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| The Sicilian Jazz Project |
The Sicilian Jazz Project has been dazzling audiences since its debut at the 2004 Distillery Jazz Festival in Toronto, and with it's intriguing mix of Sicilian folk source material and the best elements of modern jazz, it is a group like no other.
The newest group put together by 2008 JUNO Award nominee Michael Occhipinti, The ensemble features some of Canada's finest musicians, including Roberto Occhipinti on bass, Ernie Tollar on flute/saxophones, Dominic Mancuso on vocals and guitar, Kevin Turcotte on trumpet, Louis Simao on accordion, Barry Romberg on drums, and Michael Occhipinti on acoustic and electric guitars. As with his Juno Award nominated CD Creation Dream, which explored the songs of Bruce Cockburn from a jazz musician's point of view, The Sicilian Jazz Project has Michael reshaping the traditional folk music of Sicily.
In 1954 ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax toured Sicily, recording traditional folk music performed by diverse individuals including sulfur miners, tuna fishermen, a donkey cart driver, and assorted peasants and folk entertainers. Many of these raw field recordings form the basis of The Sicilian Jazz Project's repertoire, along with traditional dances and ballads gleaned from Michael and Roberto's cousins in Sicily. As the band's arranger, Michael Occhipinti has reinvented the music in imaginative ways that nevertheless capture the original emotions behind the songs and the result is a passionate instrumental and vocal repertoire that makes reference to many genres and resonates with listeners.
The talented individuals who make up the group have experience in jazz, classical, Arabic, Cuban, Brazilian, and Italian popular music. In inventing new ways of experiencing the source music, Michael uses the eclecticism of the ensemble as a great asset and freely blends Sicilian music with global rhythms and a variety of modern approaches to the music. Michael also incorporates his own unabashed love of electric guitar sounds.
The Sicilian Jazz Project's January 2007 performance at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto for CBC's On Stage Series continues to generate a great deal of talk (that concert can be heard on demand at www.cbc.ca/radio2 and there is building anticipation for the group's debut recording, (to be released in June 2008 on True North/Universal). The Sicilian Jazz Project will be on tour in the summer of 2008.
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