The world would be a more monotonous place if it weren’t for regional specialties, as exemplified by the Italians and their love for opera. The Roman pianist Danilo Rea seems predestined for this national passion, having studied classical piano at the music academy Santa Cecilia in his home town of Rome.

Moreover, even after having devoted himself to jazz, he didn’t focus exclusively on American standards like so many musicians do, but concentrated more on merging the musical tradition of his native country with the vocabulary of jazz. This can be heard clearly on his ACT debut “A Tribute to Fabrizio de André” (ACT 9759-2) last year, on which he played music by this famous Italian singer-songwriter. According to Kulturnews the album is the highlight of ACT’s Piano Works series and it was even chosen as “Best Piano Album 2010” by the Italian jazz magazine “Musica Jazz”.

Nevertheless, it took quite some time before Rea discovered opera music: “If you start off as a classical pianist like I did, you usually don’t work together with singers. Only later did I discover how soulful my favourite composer Puccini’s music is and began to improvise with it. That is how I found my way to opera.” On his solo album “Lirico“ he had already found his personal way of transferring opera melodies into jazz. Thanks to a suggestion of his producer Siggi Loch, the new album “Opera” (his second on ACT) is fully dedicated to Italian opera. For this artistic adventure, Danilo Rea joins forces with Flavio Boltro, who belongs to the top league of Italian trumpeters alongside players such as Paolo Fresu and Enrico Rava.

“We have been friends for many years and have played together occasionally. However, this is our first project together.” Boltro fits this project perfectly; he is also from Northern Italy and not only has he studied classical music at the academy in Turin and worked with symphony orchestras, but he is also open to different genres and willing to experiment with them. Boltro has proven this while playing with US stars Steve Grossmann, Don Cherry, Billy Higgins, Cedar Walton and Joe Lovano, in his own trio with Manu Roche and Furio Di Castro, as a member of the French Orchestre National du Jazz, with the avant-gardist Michel Portal, in an ethno-combination with the Moroccan guembri virtuoso Majid Bekkas and as a friend and accompanist of his fellow Italians, Stefano Di Battista and Rosario Giuliani.

With their hardbop quintet he recently won the BMW World Jazz Award 2011.

For booking please contact:

Maurizio Della Fortuna - Live Music Band Agency

mauriziodellafortuna@gmail.com