PRESS RELEASE

“In memory of Gorni Kramer”

Friday, March 19, in the Lobby of the Lobby of  the Teatro Comunale di Ferrara, there has been a presentation of the CD entitled A Kramer piaceva così. This CD recorded by Gianni Coscia, an important jazz musician, is a tribute to the music of Gorni Kramer. On this CD Coscia plays with other prestigious Italian jazz musicians such as the pianist Carlo Uboldi, the contrabbasist Luciano Milanese, the drummers Ellade Bandini and Stefano Bagnoli.

This recording project is a token of love by Coscia who, thinking of the accordion first and then jazz music, always will think of Kramer as a master of music and most of all a friend.

Coscia has a great love for the accordion, an instrument that only a few years ago had arisen from the ranks of dance halls and has returned to the splendor and the greatness of improvised music thanks to Coscia. Coscia has a great appreciation for jazz, of which Kramer was an indusputed forerunner in Italy. The names Kramer and Coscia accordionist jazz, whether in concert or in a recording, give life to a deeply moving harmonic work. These beautiful “flights on the keyboard” could only be called A Kramer piaceva così.

Gianni Coscia

After having been a lawyer for thirty years, Coscia bagan focusing full time on music. He always has been dedicated to jazz and has won numerous awards. He has played with some of the best Italian musicians and with many others in the United States. One of the highlights of his career is that he had been part of the Big band of Gorni Kramer. For some time he has been searching, as a European musician, to develop the remote values of cultural and popualr tradition through jazzistico language. Between 1985 and 1990, using a string quartet, he recorded L’Altra Fisarmonica, his first example of revisiting a popular theme (The cover notes were done by Umberto Eco). He recorded La briscola which received second place over 400 competitors in a contest organized by the magazine Musica Jazz. During the festival of Roccella Jonica he played in the Big Band of Giorgio Gaslini. Between 1991 and 1994 he partecipated in the festivals of Pori (Finland), Tulle (France), Berchidda and Clusone. He took part in the opera “Ascent Ruin of the City of Mahagony” by the composer Kurt Weill. In 1991 while playing Astor Piazzola’s concerto for bandoneon and orchestra with the chamber orchestra of Pavia he presented one of his own compositions with the same orchestra. He collaborated with the master Luciano Berio on a musical project against antisemitism, and he has performed on different tours in Europe and Japan with the singer Milva. He was invited to the Institute of Culture of Budapest as well as those of Lisbon in Portugal and Addis Abeba in Ethiopia. With the saxofonist Carlo bagnoli he did the tour in Uruguay and Lebanon. During this period Coscia was the lead musician on many recordings. Il Bandino has some original compositions and arrangements for four wind instruments, and on Radici he plays with clarinetist/saxophonist Gianluigi Trovesi. This second work, with a note by Vittorio Franchini, received flattering attention from critics. From 1995 to the present he has performed again with Milva in Greece, and he has partecipated in the Umbria Jazz Festival with Trovesi, besides having done a tour in Finland and in Lyon. In Cologne he played on German television. Coscia was a judge at the competition fro jazz accordionists of Castelfidardo, and he is a member of the Consiglio di amministrazione dell’Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy. Also, he has partecipated in the Festival of Bath (Great Britain) as well as those of Pescara, Noci, and Ruvo. In addition, he has done tours with trovesi in France, Austria, Denmark and Germany.

A note from Gianni Coscia on the CD

Unfortunately the Master is no longer with us to confirm or to deny. Perhaps it could be prudent to conclude these sentences with a quastion mark. Here and there there are transgressions, but substantially the harmonies, the bass, the fraseggio are Kramerian.

It’s impossible to imitate this exceptional musician: I can talk only of Kramer’s musicand of what I had learned in y adolescence with my ears glued to the old Magnadyne.

I have again listened to the demo A Kramer piaceva così. In English this means did Kramer like in this way, meaning his life, his music life in general. I hope it is treu, because even if now I am confused by a lot I’ve learned about music I have never forgotten his teaching, and I try to do my best. The pieces come proposed again from the reserach of the jazzistico taste always present also in the very commercial songs. To name some of them Donna became a swinging bossa nova, Buna notte al mare became an intriguing jazz waltz; La mia donna si chiama desiderio became a ballad that the Americans could envy, and Crapa pelada is a kind of rap song and ahead of its time.

I want to conclude this trip onto the music of Kramer with a personal goodbye to Kramer. Prime lacrime was in fact the first piece composed by Kramer in 1937 and was his personal tribute to Duke Ellington. I had the fortune to play this piece in front of Kramer, as he had asked me to do at the tribute to him at Rivarolo a few years ago.