Jazz is the protagonist of the penultimate appointment with The Center of Music, a series organized by the Donizetti Theater Foundation in collaboration with the “Department of Social Policies of the Municipality of Bergamo. On Saturday, June 28 (5 pm), the concert of the quartet led by saxophonist Gabriele Comeglio is scheduled in the ‘Gavazzeni’ Foyer of the Donizetti Theater, joined on this occasion by pianist Claudio Angeleri, bassist Marco Esposito, and drummer Federico Monti.”
Just over 100 years after his birth and 70 years after his passing, Gabriele Comeglio has created a tribute to Charlie Parker, titled Bird Lives, which musically narrates the wandering and chaotic life of Charlie Parker: the inventor of bebop, along with Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. An atypical figure on the jazz scene, Bird managed to revolutionize it with the new language of bebop, which would make him immortal. Shortly after his premature death in 1955, the phrase “Bird lives” would appear on several walls in New York’s Greenwich Village. The program proposed by Gabriele Comeglio’s quartet for The Center of Music features famous compositions that made the Kansas City saxophonist famous, from Scrapple from the apple to Dizzy Gillespie’s A Night in Tunisia, from Lover Man and My Little Suede Shoes to Now’s the time.
Saxophonist, arranger, and orchestra conductor, Gabriele Comeglio was the first alto sax of the RAI Orchestra in Milan for thirteen years, as well as the director of the Jazz Class Orchestra of Pomeriggi Musicali. With his big band, the Jazz Company, he has participated in numerous concert seasons and collaborated with artists of the caliber of Bob Mintzer, Jerry Bergonzi, Randy Brecker, and Franco Ambrosetti, among others. He has composed music for successful television programs, written scores for theater, musicals, and ballet, and has also conducted the Sanremo Festival orchestra and the Swiss Radio orchestra, collaborating on albums by Zucchero and Francesco De Gregori. He created the television theme for “Che tempo che fa” and wrote arrangements for Mina, Antonacci, Ron, and Battiato. Recently, the Dodicilune label has released the CD The Journey, a testament to a long artistic journey, made up of numerous and memorable encounters with great figures of Italian, European, and overseas jazz.
The “final appointment with The Center of Music will take place on Saturday, July 5, and, thanks to the” Ensemble Locatelli, will offer a dive into the music of Alessandro Scarlatti.
