Jazz Festival > Program > PAOLO DAMIANI LAST LAND BAND

Monday, March 24, 2025 ● AASSM Grand Hall ● 20.30

 

 

PAOLO DAMIANI LAST LAND BAND

 

Paolo Damiani,  double bass

Elena Paparusso, vocals

Antonio Jasevoli, guitar

 

Paolo Damiani Last Land Band

Paolo Damiani’s new project offers a repertoire balanced between jazz and pop, characterized by splendid melodies composed not only by the three soloists but also by musicians such as Charles Mingus (Good bye pork pie hat), Rodriguez (Rabo de nube), Ramirez (Alfonsina y el mar), Jony Mitchell (A case of you),Charlie Haden (Song for Che), as well as songs by the Beatles and De Andre’. Paolo Damiani and Antonio Jasevoli have been playing and recording together for a long time - an unlikely meeting on paper, the two usually move in very different fields.

Maestro Damiani has invented an original European language: moving jazz aesthetics into non-traditional contexts, the guitarist has elaborated on the great lesson of the best Rock (Cream, Hendrix, Beck...) through the knowledge and practice of jazz language and classical music, developing a very personal poetics that crosses different territories. In this new project they have involved Elena Paparusso, - one of the most exciting voices of Italian jazz, able to move easily in the territories of song as well as experimentation.

LAND, earth: we cross territories that are formed in the moment, in common research and listening: Earth as home, as mother earth, as our traditions, as the traditions of all peoples, earth as humanity and as a primitive and ancestral place, earth as a future and futuristic place, earth as a base to launch into infinite space...into the air.

In this mysterious land that allows us to be sincere, beyond the border, nothing is impossible because everything is ours and everything can continue to be imagined again and again.

Paolo Damiani, composer, conductor, cellist, double bass, teacher

Born in Rome, he took a degree in architecture, composition and double bass. He has studied with Bruno Tommaso, Giorgio Gaslini, Giuseppe Selmi, Frances Marie Uitti, Lucio Buccarella and Giorgio Pani, among others.

In 2002 he founded and directed the Jazz Department of the Rome Conservatorio di “Santa Cecilia” until 2018. In 2020 he was awarded the prestigious Musica Jazz magazine’s Top Jazz career award.

He has collaborated with innumerable celebrated musicians, including: Pat Metheny, Kenny Wheeler, Albert Mangelsdorff, Billy Higgins, Antony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, Gianluigi Trovesi, John Surman, Charlie Mariano, Miroslav Vitous, Trilok Gurtu, Paolo Fresu, Enrico Rava, Louis Sclavis, Anouar Brahem, François Jeanneau and Giorgio Gaslini – with whom he made his debut.

He has formed and conducted various ensembles and appeared at important festivals the world over. Amongst Italian groups mention must be made of the Italian Instabile Orchestra - held by the music press to be one of the most prestigious Jazz orchestras in Europe , - the duo with Danilo Rea, and ensembles formed with Gianluigi Trovesi, Rosario Giuliani, Rita Marcotulli, Fabio Zeppetella, Diana Torto, and Michele Rabbia among others.

He has also performed regularly with writers and actors, including Stefano Benni, Ivano Marescotti, David Riondino, Sonia Bergamasco, Fabrizio Gifuni and Lella Costa.

From 2000 - 2002 he was Artistic and Music Director of the ONJ, the Orchestra Nazionale Francese di Jazz , the first and only foreigner to have occupied the post.

From 1996 - 2000 he was President of the AMJ. (the National Jazz Musicians’Association).

From 1982 - 2012 he directed the Festival Internazionale Rumori Mediterranei di Roccella Jonica and was awarded honorary citizenship by the town in 2005.

Since 1998 he has been running, the Rome festival ‘Una Striscia di Terra Feconda’ together with Armand Meignan.

Damiani  has created various highly original music and arts projects:

2007 he was elected to the CNAM (Consiglio Nazionale per l’Alta Formazione Artistica e Musicale), a supervisory body of the MUIR.

2008 his CD Al tempo che farà (Egea Records) was chosen as Best Recording of the Year by the periodicals Musica Jazz, Jazz Magazine and Musica & Dischi.

2009 he was awarded the honorary title Cavaliere by the President of the Italian Republic, in recognition of his artistic merit.

He has made recordings with ECM, PARCO DELLA MUSICA RECORDS,EGEA, ENJA, SPLASC(H), LEO, MUSICA JAZZ.

2011 he won the Best Composer of the Year TOP JAZZ prize conferred by the monthly magazine Musica Jazz.

2013 his Composition and Improvisation Handbook was published by Volonté Ed.

2013, in response to a request from the Teatro di Puccini in Florence and with the MIUR (Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’ Università e della Ricerca), he founded the ’Orchestra Nazionale Jazz Giovani Talenti’, comprising 30 of the best musicians selected from the Italian Conservatoires. In 2006 he was nominated Coordinator of the National Committee for applied music teaching, with Professor Luigi Berlinguer presiding.

 

Elena Paparusso, vocal

Elena was born in Puglia, on the Murgia hills in the South of Italy, where she was inspired and shaped by thesounds, images and her dreams. She currently lives in Rome where she can nourish her musical and artistic background. Singer, composer and performer, Elena works on both musical and performance projects with contemporary dance.

Her latest album, Anatomy of the Sun, reveals a process of investigation into her own emotional pathways -an Approach to the Sun, a metaphor for one’s own innermost feelings and emotions, in a wide-ranging and objective vision. The infinite experience of this approximation nourishes a constant life force that takes the form here of a music of multi-faceted and diverse nuances, with a rich array of colours and hypnotic visions. She has been awarded an artistic residency for her compositions, thanks to Progetto Air 2024, and is supported by MIDJ and the Europe Jazz Network. 

Between her collaborations she has been working with Last Land Band, a new trio formed by Paolo Damiani, the International awarded double bass player and cellist, and also with the Burnogualà Large Vocal Ensemble directed by Maria Pia De Vito. They produced the album Moresche ed altre Invenzioni (Parco della Musica Record 2018), using the music of Orlando di Lasso, a 17th-century composer, by blending composition and improvisation. 

Her debut album Inner Nature (Lhobo Music) was released in September 2016, and she was winner of the WinJazz 2015 (Women In Jazz) contest organized by MIBACT (Ministry of Culture) an MULAB, as best composer.

 

Antonio Jasevoli, guitar

Guitarist and composer Jasevoli's very personal style has developed over the years through combining  a variety of contexts and guitar music from rock to jazz, electronic, classical, and contemporary improvisation - a synthesis resulting from a heterogeneous formation. Antonio is a pioneer and important point of reference in the use of electronic effects applied to the electric guitar, - he is both a great expert on classical guitar, and also an original interpreter.  

During his career, he has released numerous recordings, usually for “Parco della Musica Records”, and has collaborated with many leading

representatives of international music (including Kenny Wheeler, Tony Scott, Steve Grossman, Andy Sheppard, Bob Brookmeyer, Maria Shneider, Daniel Humair, Ernst Reijsenger, Dominique Piffarelly, Antonello Salis, Danilo Rea, Paolo Fresu, Paolo Damiani, Fabrizio Bosso, Gianluigi Trovesi, Luca Aquino, Don Moje, and John Taylor among many others…),performing at  the major theaters and international festivals. 

Jasevoli also leads various groups and projects, from the solo to the quintet, and has been Professor of Jazz Guitar and Theory, Analysis and Improvisation at the Conservatory S. Cecilia in Rome since 2007, as well as at the Conservatory A. Casella, L’Aquila, Conservatory O.Respighi, Latina, Conservatory L.Cherubini, in Florence and currently at the Conservatory L.Refice, Frosinone.