Staff WriterWHO: Daniela Nardi
WHAT: Fresh Wednesdays – Storytellers and All That Jazz Series
WHERE: Nathan Phillips Square
WHEN: Wednesday, July 11, noon – 2 pm
TICKETS: Free! All-ages welcome
Sultry Italian-Canadian songstress DANIELA NARDI brings her stunning new album Espresso Manifesto – The Songs of Paolo Conte to Nathan Phillips Square on July 11, 2012, from noon to 2pm as part of their Fresh Wednesdays and All that Jazz Series. To coincide with this event, the album will also be released in stores and online same day, through Acronym Records/EMI Music Canada.
Award-winning singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Daniela Nardi shares her signature interpretations of the songs by legendary Italian artist Paolo Conte, whose stature in Italy is comparable to that of Jacques Brel in France or Tom Waits in America. Under the project title Espresso Manifesto, the Toronto-born daughter of Italian immigrants explores some adventurous and new creative territory on this album that has required her to step out of her musical comfort zone and into the wondrous exploration of the Italian Songbook.
Because Conte’s work has such a strong male character, the project was extremely challenging from a female’s perspective. Nardi has, however, managed to record a full album of his sometimes dark but ironic work, and draws on Conte’s more vulnerable, emotional material. Her passionate re-workings of such stirring vintage numbers as the plaintive, haunting, tango-inspired “Gioco D’Azzardo,” the beautifully bittersweet “Nina,” the punchy, playful “Via Con Me” and the breezy, swinging “Gelato al Limon,” offer powerful testimony to both Conte’s enduring genius and Nardi’s singular interpretive skills. The result is a transcendent cultural experience.
Nardi and her husband, renowned jazz pianist/composer Ron Davis, travelled to Italy to record the album at Elettra Studios in Italy’s Umbria region. Produced by Nardi, with co-production from Davis and legendary producer/engineer Pasquale Minieri (Elisa, Vinicio Capossela, Gianmaria Testa, Francesco DeGregori), they utilized the talents of a prestigious group of top-flight players drawn from Italy’s most vibrant jazz community.
The band featured on Wednesday at the square will be:
Ron Davis – piano
Mike Downes – bass
Roger Travassos – drums
Bryden Baird – trumpet/melodic
Kevin Barrett – guitar
“Espresso. The ultimate symbol of all things Italian. Dark. Rich. Earthy. Complex yet effortless. Elegant yet primal. Hot. When made in the right way, the only way, it is like nothing you have ever known. This is Italy to me. If one person embodies all these elements, it’s Paolo Conte. His music, his lyrics, the experience; as Italian as Espresso. This is my manifesto, my Espresso Manifesto: to create works that proudly display the wonders of those earthy, complex, elegant, primal people, my people – the Italian people.” ~ Daniela Nardi
North American tour dates are in the works for 2012 and early 2013.
jamarch
