Picture above: Antonio Forcione; {photograph} Anna Kunst
“Forcione is mesmerizing ….. ardour, grace and fireplace” ….. The Occasions
Antonio Forcione, the multi award-winning acoustic guitarist and composer, will likely be enjoying in Chiswick this week, bringing his vibrant and unique mix of jazz, Latin, African, flamenco and soul sounds to the Boston Room on Thursday 10 November for Jazz at George IV.
He’s critically acclaimed worldwide, having toured from Australia and Hong Kong to Russia, the Caribbean, USA and throughout Europe. He has shared the worldwide stage with a few of the world’s most achieved musicians and his albums have topped UK and worldwide jazz charts.
The critics are stuffed with superlatives:
“Forcione boldly goes the place no guitarist has gone earlier than and the outcomes are fairly spectacular.” ….. The Stage.
“Forcione is mesmerizing ….. ardour, grace and fireplace” ….. The Occasions.
He talked to The Chiswick Calendar about this week’s live performance in Chiswick and about his current documentary Trova, about Cuban troubadours, which he has made together with his daughter Maya.
Picture above: Two ladies having fun with enjoying with a pet in Cuba; {photograph} Maya Forcione
The music tradition in Cuba is “like Italy was within the Seventies”
Cuba is known for its custom of singer-songwriters – ‘trova’. Antonio, who travels the world performing and typically stays for a number of weeks and even months at a time in a single place to immerse himself within the music tradition of the nation he’s in, fell in love with the free and simple tradition the place anybody can choose up and guitar and participate.
“I got here throughout them after I was strolling one morning at 2am – 30 or 40 folks singing songs and passing one guitar between them.
“It jogged my memory of Italy within the Seventies. It ought to make us take into consideration a few of the issues we’ve misplaced. Not ready for a report deal. Not our telephones.”
He determined he would journey round Cuba speaking to well-known and non-famous singer songwriters, listening to their tales.
Picture above: Antonio with Pedro Luis Ferra, thought of to be the foremost ‘radical voice’ amongst Cuba’s musicians
Discovering a voice by way of music
One singer-songwriter instructed him they’d have favored to be a journalist, however turned to song-writing to specific themselves as a substitute to keep away from the censorship of the press in Cuba.
“I requested all of them the identical questions – Do you assume Trova has a future? Are you able to play me the track that represents you finest?”
The result’s an hour lengthy documentary narrated by Antonio and shot and edited by his daughter Maya, with the troubadours of Cuba telling their tales. A few of their songs are political, some private, very like the Calypso custom of Trinidad and Tobago.
Antonio and Maya have proven the documentary a few instances in Italy, to appreciative audiences, and at the moment are in search of a venue to indicate it in London.
Pictures above: From Antonio and Maya’s documentary Trova; images by Maya Forcione
Dresden … London … Rome … Madrid
Antonio is at the moment touring. I spoke to him on Sunday in Dresden, the place he had simply arrived contemporary from a few gigs within the UK enjoying with African kora participant Seckou Keita and Brazilian percussionist Adriano Adewale. The three gained the World Music Awards for Greatest Album in 2019 for the album Pleasure.
In Dresden he’s enjoying a jazz pageant with German singer-songwriter Jule Malischke.
He will likely be enjoying a few the songs from Cuba on Thursday night time, together with one which he has co-written with maybe probably the most well-known of Cuba’s troubadours – Pedro Louis Ferrar, thought of to be the foremost ‘radical voice’ amongst Cuba’s musicians.
After Thursday’s gig in Chiswick he will likely be off to Rome and Madrid. When he’s not on the street or absorbing the tradition of Cuba or Zimbabwe, he lives in Chiswick.
Get tickets for his live performance at George IV right here: Antonio Forcione – Jazz at George IV
Picture above: Antonio jamming with Cuban musicians; {photograph} Maya Forcione
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