MARC RIBOT Quartet
“Hurry Red Telephone”

Marc Ribot is one of the most innovative and imaginative guitarists on the contemporary music scene, not just jazz. In fact, names such as Tom Waits, John Zorn, Elvis Costello, Caetano Veloso, Vinicio Capossela, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Plant, Marianne Faithfull, Jack McDuff, John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards appear in his vast and varied background of collaborative experience. And the list could go on and on. His solo activity is also unabated, punctuated by albums and groups such as Rootless Cosmopolitans, which is also the title of his debut album as leader, Los Cubanos Postitzos, Shrek, Ceramic Dog and Spiritual Unity. The latter featured Henry Grimes and drummer Chad Taylor: that group, formed as a tribute to Albert Ayler, stayed alive until the legendary double bassist retired from the scene in 2018. “The last concerts with Henry were the best music I’ve ever played in … or heard …,” recalled Ribot, who has since reunited with Chad Taylor to continue playing along the lines laid out by Spiritual Unity. And here is “Hurry Red Telephone,” a name derived from a quote from Richard Siken’s poem “Several Tremendous.” Ribot himself introduces his two new partners: “When I first heard Sebastian Steinberg‘s bass, I thought, ‘That’s who I’m looking for: a gifted improviser, a musician with a deep groove and totally original.’ We worked together in my band Shrek and other projects from the early 1990s until Sebastian moved to Los Angeles, and I’m excited to resume our collaboration.” And of Ava Mendoza, a guest of Bergamo Jazz in 2022 with a dazzling solo concert at the Accademia Carrara, he says, “She is the perfect person to complete this quartet: great soloist, sensitive partner in ensemble settings, fearless guitarist/improviser who knows how to move things along.” These are the assumptions of the new band: now the word is to the music, which will surely be hard to pin down. Somewhat disorienting as Marc Ribot has always been.

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DIANNE REEVES.

Returning to Bergamo Jazz, exactly ten years after her previous appearance, is Dianne Reeves, one of the most intense and engaging female voices in contemporary jazz, already the winner of no fewer than five Grammy Awards for as many albums, the fourth of which she won for the soundtrack to George Clooney’s film Good Night and Good Luck. Film that gave Dianne Reeves well-deserved planetary notoriety.
Born in Detroit into a family where music was at home – her father, who died when she was only two years old, was a singer, while her mother played the trumpet and her cousin was the famous keyboardist George Duke, Dianne Reeves began singing and playing piano in the early 1970s. During a concert in Chicago she was noticed by trumpeter Clark Terry, who wanted her in his group. Following her move to Los Angeles she began collaborating with Stanley Turrentine and others. She made her debut album under her own name in 1983, but it was with her joining the Blue Note stable(Dianne Reeves, 1987) that Dianne Reeves’ career took off, consecrated by the first two Grammys obtained in 2001 and 2002 with In the Moment- Live In Concert and The Calling: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan, respectively, both produced by George Duke.
Dianne Reeves’ career is also littered with important collaborations-Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim, Los Angeles Philharmonic. Along with other valiant vocalists such as Lizz Wright and Angelique Kidjo, she paid tribute to Nina Simone, an icon of black singing. With Gregory Porter, Robert Glasper, Lalah Hathaway and Esperanza Spalding she released Beautiful Life, produced by Terri Lyne Carrington, in 2013.
Of the highest order is the band with which Dianne Reeves again takes the Donizetti stage, consisting of such outstanding musicians as pianist John Beasley, Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo, double bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Terreon Gully.

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