Totem Ferdinando Romano

• 1 The Gecko 08:57
• 2 Evocation 01:27
• 3 Wolf Totem 07:59
• 4 Curly 07:21
• 5 Sea Crossing Part 1 06:48
• 6 Sea Crossing Part 2 04:07
• 7 Memories Reprise 08:20
• 8 Mirrors 10:59
• Total Runtime 55:58

Info for Totem

When I thought about giving a name to this album I was looking for an image, a symbol, that could be deeply representative of the music that I had written. Being my musical sources and experiences so much variegated, I needed something that could synthesize it as a whole. Then, the image of the Totem came to my mind.

A Totem is a symbol that represents a natural or spiritual entity which has a particular meaning for a single person or even for a large group of people. In an artistic sense, each of us has got his own Totems, they are our references, our lighthouses and also the people we met and whom we shared musical and artistic experiences with. However, the single Totems can give life to a much bigger one, something that is much more than the sum of the parts and that represents the creative synthesis of our musical personality, giving birth to something new.

After listening to the band playing live, the writer Federico Fini said: “Totem is a sort of narration in music of the monolite made of memories, convictions and roots around which we dance all our life”. I immediately found these words very effective and representative of my work. They also made to my mind the image of the painting “The Dance” by Henry Matisse, a work that I have always associated with “The Rite of Spring”, by Igor Stravinsky, one of the most totemic compositions of all times.

Artistically, this album represents an important step for me. It is my first work as a leader, entirely thought and written following a personal process. I let myself free in writing music and I got inspired by different sources and directions; in this sense, I feel it is music with no limitations.

My love for jazz, my classical composition studies, and the love for contemporary music have melted naturally, without forgetting a continuous search for melody, even in the most dissonant contexts.Getting to the point of writing and realizing this album has been a long but really joyful work for me.

In composing, I have given particular attention to the form of the tunes, making large use of development and avoiding more classical forms. The melodies stated at the beginning of the tune don’t always come back in the end and when they do, it is always in a different way than before, with a different arrangement or even in the form of another melodic line which is the full development of the original one.

This happens, for example, in the first track, The Gecko. Geckos are animals that, at an archetypal level, represent perseverance, tenacity and regeneration combined with tranquility. The tune starts with a persistent bass pedal on top of which harmonies flow, while Ralph Alessi plays an evocative solo. This simple idea develops all along the tune, keeping the regularity of the rhythmic cell but evolving the bass line, the harmony and the melodies, changing more than once until the final peace is achieved, where the tranquillity of the gecko is evoked.

Sea Crossing (Part 1 and Part 2) is more like a suite. The image I thought of is the one of a ship at the mercy of the waves and the sea. It has been written using techniques from serial composition. The series is stated at the beginning and it immediately divides into two parallel lines that move in two different tonalities, finding consonance only in a careful use of counterpoint. Then, they immediately break up again into improvisations, a tempest that ends into the calm of a piano choral, an improvised piano transition gradually bringing back to the original material, organized in different melodic lines but still connected to the initial statement.

As for Memories Reprise, I rewrote and rearranged an old composition to which a gave a new life. The tune has a more orchestral conception and has connections with the Italian sound of the Mediterranean melodies.

Evocation and Wolf Totem have been inspired to me by reading the book “Wolf Totem”, by Jiang Rong, a beautiful novel on which Jean-Jacques Annaud also based a very intense film.

It is the story of the relationship between Man and Nature. A young Chinese student is sent to Mongolia to educate the local nomadic shepherds and becomes deeply fascinated by their world, their connection with nature and their veneration for the great architect of the balance of the ecosystem, the wolf. Men respect and admire the qualities of the wolf while they struggle with him at the same time, always considering him as a God, as their Totem. I tried to paint in music the images of the landscapes, people and animals described in the novel, with the final arrival of the wolf.

Curly is a tender ballad. The intensity is gradually built. The first head is stated by piano and vibes only, while the other instruments enter gradually, building the climax reached with the counterpoint choral in the final.

As regards Mirrors, the title of the tune itself was suggested by the way I composed it. Melodic fragments chase each other in a specular counterpoint, almost tirelessly, without creating a stable tonal center. The improvisations are built by playing with timbres and acoustic sound effects, overlapping with the harmonic setting.

In creating the band, I chose some of my favorite musicians, with whom I feel a deep affinity in the way we approach music. I think they are some of the most creative and interesting musicians in the Italian scene.

We all immediately established a great feeling with Ralph and his contribution to music was so deep and natural that it seemed we had been playing together for really a long time.

“..his band has saxophone and trumpet in the front line and is flavoured by vibes augmenting the core piano trio rhythm section. Romano reminds me a little of Dave Holland and certainly possesses excellent technique he puts to imaginative use. Worth discovering. Check out beautifully arranged opener The Gecko..” (Bassmagazine)

Ralph Alessi, trumpet (tracks 1,3,4,5,6,8)
Tommaso Iacoviello, flugelhorn (tracks 1,3,7)
Simone Alessandrini, alto & soprano saxophone
Nazareno Caputo, vibraphone, marimba
Manuel Magrini, piano
Ferdinando Romano, double bass
Giovanni Paolo Liguori, drums

Recorded, mixed and mastered October 10 and 11, 2019 by Stefano Amerio at Artesuono Recording Studios, Cavalcco, UD, Italy
Produced by Ferdinando Romano

Ferdinando Romano
got his doublebass diploma from the Conservatorio L. Cherubini di Firenze studying at the same time with Riccardo Donati and Alberto Bocini, two internationally acclaimed soloists that worked for the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. In the same Conservatorio he followed the course of Composition with Paolo Furlani. In 2015 he then got a Master in Performance with Enrico Fagone at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, where he lived for 3 years and had the chance to refine his studies with acclaimed international soloists like Klaus Stoll (Berliner Philarmoniker), Tim Cobb (Juiliard School, Manhattan School of Music), Michael Klinghoffer (Jerusalem Accademy), Christine Hoock (Mozarteum Salzburg), Diego Zecharies, Hans Roelofsen (Institute of the Arts, Netherland) and many more.

At the same time he followed the Jazz Courses of Valdarno Jazz and he studied privately with Ares Tavolazzi, Marco Panascia, Joe Martin, Joe Sanders, Furio di Castri, Tino D’Agostino and Sergio Bellotti (Berklee College of Music). In 2017 he was selected to be part of the InJam Ensemble that selected 10 young italian musicians to take part at the InJam project in Siena Jazz with the trombonist Glenn Ferris and the saxophonist Logan Richardson. He got a reward for the best students during the Siena Jazz summer courses.

His latest project “Totem feat. Ralph Alessi” was recorded in October 2019 and the album will be out on April 24 for the Norwegian label Losen Records.

He recently released the album “Don’t call it Justice" with Arcadia Trio for the Italian label Alfamusic and this engaged him in a release tour together with the trombonist Robin Eubanks (Dave Holland, Michael Brecker, Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, Sun Ra, Barbara Streisand, Rolling Stones..). With Robin Eubanks the band just finished to record the second album, out in 2020.

He has an intense activity live and in studio, collaborating with many musicians of the Italian and international scene like Ralph Alessi, Robin Eubanks, Benny Golson, Glenn Ferris, Logan Richardson, Jerome Sabbagh, Simona Premazzi, Jon Boutellier, Allen Vizzuti, Michael Applebaum, Yuhan Su, Alan Benzie, Marton Yuhasz, Maurizio Giammarco, Nico Gori, Mauro Grossi, Andrea Melani, Bernardo Guerra, Cristiano Arcelli, Francesco Cusa, Carlo Atti, Andrea Beneventano, Francesco Lento, Simone Alessandrini, Valerio Vantaggio, Aldo Bassi, Achille Succi, Fabio Morgera, Antonino Siringo, Ettore Bonafè, Giulio Stracciati, Leonardo Radicchi, Giovanni Paolo Liguori and many more.

He played in many clubs, festivals and concert halls all over Europe like Lac Lugano, Auditorium Stelio Molo (Lugano), Konzerthaus (Vienna), Musikverein (Vienna), Ascona Jazz, Tonhalle (Zurigo), Bern Casino (Berna), Basel Casino (Basilea), Auditorium Parco della Musica, Il Torrione (Ferrara), Alessandria Jazz, Tatum Art (Palermo), Padova Jazz, Ricomincio Da Tre, Smallet Jazz Club, Pisa Jazz, Casa del Jazz, Alexanderplatz, Orbetello Jazz Festival, Fringe Festival, Jazzin Andria, Pinocchio Jazz, Obihall Firenze, Valdarno Jazz and many more...

He published together with Marco Poggiolesi the album “Tandem” for Philology Records (2010). The duo was discovered and promoted by Paolo Piangiarelli, owner of the label and promoter also of the Massimo Urbani Award, and had a good success of public and critics. Some of these tunes were selected to be inserted in the compilation “Italian Jazz Vol. 1, the 50 best tracks”. In 2013 the album “Tandem. A Ruota Libera” followed, this time for Dodicilune Records, .

He was invited to play at the doublebass European Convention Bass 2014 that took place in Amsterdam in the August of the same year and recently to the 2018 Edition that took place in Lucca.

He played with many classical orchestras and also collaborated with Italian Youth Orchestra of the Conservatories and the Swiss Jugend Symphony Orchestra. He plays also with the Accademia dell’Annunciata, a baroque orchestra where he plays a violone made by M° Cazzaniga. He was finalist in international competitions and won the first prize in the “Summa cum Laude” competition in Vienna; as a winner he performed in Musikverein and Koncerthaus.

As a composers some of his orchestral and chamber compositions have been played in festivals. In particular the composition for string quartet Madrigale LXI has been played in the festival Art of this Century, dedicated to music whose scores where damaged by the Florence flood in 1966, recreated and completed by some composers to be presented in a contemporary way. The orchestral composition I Tetti della città, inspired by Claude Debussy's music, has been played in the Youth Orchestra Festival in Palazzo Vecchio in Firenze.

He also worked as a musician and composer with theater companies participating to many recordings and productions for Rai (Italian Radio and Television) and Radio Televisione della Svizzera Italiana (soundtracks of film tv, musicals and radio-tv programs).

This album contains no booklet.