Prolific Italian, Rome-based reeds player-composer-writer Marco Colonna constantly records with old and new partners, addresses some of the tormented issues of our world with compassion, solidarity and poetic sensibility, and is convinced that music and art at all can create a positive change.
Speaking in Tongues is Colonna’s new Italian trio featuring vocal artist Giulia Cianca (who recently collaborated with Colonna in Unshaped Words, Folderol, 2023) and drummer-percussionist Fabrizio Spera ((who recently recorded with Colonna in a quartet with Italian sax player Edoardo Marraffa and drummer-percussionist Marco Zanotti, Red Planet, Relative Pitch, 2023). Colonna plays on this album flutes, bass clarinet and tenor sax. my kite you made is based on the poem «If I May Die» by Palestinian, Gaza-based poet-writer Refaat Alareer (and professor of literature), the last poem of him before he was killed by an Israeli targeted bombing in December 6, 2023: If I must die, / you must live / to tell my story / to sell my things / to buy a piece of cloth / and some strings, / (make it white with a long tail) / so that a child, somewhere in Gaza / while looking heaven in the eye / awaiting his dad who left in a blaze– / and bid no one farewell / not even to his flesh / not even to himself– / sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above / and thinks for a moment an angel is there / bringing back love / If I must die / let it bring hope / let it be a tale .
Colonna writes that the killing of a poet sounds like yet another act of destruction towards the people, tradition and the language of Palestinians. «A targeted blow to the heart of the Palestinian people’s feeling of identity. His words are an invitation to love. To hope. And all of us, now and for a long time, want to be that white kite». Cianca plays with the poem, transforming it into operatic terrains, deconstructing and reconstructing it with inventive vocal gestures – in English and Italian while delivering its immediate, emotional impact. The long-time comrades Colonna and Spera embrace Cianca’s vocal flights with great sensitivity and color beautifully the powerful, poetic text with touching, arresting improvisations. The proceeds of this album will go to the Gaza Sunbirds (www.gazasunbirds.org), an NGO that proposes forms of resilience for the numerous amputees in Gaza and has done so through sport, especially cycling, led by Alaa al-Dali, a cycling champion who, after being the victim of an Israeli sniper and losing a leg.
Colonna’s quartet with fellow Italian pianist Giorgio Pacorig (who recently played with Colonna in Roberto Ottaviano’s Extended Love & Eternal Love’s Resonance & Rhapsodies, Dodicilune, 2020), double bass and modular synth player Dario Miranda (who recently played in a trio with Colonna and drummer Spera, N-EST, Fundacja Słuchaj!, 2021) and Spera was recorded live in a studio by Colonna. The title refers to another poem, this time American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin’s famous poem by the same name (Imagination / creates the situation, / and, then, the situation / creates imagination. // It may, of course, / be the other way around: / Columbus was discovered / by what he found). This is a free improvising quartet, with Colonna focusing on the bass clarinet, that adopts slow-cooking, lyrical dynamics to explore poetic and collective interplay. The quartet employs its sonic imagination as a means for liberation and freedom, in art and life. Each of the four extended pieces offers its distinct way of reaching such a liberating, ecstatic climax.
The Children of This Land is Colonna’s duo with drummer Spera. Colonna, again, focuses on the bass clarinet but often mimics the sounds of a folk flute. The title refers to a poem of Nigerian playwright-novelist-poet-essayist and Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka by the same name (from the collection of poems Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known), focusing on the plight of Nigerian youth who are alienated from their country due to chronic lack of opportunities to realize their full potential. The poem mourns the children who survived a colonialist war but lost their childhood and youth, become – literally – old and embrace the void. Colonna and Spera are brilliant and resourceful improvisers and here reflect the mournful, emotional tone of the poem faithfully and enjoy the free-form spirit of such an intimate and introspective format.
Colonna’s duo with Slovenian master drummer-percussionist Zlatko Kauçiç was recorded live for the FRI FRU FRA concert series in Nova Gorica in Slovenia in February 2023. Colonna plays the bass clarinet while Kauçiç alternates between the drum set, various percussion devices and flute. The three pieces reflect the open, immediate and conversational dynamics of Colonna and Kauçiç that rely on their past collaborations within the Kauçiç Quintet or their work with Catalan master pianist Agustí Fernández. They move in and out of sparse, contemplative, intimate, and unhurried conversations to brief, dense, and cathartic collisions as they explore their imaginative and colorful sonic palettes and serenade folk-like instant themes.
Eyal Hareuveni
Giulia Cianca (vocals), Marco Colonna (flute, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone), Fabrizio Spera (drums, percussion), Giorgio Pacorig (piano), Dario Miranda (double bass, modular synthesizer), Fabrizio Spera (drums), Zlatko Kauçiç (drums, percussion, flute)
