Rasenna Music live Festival 2023 – Jazz sur le bateau

It is a new jazz festival, a journey between art and music, which will take place at the Villa Mimbelli theater on Saturdays September 16, 23, and 30 at 5:30 PM.
The event is organized by the Rasenna Music Art association in collaboration with the Municipality of Livorno with the patronage of the Livorno Foundation.

In the first concert on September 16 at 5:30 PM, we will listen to the Rasenna Jazz Messenger duo, with the great Max Fantolini on piano, and the music of Giulio Boschi, who is also on double bass. The duo, drawing from their vast repertoire, will make us listen to both new compositions and their signature pieces, reflecting, with their sounds, our land and our days. Some of them are inspired by the paintings reproduced in the exhibition set up outside the theater, such as Modigliani jazz. There will also be an artistic seal of rare preciousness and virtuosity of the brush: the painter Umberto Falchini, simultaneously, will translate the music into shapes and colors, starting from an absolutely untouched white canvas.

In the second concert on September 23 at 5:30 PM, the Contrabboschi’s ensemble quartet, consisting of exceptional talents from the Genoese jazz school, such as trumpeter Stefano Bergamaschi, saxophonist Gianluca Salcuni, and pianist Andrea Grillone, as well as double bassist Giulio Boschi, will perform “From the Seine to the East river” and will let us “listen” to the colors of music through Boschi’s and Mingus’s compositions, expressly dedicated to colors (taken from the thesis “Jazz Exhibition Paintings,” advisor Prof. Paolo Silvestri, Paganini Conservatory of Genoa).

In the third concert on September 30 at 5:30 PM, Triple sec, a trio composed of highly valued, virtuosic, and eclectic musicians such as Mattia Donati on vocals and guitar, Claudio Laucci on piano, and Giulio Boschi on double bass, specializing in reviving and rediscovering the jazz of origins, will delight the audience with their performance.

The Rasenna Music Art association, to promote the work of these young and talented artists, has deemed it appropriate to facilitate their knowledge by offering free admission.

In this itinerary, jazz will speak for itself, highlighting the traces of its evolution. They are three distinct encounters that embark on a common path. The music will start with a spirit closer to European sensitivity, then move on to the deep evocations of the third stream, the jazz closest to the integration with classical music of the twentieth century.

Then it will return to the banks of the Mississippi with a concert dedicated to genuine jazz origins, to remind us how this genre was born from and for the people, expressing the pain and vitality of a people. With this proposal, the association aims to recreate a closeness between artist and audience, which is why they have chosen an intimate and pleasant location like the garden of Villa Mimbelli. Above all, it is emphasized how this process will be achieved thanks to the availability of musicians who are capable of establishing a direct relationship with the audience, transmitting contemporary language with sensitivity and virtuosity, in a communicative, interesting, and enjoyable way. But the most original aspect in highlighting the genesis of this music, which sometimes even embodied the transformations of society, is the dialogue it established with figurative art. No artwork would make sense if it did not connect, not only to its linguistic past but mainly to the context in which it lives and the art forms that represent it. For this reason, reproductions of Livorno authors from the twentieth century, expressing the essence of our time and places, will be exhibited during the concerts. Many of these have inspired Giulio Boschi’s compositions, which bear the same title as the painting. Describing in words what a piece of music or a painting conveys is impossible, just as revealing the innumerable interweavings that lead to an artistic creation is, especially if contemporary. In this festival, we limit ourselves to highlighting some aspects of the contamination between music and painting, with pride that these productions belong to our city. Therefore, the Rasenna Music Art association thanks the Municipality of Livorno and the Livorno Foundation for giving it the opportunity to start this journey from here, integrating civilization and cultures.