Articles

Simone Guiducci Gramelot Ensemble: Storie di Fiume

By Ian Patterson

On first listening to Storie di fiume(River Tales), Simone Guiducci's Gramelot Ensemble's fourth recording, one wonders whether this is folk music colored by jazz, or jazz music influenced by folk. But like the confluence of two rivers there comes a point where it is impossible to distinguish the two separate entities--the absorption is complete and mutual.

On the opening track, “Uomini di fiume," the accordion of Fausto Beccalossi and the clarinet of Achille Succi blend as one, carrying ...

Simone Guiducci Gramelot Ensemble: Storie di Fiume

By Glenn Astarita

Italian acoustic guitarist and composer Simone Guiducci has performed with German bass legend Eberhard Weber and American multi-reedist Chris Speed, among other notables. On Storie di Fiume, the artist's alterable Gramelot Ensemble fuses the sounds of Mediterranean folk music with spiraling improvisational forays.

Guiducci's signature invocation of jazz and Italian melodies is something of a trademark sound. At times peaceable and slightly raucous, the leader commandeers linear progressions with veteran woodwind player Achille Succi, solely performing on clarinets for this ...

Simone Guiducci Gramelot Ensemble: Dancin' Roots

By Glenn Astarita

Italian acoustic guitarist Simone Guiducci often employs well-known American jazz musicians for his conspicuously ambitious projects. With this effort, he benefits from clarinetist Don Byron's expertise, along with rising star trumpeter Ralph Alessi and other top-notch instrumentalists. Guiducci's trademark fusion of Mediterranean themes with complex harmonic sojourns once again offers more than just a few rewarding attributes. His muse features a classy brew consisting of complex unison lines, off-meter Latin grooves, and lyrically rich melodies.

Accordionist Fausto Beccalossi's ...

Simone Guiducci: Dancin' Roots

By AAJ Staff

By Angelo Leonardi

Born in 1962 in Turin, Italy, guitarist and composer Simone Guiducci has been hailed as a creative voice on the contemporary Italian jazz scene. He's made several internationally acclaimed recordings as a leader including his two latest, Dancin' Roots (Felmay, 2005) and Chorale (Felmay, 2003). With his ongoing project “Gramelot", Guiducci explores the creative dialogue between Italian folklore themes and jazz improvisation.

His “Gramelot Ensemble" has been comprised of distinguished Italian musicians over the years including Enrico ...

Simone Guiducci Gramelot Ensemble: Dancin' Roots

By John Kelman

With consistently compelling releases from labels like EGEA and CAM Jazz, the vibrancy of the Italian jazz scene is becoming more and more recognized by a larger international audience. Increasingly self-evident is that the Italian jazz community encompasses both the broader improvising tradition of American jazz and the intrinsic ethnicity of its own rich musical history. But while much of EGEA's music has a distinctive coastal Mediterranean flavour, and CAM Jazz, by focusing to some extent on the vivid legacy ...

Simone Guiducci Gramelot Ensemble: Dancin' Roots

By Paul Olson

Musicians have been combining various musical genres with jazz for decades and the results are often pretty messy. Jazz doesn't mix as well with its musical brethren as one might hope: often its improvisational side is diluted and all that survives the graft is an empty virtuosity. That's why the achievement of Italian acoustic guitarist Simone Guiducci and his Gramelot Ensemble is so stunning; as evidenced by Dancin' Roots , their fusion of jazz with various European and Middle-Eastern folk ...

Simone Guidicci: Chorale

By Elliott Simon

Acoustic guitarist Simone Guiducci and his Gramelot Ensemble have defined a new musical language that combines indigenous Northern Italian folk music with modern jazz. Inspired by the invented “gramelot" language of 15th century troubadours, 16th century Monteverdian fundamental discords and the modern gramelot of playwright Dario Fo, the Ensemble's latest release, Chorale, exposes a quintet that is in search of a broader musical patois but at the same time is comfortable with its roots. Like the previous ...