Description
When Jazz Meets Italo-Disco. Two Italian legends meet and deliver a unique contemporary jazz-house fusion! ”Stefano Cantini is a well-known saxophonist in the Italian and international jazz scene. In recent years he has focused on a project called Living Coltrane with Ares Tavolazzi, Francesco Maccianti and Piero Borri. Stefano and Maurizio Dami (Alexander Robotnick) had worked together for a while in the mid ’80s and Stefano also played on GMM’s album (”Love Supreme” is the best known track). Since then, Stefano has focused totally on Jazz whilst Maurizio Dami produced World Music in the ’90s and later on, under the artist name Alexander Robotnick, retrieved in 2000, turned to electronic music again, so the two musicians lost track of each other for 40 years. Robotnick says, ”In March 2023 I received a call from a club in Pisa, Cantiere San Bernardo. They asked me whether I could play live with Stefano ”Cocco” Cantini on the occasion of a special event dedicated to Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici. I called him and he answered enthusiastically. Shortly before the concert we rehearsed at the Follonica Music School which he directs. He improvised with me on the bases of my live. We liked our rehearsal and a few days later, on June 2nd 2023, we played in Pisa with much success. So came the idea of doing something together. We decided to produce an EP featuring 3 tracks. On some of my bases Stefano created a harmonic texture to improvise on. I mainly took care of the arrangement and the production. But what we play is the result of improvisation, with hardly any editing. It’s amazing how we managed to work together so smoothly after so many years, as if we had never stopped. We called this project ‘Robocok”’. They are modal tracks with a techno approach and harmonically open. Almost a provocation to the staticity of contemporary dance. On ”Francocco” and ”Frigiococco” Stefano plays soprano sax whilst on ”Afrococco” he plays alto. Guglielmo Bottin took the task of making a remix. He picked ”Francocco” and skilfully turned it into a pure drums and piano groove. Perfect for the dancefloor.”
