TIZIANO TONONI
LANDSCAPES VOLUME 1 (Songs in Opposition)

FY 7080


Felmay Records
Italia

 

Landscapes... panoramas, wide horizons, inspired by the grandeur of the places and of those who have always inhabited them - the Native Americans -, but also by the more responsible and aligned part of those who, despite belonging to the invading people who arrived from the sea, had decided to take a stand in favor of the last, the poor, the outcasts of the American system, and to support their causes and their claims, of whatever color they were: white, black, Hispanic or Indian.

With this in mind, TIZIANO TONONI developed a repertoire that was partly that of his training and partly a subsequent discovery, of songs with unequivocally "social" themes. From Woody Guthrie, who sang about the Dust Bowl in the 1930s and the Mexican deportees employed as slaves picking fruit in California in the 1940s, to Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, who as Canadians sing about Native American stories, passing through John Trudell, the Santee Lakota whose family the FBI exterminated because of his political activity; to the "European Indians", the Irish, who represent one of the most important and present matrices in American folklore, in our panorama represented by Van Morrison and Sinèad O'Connor.

A varied musical front, musically interpreted with an expressive freedom that only musicians who have jazz in their DNA are able to express and to do this, he’s recruited some old and new friends to share both the music and the values or messages it vehicles with…young Margherita Carbonell, Alessio Premoli and Chantal Antonizzi form the central nucleus around which a bunch of guests - old pals like Daniele Cavallanti, Riccardo Luppi and Paolo Botti - contribute in creating a various and intriguing set songs of songs, that cover a broad and wide “territory” of musical expressions.

The overall vision and the freedom with which Tononi has chosen to re-interpret these materials is the key to a new and original phase of his production. Landscapes wants to keep a light on some of the key issues according to Tiziano Tononi’s vision about what the social role of the artist should be in today’s society, and the music herein contained and
shares a message of resilience, resistance and hope in a present future without social injustice, poverty, racism, hunger and wars.

Of course we all know this being an almost utopia, but if not the artists, who should try to awaken the people’s consciences today?


Landscapes, a new challenge for drummer, composer and bandleader TIZIANO TONONI, whose career in music spans nearly five decades since the very beginning in 1979. This time he's decided to swim in the rough waters of the more political, countercultural and engaged protest songs, (Woody Guthrie, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Van Morrison Jefferson Airplanes e Sinèad O’Connor)
as he feels the urgence to deal with the present-time issues the world is facing every day.