A musical journey through the Mediterranean: Portugal – Spain – Sardinia – Italy – Croatia – Albania – Crete – Greece – Turkey.
1- Mediterranean Voyage: Gibraltar to Istanbul.
A journey through the Mediterranean with currents coming together in the various ports. The route starts from Portugal with the fado and then continues to Spain with gypsy music and flamenco, then to the local music styles of Sardinia, Italy, Greece, Crete, Croatia, Albania and finally Turkey.
Label: Arc Music (2014), code EUCD-2522 | Video
2- Rebetiko gymnastas – Vinicio Capossela.
The Greek music style rebetiko is born out of misery. It is the music of Greeks who fled from present-day Turkey after the First World War and ended up in the slums of Athens and Saloniki. Poverty, homesickness, crime, drug abuse, prostitution, police violence: it all came along in the rebetiko texts. The Italian Vinicio Capossela had been intrigued by this music style for many years and decided in 2013 to devote an album to it. Most of the songs are from Vinicio Capossela itself and are inspired by old rebetiko songs. The fact that he sings not in Greek but in Italian is actually not disturbing.
Label: Warner (2013), code : 8051040720009 | Video
3- Muntagna nera – Graindelavoix, Björn Schmelzer.
After a successful tour last year, the Graindelavoix ensemble releases the CD of the Muntagna nera program. That ‘black mountain range’ refers to Italian volcanoes, but also to the Limburg coal mines. In that new ‘homeland’, Angelo de Simone (in 1978) brought together the best Italian singers in Limburg to perform traditional life songs. Sometimes they even had new, contemporary texts about the struggle of the migrants. The live recorded CD contains twenty songs, they tell anecdotes from rural life, often with a mischievous twist.
Label: Virgin (2012), code: 6022132 | Video
4- Collection – Maria Dolores Pradera.
María Dolores Pradera, an elegant woman of classical beauty, known for her theatrical renditions of songs, she remained active for decades until she was almost 90 years old. And although she was a Spaniard through and through, Maria Dolores Pradera gained international fame thanks to her readings of Latin-American music, the Peruvian waltzes and Mexican rancheras – which also made her a beloved figure in Latin America. She died in 2018 at the age of 93.
Label: Star (1989), code: 840542 | Video
5- Romance de la Luna Tucumana – Diego El Cigala.
Diego El Cigala recording from 2013, Romance de la Luna Tucumana, an incredible nod to Argentine tango, is perhaps his best album ever. Diego El Cigala is a true master, perhaps one of the very, very few who have achieved commercial success with uncompromising certainty. He is able to do this because of his colorful background; the fact that he brings a gypsy sensitivity into his music to hide it in the mystery of his Romanesque background that is also steeped in the flamenco music of the country of his birth.
Label: Universal (2013), code : 00028947917458, Edge 4791066 | Video
6- Aquamare – Franca Masu.
Franca Masu is the most international representative of the ancestral Catalan language and culture that is still present in the coastal town of L’Alguer, an area with only forty thousand inhabitants on the island of Sardinia. Franca Masu started her career in 1996 as a singer for a group of Sardinian jazz musicians. In addition to her jazz background and her Mediterranean sound, you will also find fado and Argentinian tango among her musical interests. This album Aquamare (from 2006) is her third with which she presents herself to the public, this time as the author of almost every song.
Label: Dunya (2006), code: FY 11.35 | Video
7- A música e a guitarra: Clube de Fado – Mário Pacheco.
Mário Pacheco. This introverted and friendly man studied classical guitar but lost his heart to the sublime fado instrument; the Portuguese guitar. He composes beautiful lyrical fado music, loved by many fadistas and is a much sought after accompanist of fado singers. He is the founder of the Clube de Fado in the old Alfama district of Lisbon, a meeting place where fado musicians meet and play every night. On the album A música e a guitarra: Clube de Fado we hear him perform with a combo and a string quartet during an open air concert. In addition to Pacheco’s instrumental compositions, we also hear his beautiful songs, performed by guest singers Rodrigo Costa Félix, Ana Sofia Varela, Camané and Mariza.
Label: World Connection (2007), code: WC 43062 | Video
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