believed and still believe.
When I encountered Jazz it seemed to me to have found what I was looking for:
races? No matter. Gender? No matter. Age? No matter. Religion? No matter.
I partecipated in big festivals like Umbria Jazz and seminaries like Siena Jazz. There I met on stage and in private musicians like Curtis Fuller, John La Porta, Massimo Urbani, Larry Nocella, Ira Sullivan, Red Rodney, Giulio Capiozzo, Franco d’Andrea, Rita Marcotulli, Enrico Rava, Dizzy Gillespie and many others. They played with me and taught me a lot. They were older, some much older than me. Some black, some white, some man, some woman. No matter: all they were and are great musicians, part of the universal history of Jazz. And they gave me, a young hippy beginner, the sensation to be a part of them.
“Jazz, like any true artform, transcends all ethnic, geographic and religious borders.
Jazz considers the individual solely on the basis of his musical skills and his ability to interact with other musicians within a group, therefore it should be free of every form of competition.
Jazz is not a well defined, strictly regimented style of music, ordered by absolute laws. Jazz is a path to understand Music based on interpretation and improvisation, open to any kind of challenge.
It is my desire to create a fertile ground in which to plant the talents of diverse personalities from different musical and cultural backgrounds and together grow towards into higher musical and spiritual understanding.”
Let’s play together!!!