Probably for the first time, a jazz quartet meets the classic wind quintet, here represented by instruments with a lower register: alto flute, English horn and contrabass clarinet, which together with the horn and bassoon contribute to making the sounds warmer, more intense and richer in harmonics.
"Ancient fairy tales and legends of our origins", "folkloric heritage handed down to the present day": whatever you call them, I liked the idea of finally immortalising in music the stories born from a 'collective unconscious' (C. G. Jung), so surprising that they have nothing to envy from some tales of a much more modern 'Fantasy' genre. The wonderful sense of the supernatural stimulated me to search for unheard-of sound mixtures through 'earthly' acoustic musical instruments, however, as if to symbolise those protagonists of a peasant reality who entertained themselves with legendary tales in the 'stüa' (living room) of their valley home.
The second album 'Sujazzstiva' was recorded at Hardstudios Winterthur in co-production with SRF2 Kultur. This ensemble of nine professional musicians, probably unique worldwide, came into being in 2015 thanks to compositions commissioned from Marco Santilli by the Internationales Musikfestival Alpentöne, which resulted in the album 'La Stüa' (Unit Records, 2017). The first performance was aired simultaneously on Rete Due and SRF2. "Sujazzstiva" refers to "suggestive", including "jazz" and "stiva" (a Graubünden variant of "stüa", to continue the discourse of the first CD "La Stüa" and having this time also set to music a fairy tale from the Italian Grisons). The 10 new compositions are inspired by stories from Italian-speaking Switzerland, most of them contained in the four volumes 'Il meraviglioso. Leggende, fiabe e favole ticinesi" (Armando Dadò).
Line-up:
Marco Santilli (clarinet, bass clarinet, compositions)
Julio Azcano (guitar)
Marina Vasilyeva (piano)
Fulvio Maras (percussion, drums)
Isabell Weymann (alto flute, piccolo, flute)
Davide Jäger (english horn, oboe)
François Rieu (french horn)
Alessandro Damele (bassoon)
Azra Ramic (contrabass clarinet, vocals)
