For more than three decades Italian singer/songwriter Adelmo Fornaciari, better known as Zucchero, has bridged the musical boundaries and styles of his native country with those of American blues, rock, and soul to become one of the world’s most celebrated superstars. He’s also one of the world’s most sought-after collaborators, having worked with the likes of Eric Clapton, Ray Charles, Luciano Pavarotti, and Miles Davis, among many others. In fact, Davis was so taken by one of Zucchero’s early hits, “Dune Mosse,” which he heard on the radio while on his 1988 tour in Italy, that he ultimately recorded his own version, having tracked down a vacationing Zucchero and inviting him to play on the session.
Now with his latest album, La Sesión Cubana, Zucchero embraces the music of Cuba.
“For many years I felt it would be great to mix my music with a kind of Latino/Cuban vibe,” Zucchero says of the album, which was produced by Don Was (Rolling Stones, Willie Nelson) and recorded in Havana with sixteen of the country’s preeminent musicians, including drummer/percussionist Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez and the late pianist Pucho López. “I chose some of my songs that were already in the Latino direction and then we found other songs that we treated in a Cuban way.”
The album’s North American release (February 18 on Manhattan Records) will kick off a flurry of live and promotional appearances for Zucchero, including a performance at this year’s SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, and an extensive tour.
Also, in March PBS will air a one-hour presentation, Live in Havana, which highlights an historic free concert Zucchero staged on December 8, 2012 at the Advanced Institute of Arts in Havana before an estimated 80,000 people. The full performance will be available as a DVD accompanying deluxe editions of La Sesión Cubana.
In making your current album, La Sesión Cubana, did you and the musicians you worked with in Havana have to familiarize yourselves much with each other’s musical styles? Did you all complement each other’s playing well?
It was not easy to put together all these things because of bureaucracy and all that stuff, but regarding the musicians they were fantastic. They were very collaborative, always very positive and they enjoyed doing this. They were like old friends. They were very amiable and positive. You had to stop them from playing because otherwise they would’ve played all day. [Laughs]
You’ve worked with Don Was a couple times before. How did you two come together originally?
I always loved Don’s work with a lot of big artists. I like his way to produce. So I called him. He came to Italy to visit me. We had a meeting to talk about music, about working together. I immediately found him a fantastic man, very professional but also very creative. We became very close. This is the third album we’ve done together. I went to Los Angeles at the beginning of the work, for the music. Then he came to Italy when I was singing [the vocals]. He loved Italy, of course. So we did very well together.
He’s produced some great albums, like with the Stones.
Yeah, exactly, and he knows the best musicians in the world.
Because recording albums in a studio can be rather regimented, how do you bring the same passion from your live performances into that environment?
The main thing is don’t lose the soul of the track. When I make an album and there is a vibe there I try to keep that vibe in the studio. This is very important. Also, I always think when I’m writing a new album like [it’s] a concert. So, the running order of the album must be—for me—the same as the concert. In fact, when I release an album and then we do a tour, I do all the songs with the same running order of the album; then I start with the hits and the well-known songs. But in the beginning it’s the exact same setlist. That’s why I think the album has to have the same dynamic of the concert.
Going back to when you were growing up in Italy, how did you come to make your own music and write your own songs?
I was very young, listening to music in Italy—I don’t know why, but I’ve never been a big fan of Italian pop music—and I started to hear and love [American] black music, soul and rhythm and blues and gospel. In those days Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, they were kind of for a few people, elite; they were not so known in Italy at that time. I fell in love with this music, of this way to sing. I remember I started playing “(Sitting on the) Dock of the Bay” on a very cheap guitar. I found the music I wanted to do. Then after I put together different bands, playing Chicago and Blood, Sweat, and Tears, [along with] all the rhythm and blues standards. When I started to make records I tried to put together rhythm and blues, soul, and gospel with Mediterranean and Italian influences, and this is basically my music now.
As far as subject matter of what you write…
It’s my life. I always write about my experiences, my personal experiences or what I think. My life is full of emotion. I’m talking about friendship, I’m talking about love, I’m talking sometimes about politics or religion. I’ll do it with a double meaning sometimes to try to say something with poetry, not just say something. I don’t know how to write something that I didn’t try personally. Even when you travel—even if you are on a train, for example—and you see the landscape and you see the colors of the place, you could find inspiration.
For someone who grew up listening and appreciating black American music, what did it mean to you to have Miles Davis seek you out in 1988? How was it working with him?
I was shocked. A promoter called me up and said, “Miles Davis is in Italy and he was at a restaurant and he heard this song and asked who was singing it. He doesn’t know who you are, but he likes the song and he asked to play on it.” At the time I was not in Italy—I was on holiday—and I received this telephone call, and I thought it was a joke. I didn’t trust and didn’t believe that it was true, but he insisted. So I came to New York and we went to the studio, the Hit Factory, and Miles was… He’s not the kind of guy that’s laughing. He just came in the studio and he talked to me, saying, “I love this song. I love your voice. I have to cry when I am going to play this song because I love it so much.” And he started to play. He did a lot of versions. Then at the end we went to an Italian restaurant and finally he took his glasses off and he became warmer and friendlier. He was great and so unique.
By that time Miles was rather late in his career, but he remained aware and interested in new musicians, new music, and art. He wasn’t closed off at all.
Yeah, and the choice of the song was because at that time he was travelling a lot around the Mediterranean Sea and wanted to play something that had to do with Mediterranean music, to try to find a new way to do his music. That’s why he did the album Siesta. It probably was the right song at the right moment for him.
La Sesión Cubana is due February 18 on Manhattan Records. For more information on Zucchero, please visit the artist’s official website.
On March 23, legendary jazz bassist and composer Dave Holland will issue his latest work, Pathways, introducing the first document of his eponymous Octet on his own Dare2 Records label. Culled from performances recorded at Birdland in New York City, the album features Holland’s regular working band—Robin Eubanks, Steve Nelson, Chris Potter, and Nate Smith—with the addition of three horn players in Antonio Hart (alto sax), Gary Smulyan (baritone sax), and Alex Sipiagin (trumpet).
For Holland, a three-time GRAMMY® winner, the album is but the latest manifestation of the ingenuity he’s contributed to his craft and encouraged in his fellow musicians for over 40 years. As well, his proficiency on the bass has augmented collaborations with such artists as Stan Getz, Wayne Shorter, Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, and Miles Davis, the latter having summoned Holland to his band in 1968, culminating with such landmark recordings as In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew.
In anticipation of the upcoming release of Pathways, Holland offered insights to the album’s origins as well as his perspectives on jazz.
What does adding three horn players bring to your sound?
Certainly the individuals help. Their improvising style and approach to playing is a great addition to what we already have there in the Quintet players. Of course they bring some new approaches that they particularly like to work with in their music. I really like to integrate that into the music of the band. On a compositional level, it’s given me a chance to expand a little bit on the writing side of the music and to create some more full context for the music to be heard in the orchestration.
On Pathways, you revisit two songs that you’ve done in the past, “How’s Never?” and “Shadow Dance.” Why did you choose those to interpret with the Octet?
We actually had quite a big selection of music we were performing that week. There were several other pieces that we played that we didn’t decide to put on the record. I was looking to make a good album of the band. That was a strong track and it seemed to fit and work with the other pieces. And I was looking, of course, to be able to feature people in certain situations and settings. That tune fulfilled that. It’s a song anyway that I’ve revisited several times in different groups; it’s the gift that keeps giving, you might say. [Laughs]
Given the nature of improvisation in a live performance, as the bandleader how do you distinguish between a fruitful performance and of someone just winging it?
Well I’m glad to say nobody in our band wings it. Everybody goes for it no matter what they’re doing. Most musicians that have any self-respect try to do the best they can in every situation they’re in. Now, this is the nice thing about live recording, that in the course of performing for a week you have several choices often of which performance to use. And so there are times when a musician will be particularly inspired on a night or on a particular tune. And the nice thing about recording live is that you’re then able to capture it, to document it. So you make a choice. For me it’s based on which performances sound the best, which performances present the musicians who are playing and being featured in the best possible creative situation.
Do you have a preference for your bandmates as far as them having technical skill over intuitive playing?
No, I think the technique should serve the creative need. If technique is used for the sake of it, then of course it becomes meaningless. But certainly technique as it serves the creative impulse and ideas is important in order to express them. When we’re playing, we’re all listening to each other and being very, very intuitive about the music and anticipating where we’re going and what’s happening and really communicating on every level. To me, that’s really the most important thing, that everybody’s connected that way and listening and communicating in the music.
There’s long been a spirit of mentorship in jazz. Is that something you’ve tried to do as well?
It’s not a self-conscious thing; it’s just a part of the way that the tradition is in the music. I was helped by musicians when I came up and I’m still being helped and informed. I’m learning from my fellow musicians as we go—people coming up with new ideas or somebody’s heard something—and we talk about it and they turn you on to it. So the mentoring goes on all the time. Do I seek it out? I have some teaching activities that I certainly take very seriously. I’m an artist in residence at a couple universities and that part of it is an important part of my activities, to pass on experience and try to communicate what I’ve learned and pass on the heritage just as has been passed on to me.
So that’s how it continues. And I’m certainly interested in keeping in touch with young players and what they’re doing. But when it comes down to it, it’s about the player and what they’re doing and the quality of their work. That’s the most important thing for me. Of course mentoring is part of the tradition of this music in all kinds of forms, sometimes in a formal way when you’re teaching in a classroom or sometimes in a discussion with a player after a gig…[Though] if you’re talking about mentoring in terms of instructing, I don’t do that at all really. Robin Eubanks—one of the guys in my band—said something like, “Dave just winds the band up and lets it go.” I thought that was kind of an apt description in a way.
That entails a lot of trust, doesn’t it?
Of course. It’s all about trust. Any leader, whether it’s in business or in music or whatever, you need to trust the people who are working with you. You need to feel confidence in them and empower them and give them a chance to show what they can do. This is the same thing, really. I’m just trying to create a setting where everybody can explore their creativity. And I choose the musicians. That’s the big choice to make, finding musicians that are sympathetic to the music that we’re going to be playing and who have the ability and the generosity to support other players in a collective way. So all these qualities are things that I think about before I ask somebody to be a part of a project. Once they’re in the band, for me it’s an important thing then to trust them, to trust my decision on asking them to be there, and to give them as much room creatively as is possible within the music.
Do you still get the same sort of rush you’ve always gotten when a live performance goes over well?
Oh yeah. When the band’s really clicking on a high and intuitive level, you come away from the performance that you’ve really achieved something as a group as well as individually. That’s the greatest feeling.
One could trace Joni Mitchell’s jazz sensibilities perhaps as far back as Court and Spark, certainly by the time of The Hissing of Summer Lawns. In the mid-to-late 1970s, many of Mitchell’s compositions utilized jazz musicians due, in large part, to the instrumental dexterity required to play them. One such musician, Herbie Hancock, now leads a brilliant tribute to Mitchell on his latest release, River: The Joni Letters.
The album features an impressive guest list, including Leonard Cohen, Luciana Souza, Norah Jones, and Corinne Bailey Rae. Also involved is saxophonist Wayne Shorter, who, in addition to having played with Hancock as far back as in the Miles Davis Quintet, has also lent his talents to some of Mitchell’s recordings. Mitchell herself even makes an appearance, reinterpreting one her past works, “The Tea Leaf Prophecy (Lay Down Your Arms).”
Rather than presenting literal translations, Hancock takes liberties in spacing out the sound of each song, giving the musicians license to improvise or perhaps to allow a vocalist to slip into a groove. A prime example of this occurs on “Court and Spark,” during which Norah Jones sings in a sparing yet sultry manner while the music sprawls on for nearly eight minutes.
Another facet of this album is how the music, even in its more liberal variations, arcs to the sonic contours of Mitchell’s lyrics. On “Amelia,” for instance, Luciana Souza’s voice, which sounds eerily like Mitchell’s on the original track, serves as a through line for Shorter, particularly, to play around. As well, Tina Turner’s refined performance on “Edith and the Kingpin” is the centerpiece of the song, while the musicians deftly compliment its sophisticated phrasings.
No one song on this album signifies Mitchell’s command with language better than “The Jungle Line.” Lyrics once buried by Burundi drums now resonate in lucid and striking fashion, as Hancock’s lone piano accompanies Leonard Cohen’s cadenced recitation.
Lyrical in their own right by way of their musical structure and sound, four instrumentals fill out the album. Although not written by Mitchell, two of those compositions, Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” and Miles Davis’ “Nefertiti,” were included because they influenced her as an artist. Incidentally, Hancock and Shorter played on the Miles Davis original, from the album of the same name.
On each song, Herbie Hancock conducts a compelling rendering of Joni Mitchell’s music and muse. River: The Joni Letters not only represents an exceptional album, but also an appropriate tribute to the most influential female singer/songwriter of the 20th century, the quintessential Lady of the Canyon.
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