Tag Archives: Malik Ahmed

World Poetry Celebrates Ruth Kozak!

 

Ariadne’s Notes: The World Poetry Café radio show, 100.5 FM CFRO is honoured to welcome two wonderful writers, poets and authors. Calling in at 1:10 pm PST is the author,  historian and archivist Donna Jean MacKinnon!  Calling in from New Westminster is the amazing Ruth Kozak who will be talking about her latest trip to Greece! I will be promoting them separately. Also, opening poems by Malik Ahmed, Vancouver and Pieter-Joris Morssink, Australia A new story by Sharon Rowe is also featured read by Victor Shwartzman .

CLICK HERE FOR THE SHOW!

 

 

Ruth Kozak is a Canadian travel journalist and writer with a strong interest in history and archaeology. A frequent traveler, Ruth lived for several years in Greece and instructs classes in travel journalist and creative writing. A travel writer since 1982, she is a regular contributor to EuropeUpClose www.europupclose.com . Ruth also edits and publishes her own on-line travel zine at www.travelthruhistory.com She has been published in the APA Insight Guides 1994, Writer’s Abroad anthology “Foreign Flavours” and recently “Limitless” as well as three poetry anthologies. Her ATHENS AND BEYOND e-book for Hunter Publishing, US was published in Nov 2015.  

Ruth’s first historical fiction novel SHADOW OF THE LION: BLOOD ON THE MOON (Volume One) was published July 2014 by www.mediaaria-cdm.com  UK.  Volume Two, BLOOD ON THE MOON: THE FIELDS OF HADES was published in December 2016.  These are her first published literary works. Research was done in Greece and with the help of the Vancouver Greek Consul, the Ministry of Culture, Greece and the Society of Macedonian Studies, Thessaloniki, as well as help from various Classical scholars, and the Finnish Institute and Norwegian Institutes of Athens.  Recently the full version of SHADOW OF THE LION has been put on Kindle ebooks. 

Writing  Credentials:

Ruth is a member of  the Royal City Literary Arts Society and is president of the BC Association of Travel Writers.  

 

World Poetry Celebrates Donna Jean MacKinnon!

 

 Ariadne’s Notes?:The World Poetry Café radio show, 100.5 FM CFRO on Nov.7  is honoured to welcome two wonderful writers, poets and authors. Calling in at 1:10 pm PST is the author,  historian and archivist Donna Jean MacKinnon!  Calling in from New Westminster is the amazing Ruth Kozak who will be talking about her latest trip to Greece! I will be promoting them separately. Also, opening poems by Malik Ahmed, Vancouver and Pieter-Joris Morssink, Australia . A new Big Bessie story by Sharon Rowe read by Victor Shwartzman was also featured .

A young poet and writer who wants to bring the old history from Dubai wrote in to ask our guests about suggestions. He felt that there was a lot of attention on the future  but not as much on bringing the past to life. Dubai is our 129 the country that listens in at times! 

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SHOW!

Donna Jean MacKinnon writes:

“I am working on a local historical novel set in Vancouver 1884-1913 – a woman’s story because so much of what there is in local historical lore is male-oriented. The poem just came out of me one night after I’d been working on my manuscript and had gotten to a new phase/realization.. I’m very humbled by the form of the novel as well – but am enjoying the process immensely. . . https://historicalresearch.blog 

 

Revise Revise Revise 

The manuscript

a bed sheet fresh from the line

snaking out above the yard.

 

I grab it by two corners and 

Shake out the wrinkles 

Trying to get it to 

Lie flat

 

A smooth logic to gain dominion over 

The peaks and valleys of redundancy 

actions and characters that don’t work or fit

To find the fabric of its logic 

 

Or maybe it’s more like making toffee 

twisting and turning

Creating a heat of its own

A shape of its own

A texture 

Seeing what sticks and solidifies

 

Never mind the polishing yet to come

The burnishing stone I need

To smooth out the sharp angles

Edges too jarring

Characters too simple

Actions illogical

 

To bring out the lustre 

To make it shine and sparkle

To emulate the masters 

Who so humble me in this endeavor

 

To shape and nurture

With poetry 

 

To give the story life

By Donna Jean MacKinnon (C), Vancouver B.C. Canada. All rights reserved.

 

World Poetry Celebrates Jacqueline Maire & Lello Molinari!

 

 

 

Ariadne’s Notes:

On March 29th. 1-2 PM PST, the World Poetry Café Radio Show, CFRO 100.5 FM PST  welcomed features:

Jacqueline Maire, World Poetry Lifetime Achievement Winner  and author with her poems in English and French.

Co-host Dr. Diego Bastianutti took the hosting lead for  Bassist/bandleader Lello Molinari’s new album  Italian Job, Lello and Diego discussed  the importance of roots with music selections. A fascinating show in English, French, Italian and Spanish. Lello’s section below. 

E-poem: By the talented youth Wonder Poet Kezang Dawa from the lovely country of Bhutan.

 E-poem by Malik Ahmed originally from Bangladesh.

Thanks to our World Poetry Team of Ariadne Sawyer, MA, producer , co-host Diego Bastianutti and special Volunteer Sharon Rowe.

Music by Laura Kelsey with her new CD Dispell, . http://dispellband.bandcamp.com to be launched on the World Poetry Café radio Show, April 5th, 1-2 pm.

LISTEN HERE FOR The RADIO SHOW!

 

 

 

 

 Feature Bassist/Bandleader Lello Molinari Returns to his Italian Roots, Reimagines Classic Repertoire in Stunning Modern Jazz Settings

Lello’s Italian Job, Volume 2 features Italian and Italian-American musicians transforming folk and popular songs and classical arias from throughout Italy’s rich musical history

“Lello’s Italian Job, Volume 1 is a dynamic showcase for [Molinari’s] instrumental skills… covering an all-star roster of Italian musical icons with passion, respect and imagination.”

– Stacey Zering, No Depression

“Molinari’s music: in your face, a little raw, fiercely alive.” – Thomas Conrad, DownBeat

It’s often been said that “you can’t go home again” – but with his Italian Job project, Lello Molinari proves that old cliché wrong. The acclaimed bassist has not only returned to his Italian roots, but brought with him three decades of experience as a bandleader, an educator, and a virtuosic bassist with his fingers on the pulse of modern jazz. Now he views the unparalleled musical traditions of his homeland through the lens of a lifetime’s worth of accumulated musical knowledge, creating something that’s both Old World and New, deeply personal while reflecting a profound tradition.

Molinari left his native Naples, Italy in 1986 to study jazz at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. In the intervening years he’s gone on to become a revered educator at that same institution, perform as an in-demand bassist on both the jazz and classical music scenes in Boston, tour the U.S. and Europe with his own Quintet, and venture to the leading edges of jazz in partnership with saxophone great George Garzone.

In recent years, however, Molinari began to glance back over his shoulder at the wealth of musical riches to be found in the land of his birth. That adventure began as part of his 2000 album Multiple Personalities, which peppered three Italian tunes into an album that also veered from forward-leaning jazz to a Monk classic, and featured Garzone, guitarist Mick Goodrick, pianist Frank Carlberg and renowned Italian vocalist Chiara Civello. On the 2016 release Lello’s Italian Job, Volume 1, he explored material from across the wide spectrum of Italian song – traditional folk music, classical arias, popular songs – and radically transformed them through his own singular jazz voice. Now, with Lello’s Italian Job, Volume 2, he offers a second collection that marries timeless melodies to contemporary sounds.  The CD will be released on Friday, March 9, 2018 via Fata Morgana Music.

“I had a desire to reconnect with my roots,” Molinari says. “But I also wanted to incorporate these new things that I’ve learned over the years here in the States to old material and give it a fresh look and a fresh take.”

As on the first volume, Molinari leads a quartet of stellar artists who share his Italian heritage – and are all members of the Berklee faculty. Drummer Marcello Pellitteri is a fellow immigrant, hailing originally from Sicily, while saxophonist Dino Govoni and guitarist Sal DiFusco are both Italian-American. Their repertoire for Volume 2 varies from a Respighi tone poem to popular Neapolitan songs that have been sung for generations, to original music penned for the project.

With centuries of musical history to delve into, Molinari found that the hardest part of the project has been whittling down his list to just enough repertoire to fill (so far) two volumes. “Rather than picking which songs to do, I really had to think about which ones not to do,” he says. “If you think about Italian music, it’s like saying

‘Jazz’ – there’s so much and it’s so diverse that it’s impossible to put it into one place. Because I play with a number of orchestras, I’ve reconnected recently with classical music and opera. Then there are certain pieces of music that I just adore and that I wanted to do with my group in my way. Others were songs that I grew up with, folk songs that I’ve known since I was a kid. So it was a natural process.”

The insistent tap of Pellitteri’s percussion opens “’O Sarracino,” a popular song by legendary Neapolitan performer Renato Carosone, given a jazz-funk feel by Govoni’s keening soprano, Molinari’s slinky electric bass line, and DiFusco’s strummed groove. “Jazz Tarantella” takes the melody that is the bane of every Italian’s existence – you know the one, it accompanies every Italian stereotype and cartoon that’s ever appeared on screen – and reimagines it as an alluring straightahead jazz tune in the vein of Miles Davis’ “Dear Old Stockholm.” DiFusco’s original “Sulla Strada di Damasco” follows, inspired by the story of the conversion of Saint Paul and incorporating a vaguely Middle Eastern feel.

“Intermezzo Sinfonico,” from Pietro Mascagni’s operatic masterpiece “Cavalleria Rusticana,” is jolted into the present via Govoni’s EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument) and Lello’s harmonies on Electric basses, while Pino Daniele’s “’na Tazzulella ‘e Café” makes the unlikely journey from Napoli espresso bar to Bourbon Street coffeehouse in Molinari’s New Orleans-influenced arrangement. Ottorino Respighi’s four-movement tone poem “Pini di Roma” becomes a lush, impressionistic ballad, followed by Luigi Canoro’s famous mazurka “Tra Veglia e Sonno,” which opens familiarly with a mandolin and percussion intro before Govoni’s tenor shifts it firmly into the jazz realm.

“Lidio Napoletano” shows off the improvisational empathy of the trio, built on a short melody in the Lydian mode and created in homage to the treasured Boston band The Fringe, mainstays on the local scene for more than four decades. “Anema e Core,” which has been sung in different languages by everyone from Perry Como to Andrea Boccelli, is a famous Neapolitan song written by Salve D’Esposito in 1950, rendered as a moving duet for bass and guitar. Another song that’s traveled the globe, the famous “Torna a Surriento” has been recorded by everyone from Luciano Pavarotti to Dean Martin to Elvis Presley (as “Surrender”), its heartbreaking melody here pairing Govoni’s EWI with cello played by Meena Murthy. The gorgeous melody of “Tu ‘si ‘na Cosa Grande” is set to a slow, swaying beguine, while Molinari and Pellitteri close the session with an improvised duet, evocatively titled “Neapolitan Snake.”

“I guess as I get more mature,” Molinari concludes, “I don’t need to play ‘punk jazz’ anymore or do music that’s so difficult to listen to. I can enjoy a simple structure, a simple melody – Lello’s Italian Job lets me do both, reinterpreting this old material from a new, contemporary jazz point of view.”

Lello Molinari: Born and raised in Naples, Italy, bassist, bandleader and educator Lello Molinari studied contrabass at the Scuola Civica in Sesto San Giovanni. In 1985 he joined the Italian Vocal Ensemble, performing on radio and television as well as at Italy’s leading jazz festivals. The following year he moved to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music, earning his Bachelors Degree there and his Masters from the New England Conservatory. He’s since joined the Berklee faculty, where he leads an ensemble dedicated to the music of his mentor, Dave Holland, and a new ensemble drawing on Italian repertoire. In the early ‘90s Molinari toured the US and Canada with the acclaimed Either/Orchestra and began a longstanding collaboration with sax great George Garzone. Since 1992 he’s been the principal bassist for the Melrose Symphony Orchestra, with whom he’s recorded several albums. He’s also a member of the Cape Ann Symphony, Hillyer Festival Orchestra, and Salem Philharmonic. Molinari has played with such jazz legends as Kenny Wheeler, George Garzone, Mike Melillo, Jerry Bergonzi and Victor Lewis, leads his own Quintet and co-leads the trio 3Play. Lello’s Italian Job, Volume 2 is his 5th release as a leader.

Source :  Braitwaite and Katz with thanks. * Sorry to be so late, was doing a special project.