#JazzHome
Jazz shall not be quarantined
A diary of a Jazz musician under lockdown days in Italy
17 – 30 April 2020
As Italy shuts down, jazz and its artists transform, renew themselves, find solutions and news opportunities.
Concerts, festivals and events are cancelled as venues close and music schools suspend all activities. Human and economic effects of this pandemic are huge. Problems arise easily as well as sometimes sorrow and dejection. People cannot meet to play professional music nor for fun. Now, more than ever, people understand how music is a vital source.
However, thanks to its inner strength, jazz music finds its way out. Musicians start thinking how to survive lockdown, to make use of their time and play their music. Music is life and thus vital for people, who listen to it.
Jazz music adapts to the lockdown and moves towards people. It finds new ways to shorten distance and transmit emotions, information, culture, education. More than any other music genre, jazz has a creative, interpersonal and a human nature. A computer or a smartphone become an instrument to get involved and keep people together.
Some musicians get organised, look for new spaces to meet and promote themselves, create music, podcast, home concerts and online short festivals. They give online music lessons, and create opportunities for debate, solidarity and education. Some others, ”simply” make use of their spaces and time to create new music, conveying the emotions of this delicate moment.
”In vain close your ears to jazz. Jazz is life. It is art. It is the melancholy of the passions. It is us today” (André Coeuroy and André Schaeffner)
Day 1. Jazz is reflection and listening
Jazz helps reflection on and listening to yourself, your soul, what happens around you, pain and sorrow. Concerts are cancelled, venues close, people die, disorientation is wide, as well as confusion, bewilderment and fear. Musicians isolate themselves in their places. They cling tightly to their instruments, to the music, to their music, which is their only way to express emotions and slowly let external noises settle down. But, basically, it is in days like these that I think how we, as musicians, are lucky. In the darkest times, we always have something to cling to, being a piano, a music sheet, or a drums. And the music, our helper, always saves our life. The music knows how to realize the greatest miracle: to transform the pain into creativity.
Watch the video here.
Day 2. Jazz is reaction
and research for opportunities, including work opportunities. We feel the duty to give continuity, to prevent the economic disaster from being irreparably added to the human one. Music schools close, musicians start working online. We must go on.
Online individual or group music lessons start. Everybody organises themselves as they can and with what they have at home. Some get equipped with a pad, some use the mute, some students are not allowed to play music at home but still want to be there. Music is important to them too. And teachers reshape lessons, adapt them and find solutions even if it is not easy. Maintaining personal contacts with students is very important for music teachers. It is crucial because playing music finds its vital source in human relationships and daily life.
Music track: La terza via – Cecilia Sanchietti
Watch the video here.
Day 3. Jazz is creativity
New forms of creativity. Most musicians express their emotions through music. And especially in these days the music sheet turns to be a space to welcome their bewilderment, weakness, and insecurity. Many of them finish their uncompleted works or create new music, often recorded remotely. There is a strong desire to share what is happening in our inner process. It seems to be, and perhaps it is, a duty for us to report all this immense pain as witnesses through our art.
Music track: Circus – Cecilia Sanchietti
Watch the video here.
Day 4. Jazz is fun and willing to play together
Musicians start organising rehearsals through webinar, skype, zoom, meeting platforms… there is something for everyone and they bet on which one is the best. Some create homemade music instruments, some only use the voice, some other even record as if they were in a real studio. But you know, music and imagination have no boundaries. As far as possible, some even try to make fun of this time. They create rhymes, starlings and swing arrangements on the coronavirus, and they go viral on social media. So, thanks to musicians, to us, a few more smiles are torn in this sensitive time, while we are looking forward to the famous light at the end of the tunnel.
Music track: Run baby Run – Cecilia Sanchietti
Watch the video here.
Day 5. Jazz and a new everyday life
The perception of spaces changes and we are all forced to reorganize ourselves. The external spaces become the internal spaces. Our new life adapts to a few square meters and squeezes in 12 hours of time, which are never enough. The clock reminds us to hurry. A coffee with a look outside. Music lessons to be followed online only. New music that we keep on writing although we cannot play it. The daily study with my, sometimes incomplete, instrument. Students, who require more attention as there is no physical presence. The daily space for your promotion that cannot stop but must reinvent itself. The usual painful 6 pm bulletin. A few exercises to keep you fit. A break with a friend to stay connected to the world. And it is already evening and even today 12 hours seemed to be too few.
Music track: Shouting to a brick wall – Cecilia Sanchietti
Watch the video here.
Day 6. Jazz is silence and fear
And sometimes it demands to stop, pay respect, listen, reflect, pray.
Music track: Sweet & Bitter – Cecilia Sanchietti
Watch the video here.
Day 7. Jazz is courage
Jazz is the courage to stand up, to shake off a surreal situation and find new solutions, opportunities, spaces. Creativity is the big resource. It awakes thoughts, invents new ways to make music, to talk about jazz, to educate the youngest, to do politics, to live. So we get it started, again. Because jazz is just like a virus. A virus of freedom, which spreads and contaminates everything it finds on its way and the life itself. (Steve Lacy)
Music track: La terza via – Cecilia Sanchietti
Watch the video here.
Day 8. Jazz is politics
Jazz reacts in order to stand up for workers in music sector, who unfortunately are not well protected, now nor in the past. Musicians start actions to make themselves heard, claiming for compensation for skipped concerts, and more guarantees for the future. Together with the world of Italian jazz, we call to action with #VELESUONIAMO petition, through which we ask to start an intergovernmental discussion table. This is an invitation and a warning! Because jazz is entertainment, but above all, for all of us, it is a JOB.
Music track: Shouting to a brick wall – Cecilia Sanchietti
Watch the video here.
Day 9. Jazz is Radio
Music keeps going. Supporting each other and be useful are our main goals. We improvise as radio speakers and conduct live streaming reviews, from home or in small studios. We play the latest singles, do interviews, give voice to artists from the areas most affected by the epidemic, we support charity projects. Many musicians contact us to propose their new music, so it is clear that jazz has never stopped and, regardless this vulnerable time, lives and will experience a new artistic renaissance.
Music track: Zizo & the Desert – Federiza Zammarchi
Watch the video here.
Day 10. Jazz is inspiration and memory
Jazz inspires and asks us to remember those, who in the past have launched, changed, and renewed it. It asks us to stop and listen to what we have learned from our teachers. Many of us these days listen to their favourite music and feel the need to share their reference artists, contemporary and classical myths. Some of them unfortunately have been killed by this virus. Keeping their memory alive, we know that the human value of their works will continue to guide us and inspire next generations. And we all feel a little less lonely.
Music track: Hang Gliding – Maria Schneider
Watch the video here.
Day 11. Jazz is … LIVE … (at home)!
It is true, Festivals are canceled. However, culture does not stop and the passion is greater than the wound. Jazz moves home. House concerts, solo performances, some duets, are organised directly from the artists’ houses. Real marathons with great artists. Lots of quality live music, for all of us, to listen to, calmly and for free.
#stayhome
Music track: Witch tai to – J.Pepper
Watch the video here.
Day 12. Jazz is culture
”The chief trouble with jazz is that there is not enough of it” (D. Herold), we still want to talk about it, to spread its value, nuances and benefits. Thus, even in this quarantine, many musicians create new online projects, reviews, debates. Music critics and experts or colleagues give us insights, curiosities, good music. And every time we feel the need to start all over again…
Music track: Circus – Cecilia Sanchietti
Watch the video here.
Day 13. Jazz is solidarity
John Coltrane said ”Jazz is the musical expression of the highest ideals. There is a need for brotherhood and I believe with brotherhood there would be no poverty. I want to be the force which is truly for good”. During this quarantine the whole world of jazz mobilizes to support those in need. Many of us ”donate” their music in order to raise funds for the most affected areas. Together, with no self-promotion, in a creative, sincere and beneficial movement, as it is the truest essence of jazz.
Music track: Not (IN) my name – Cecilia Sanchietti
Watch the video here.
Day 14. Jazz is education (International Jazz Day)
April 30, International Jazz Day. Today, while marathons of online concerts chase each other to celebrate this amazing music, my thoughts and those of many musicians go to children. To them, who are the future and the transformation of jazz itself. To them, towards whom it is essential to direct our care and special teaching, for them to enjoy the benefits of jazz from early childhood. To them, seeds of hope for new developments and precious heritages. Because Jazz is also a children’s game…
Music track: Innocence – K.Jarrett
Watch the video here.
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Cecilia Sanchietti is an Italian drummer and composer, experienced percussion teacher and Art director of JazzMine Network (gender balance in jazz). Artist in the roster of CIDIM, for the Italian Institutes of Culture abroad (Just performed in Turkey and Vatican City).
Awarded in 2019 as “New Italian jazz talent 2018 – Top Jazz”. Winner of NYC “Hit Like A Girl Contest 2017”, the sixth annual global drumming contest for female percussionists, for Sabian brand. Awarded in 2009 by Berklee College of Music of Boston with “outstanding musicianship”.
She released two Albums under her own name with her compositions (2015 and 2018), both were presented in European Tours (Italy, Germany, Poland, Croatia, UK, Sweden – WinJazz Stockholm Jazz Festival, Turkey, Belgium).
The last one, “LA TERZA VIA – The third side of the coin”, was released with BluJazz Label (Chicago). The first one “CIRCLE TIME” was released with Alfa Music label (IT). Received reviews by Downbeat, All About Jazz, Musica Jazz, Dagens Nyheter (SW), Debbie Burke (USA), Rome in Jazz, Il Manifesto and much more.
She collaborated and performed with (among which): Marco Siniscalco, Pierpaolo Principato, Pierpaolo Ranieri, Nicolas Kummert, (BG) Alex Woods (NYC), Bill Hart (USA), Lela Kaplovitz (HR), Igor Gehenot (BG), David e Anders Back (SW), Lela Kaplowitz (HR). Marco Guidolotti, Danilo Riccardi, Pierpaolo Ranieri, Alessandro Gwis, David Boato, Enrico Zanisi, Francesca Tandoi, Susanna Stivali, Jacopo Sipari da Pescasseroli e l’Orchestra Pacem in Terris. She also collaborated with: Javier Girotto, Rita Marcotulli, Giovanna Marini, Nada, Lucilla Galeazzi, Cristina Comencini, Lunetta Savino, Gabriella Aiello, Andrea Satta, Raffaella Misiti, like member of “Orchestra del 41esimo parallelo”.
Other important collaborations in pop and theatres: Carmen Consoli and Luca Madonia; the songwriters Fabio Abate; the actors Marco Rea, Movin Melvin Brown, Mariangela Aruanno.
In 2019 Cecilia took part in Stockholm’s Women International Jazz Festival, an annual festival with some of the most important names of the modern jazz. Thanks to her participation, she is currently working on a new Italian-Swedish project. In fact, in agenda for 2021/22 the new CD as cooperation between Itay and Sweden, featuring: Anna Lundqvist, Adam Forkelid, Linus Lindblom, Josef Kahallerdhal.