Import CD – RRJ 1029 – Live in Sant’Anna Arresi 2013 – Dinamitri Jazz Folklore & Amiri Baraka

Notes

Finally a new chance to hear again the voice of the great late Amiri Baraka. This is a live recordings from the sardinian festival of St. Anna Arresi, where Baraka appeared in 2013 with Dinamitri jazz Folklore, a marvelous Italian ensemble directed by alto saxophonist Dimitri Grechi Espinoza. The music takes shape from a sound ritual based on voice and bells, and it slowly develops through various soundscapes including echoes of Africa, deep Blues, modern Jazz fragments, tributes to Sun Ra, and highly infectious grooves. A tight combination of poetry, music arrangements and collective improvisation. A very strong sound narrative built around the Baraka's unforgettable voice and words.

“After the death of Amiri Baraka, as mutually agreed with Rudi Records and the organizers of Sant’Anna Arresi jazz festival, we decided to pay him a tribute through this recording, that features our last concert in the 2013 edition of the festival, dedicated to Sun Ra. Our brief journey with Amiri had begun in 2008 thanks to the “Akendengue Suite”, in which he had brilliantly recited some excerpts from his book Wise, Why’s, Y’s: The Griot’s Song Djeli Ya, thereby adding a voice to our music: a profound and human voice, as only a true griot could render. Thus, we had the opportunity to know and appreciate a genuine poet of the African American culture, a mild-mannered and pugnacious man using his voice to create stories of social relevance converted into “myths” for the contemporaries. As an African American, he became aware that the symbolic meaning of the African sound/gesture of “superhuman inspiration” had been forgotten in jazz music and replaced by one of “human inspiration”. Through his book Blues People Amiri made us familiar with an inner point of view about the history of jazz, an essential and truthful history, without adding useless frills and remarks. For all these reasons, we of Dinamitri, shall be always grateful to him.” Dimitri Grechi