Roots Magic NEW ALBUM is finally OUT on CLEAN FEED

We’re happy to inform you that we just came from a three day long recording session at Abbey Rocchi studio in Rome. A quite intense session engineered by Tommaso Cancellieri which produced enough material for our next album, the first one featuring the actual extended line up. The music will be mixed next month at Jambona Lab in Livorno and the album will be out on Clean Feed in March 2023, so Just stay tuned!!!

At the invitation of Rui Neves, artistic director of the Jazz em Agosto festival in Lisbon, Roots Magic will close the 37th edition of the festival presenting a new sextet version. With the addition of Eugenio Colombo – flute and soprano sax, and Francesco Lo Cascio – vibraphone and percussion, both already guests in “Take Root among the Stars” , the group’s sound will be enriched with different colors and new solutions. For the occasion, Roots Magic will showcase an anthological repertoire of old and new tunes arranged for this specific new ensemble.

From August 2021 the new Roots Magic sextet line up will be available for concerts in parallel with the original quartet.

Su invito di Rui Neves, direttore artistico del festival Jazz em Agosto di Lisbona, Roots Magic chiuderà la Trentasettesima edizione del festival presentando la sua nuova versione in sestetto. Con l’inserimento di Eugenio Colombo – flauto e sax soprano e Francesco Lo Cascio – vibrafono e percussioni, già ospiti nell’album “Take Root among the Stars”, il suono del gruppo si arricchirà di colori e soluzioni inedite. Per l’occasione verrà presentato un repertorio antologico basato su un’accurata selezione di vecchi e nuovi brani arrangiati per il nuovo organico.

A partire da Agosto 2021 Roots Magic nella sua nuova versione in sestetto sarà disponibile per concerti parallelamente a quella del quartetto originale.

Alberto Popolla clarinetto, clarinetto basso

Eugenio Colombo flauto, sax soprano

Errico De Fabritiis sax alto, baritono

Francesco Lo Cascio vibrafono, percussioni 

Gianfranco Tedeschi contrabbasso 

Fabrizio Spera batteria 

This is to inform you that Roots Magic is slowly getting back on the road. After another long stop we’ll start playing live shows again. So it’s going to be a quite busy summer with both some local gigs and some festival appearances including the Ground Music festival in Brescia, and a great premiere at the Jazz Em Agosto in Lisbon where we’ll perform for the first time with a special sextet line up featuring Eugenio Colombo on flute and soprano sax, and Francesco Lo Cascio on vibes. So please check our concerts page for updates and stay tuned!

Here is a  list of those who voted for Roots Magic in various annual polls of 2020

WEB

RADIO

• CONTRORADIO (I) Enrico Romero – Round Midnight Jazz and Great Black Music Radio Broadcast
• BATTITI – Rai Radio 3 (I)
• Pino Saulo, Alessandro Achilli – Best 5 records of 2020
• JAZZMAN RADIO (UK) Peter Slavid – ‘European Modern Jazz On The Radio – Favourite albums of 2020
• CONTATTO RADIO Popolare Network (I) Misterioso – Best of 2020

PRINTED MAGAZINES

• BLOWUP (I) Playlist 2020
• MUSICA JAZZ (I) Top Jazz 2020

RECORD STORES

• JAZZMESSENGERS (SP) Best Free Jazz & Avant-Garde Releases 2020

Here you can get a taste of the upcoming new album while enjoying a free tour of the Roots Magic photo diary. A very simple video made during a couple of “Zoom” meetings, while, for obvious reasons, we are temporarily confined at home with no gigs, nor sessions, nothing! Enjoy!!!

Roots Magic – Frankiphone Blues (Phil Cohran)

Besides a few gigs (including a welcomed return to Sicily) we spent most of the fall working on the new album, our third for Clean Feed, which has been scheduled to be out in march 2020.
This will be another trip across the land of Deep Blues and Creative Jazz. The new repertoire includes highly reworked tunes by Skip James, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, Charles Tyler, Ornette Coleman and Lee Perry (yes him!!!) plus new works on some of Roots Magic’s favourite composers, Charley Patton, Phil Cohran, John Carter and Sun Ra. All music was well recorded by Gabriele Conti at the Stone Recording Studio in Rome while mixing and mastering were made at the brand new Jambona Lab studio in Livorno by master Antonio Castiello with great assistance by Aldo de Sanctis. The new year will start off with some good gigs (see the “concerts” page) including a very welcomed appearance at the Padova Art Center concert series. That’s all for now and stay tuned for more updates.

Exploring Chicago

Elastic Arts – April 5th

The Elastic gig

At Bob’s Blues & Jazz Mart with Bob Koester in person

Goin’ down south

At the Dockery Farms 

Searching for Charley Patton

The Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale ms

With Roger Stolle in front of the Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art inc.

Juke Joint Festival – The Cat Head gig, April 13th

Roots Magic and friends: with Mike and Joyce from Kansas

Folks in front of The Red’s, our favorite joint in Clarksdale

Hearts like railroad steel???

Juke Joint Festival: The New Roxy gig, April 12th

Juke Joint Festival – The Coahoma Collective gig, April 14th

Southern nights

A bunch of upcoming gigs (check out the concerts page) including a Slovenian Premiere at the 23rd Jazz Cerkno Festival on May the 19th

http://www.jazzcerkno.si/en/

Thursday  17th May

• Orchester 33 1/3 (AUT)
• Cene Resnik Free Stellar Trio & Rob Mazurek (SLO, ITA, USA)
• Franz Kafka Ensemble (CRO)

Friday 18th May

• Kaze (JPN, FRA)
• Kaučič / Parker / Léandre / Fernández (SLO, GBR, FRA, SPA)
• Chicago / London Underground (USA, GBR)

Saturday 19th May

• Satoko Fujii – solo (JPN)
• ICP Orchestra (NLD)
• Igor Lumpert & Innertextures (SLO, USA)
• Roots Magic (ITA)

looking forward !!!