Bitter Crop is the new Italian working trio of prolific reed player Marco Colonna, featuring young pianist Gaia Schirò and close comrade, drummer Fabrizio Spera. The name draws inspiration from the closing words of the iconic protest song against lynchings, «Strange Fruit», composed by Abel Meeropol (under his pseudonym Lewis Allan) and immortalized by Billie Holiday’s version: «…Here’s a fruit for the crows to pluck / For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck / For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop / Here’s a strange and bitter crop».
Bitter Crop recorded its debut, self-titled album live at Folderol Studios in Rome in May 2025. The eight pieces remind us of the times when gospel music, spirituals, protest songs, and free jazz evolved from similar, close traditions and often intertwined, motivating the civil rights struggle not only in the United States but all over the globe.
The soulful, openly emotional, mostly contemplative, free-improvised and non-hierarchical spirit of Bitter Crop, with its clever mosaic of quotes from protest songs and spirituals, owes much to this rich African American legacy. But Bitter Crop attempts to suggest a fresh and most relevant musical vision in which free music and social consciousness find new common ground and collective unity. It highlights the role of music as an inspiring, motivating, and uplifting tool of inquiry, resistance, and reflection on the very idea of liturgy, especially during our current times, when the meaning of prayer and of struggle for justice, freedom, and human rights is stifled by authoritarian-fascist regimes, military barbarism, and neoliberalism-driven individualism. Bitter Crop offers a highly moving, captivating, and stimulating medicine against these destructive trends.
Il fiore blu (The blue flower) is the sophomore duo album of Colonna and a generation older, fellow Italian guitarist Enzo Rocco, following Nine Improvisations for Sopranino and Guitar (Setola di Maiale, 2021) and a series of live performances. The renowned collaboration was recorded live during the Alterazioni festival in Lainate in November 2025.
Rocco describes his music as «Jazz = funky/Neapolitan/electronic/blues mixed with Verdi’s/heavy metal/opera mixed with Russian/yodel/waltz of Santo Domingo mixed with a hard Japanese noise-lullaby sang by an Italian romantic crooner». He met Colonna in one of Butch Morris’ guided improvisations – conductions – in 2003, and the two kept in touch despite the obvious differences in their musical approaches. The live, free improvised performance shows that they still share a similar vision of free-associative improvisation as a form of instant composition. The opening, 34-minute title piece offers a lyrical, meditative and poetic mode of instant composition, relying on empathic, deep listening. The second, shorter «Ultimo Petal», continues this free-associative, empathic vein but gravitates into a more playful mode.
Eyal Hareuveni
Marco Colonna (bass clarinet, flute, baritone saxophone), Gaia Schirò (piano), Fabrizio Spera (drums), Enzo Rocco (guitar)
