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Luciano Troja
Luciano performed in several festival and jazz- clubs in Europe and US. He is the pianist of the Mahanada Quartet an original combination of free improvisation and written music. With Mahanada he has released three CDs, and garnered extremely good reviews and recognitions "Top Ten CDs Critic’s Best Choice Top Ten CDs 2006 - Cadence, "Best Albums of 2006 - All About Jazz, Italy).
Luciano also released two CDs in duo with the guitarist Giancarlo Mazzù: “Seven Tales About Standards” (SplascH Records, 2006) and “Seven Tales About Standards Vol.2” (SplascH Records 2009). Both the CDs have been considered as a creative and original approach to the standards: “The approach in these tunes is a delight,like a Third Stream reworking of Undercurrent” (Cadence); >“A work of rare elegance and intelligence, and dialogic fineness. A continuous pleasure for ears and mind" (“Best Albums of 2009”, All About Jazz, Italy, 2009)"Favourite Ten CD’s 2006" (El Intruso Jazz Magazine, Argentina).
He is one of the two pianist (with Salvatore Bonafede), of Double Piano Orchestra directed by the italian jazz vocalist and composer Rosalba Lazzarotto. With Rosalba's groups he has recorded the CD Double Rainbow (Wide Records, 2006), and My Funny Valentine (Wide Sound, 2008).
Luciano has been signaled as Talent of the Year, Pianist of the Year, Group of the Year (2008 and 2009) and CD of the Year in Top Jazz Poll 2009 of Musica Jazz magazine.
In 2010 Luciano Troja released At Home With Zindars a piano solo CD, entirely dedicated to the music of the American composer Earl Zindars, well-known for the close friendship and the musical empathy with Bill Evans, who played many of his songs along the entire career. The work is an along five years personal research inside the world of the composer. The CD contains 14 Earl Zindars compositions -some of them never previously released- and a 40-page book, realized after a personal visit at home with the Zindars family, in San Francisco.
Website: www.lucianotroja.com MySpace: www.myspace.com/lucianotroja
Awards
- 2011 Record To Die For -"At Home with Zindars", Stereophile Magazine -10°Independent Music Awards Nomination "Best Tribute Album 2010" for "At Home with Zindars" - Reviewer's Choice: Top Ten Albums of 2010 ("At Home with Zindars") Cadence Jazz Magazine - 10 Best New Songs of the Year "Earl and Bill" by Luciano Troja, from "At Home with Zindars" Ken Franckling Jazz Notes
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Luciano Troja: To New Life: The Music of Earl Zindars
by Neri Pollastri
Il pianista messinese Luciano Troja già nel 2010 aveva dedicato un lavoro alla musica di Earl Zindars--At Home with Zindars--pianista e compositore di Chicago talmente raffinato che Bill Evans, di cui era amico e collaboratore, aveva in repertorio diversi brani da lui composti. In quel lavoro, corredato da note storico-biografiche e realizzato dopo essersi recato a casa dei famigliari di Zindars e aver stretto con loro un legame personale, Troja si dedicava quasi interamente alla commossa e appassionata ...
read moreLuciano Troja: To New Life: The Music Of Earl Zindars
by Ian Patterson
Like many before him, Sicilian pianist Luciano Troja discovered the music of Earl Zindars (1927-2005) through pianist Bill Evans, who probably recorded more tunes by Zindars--nine in total--than he did by any other composer. Equally smitten, Troja has been down this road before, paying homage to Zindars on At Home with Zindars (Self Produced, 2011), a five-year labor of love which included a pilgrimage to Zindars' family home in California. Zindars' closest kin inspired many of his compositions, resulting in ...
read moreGiancarlo Mazzù, Luciano Troja, Francesco Branciamore: Broad-Ways
by Neri Pollastri
Giancarlo Mazzù e Luciano Troja (clicca qui per leggere la loro intervista) tornano al loro primo amore, la rilettura libera e creativa degli standard a cui avevano dedicato i primi tre album del loro sodalizio artistico (clicca qui per leggere la recensione del secondo), ma questa volta lo fanno coinvolgendo la batteria di Francesco Branciamore. In Broad-Ways (registrato in realtà nel 2009, ma pubblicato solo nel 2017) l'ingresso di un nuovo elemento muta sì il suono della formazione, ...
read moreA dialogo con Giancarlo Mazzù e Luciano Troja
by Neri Pollastri
Il chitarrista calabrese Giancarlo Mazzù e il pianista siciliano Luciano Troja formano ormai da molti anni una coppia artistica molto affiatata. Messisi in luce nell'interessante quartetto Mahanada, che realizzò tre album tra il 2004 e il 2008 (leggi la recensione di Mahanatta), i due hanno poi consolidato la loro intesa artistica pubblicando i due volumi di Seven Tales About Standards (entrambi per la Splasc(H), nel 2006 e nel 2008, leggi la recensione del secondo ), singolarissima e raffinata rilettura della ...
read moreLuciano Troja e l'arte del duo
by Neri Pollastri
Luciano Troja è un pianista messinese dai molteplici interessi: ama gli standard, che sviscera e rilegge assieme al chitarrista Giancarlo Mazzù (clicca qui qui per leggere l'intervista che abbiamo fatto loro), frequenta con continuità l'improvvisazione radicale, si dedica al piano solo studiando la musica di Earl Zyndars al quale ha dedicato il CD At Home with Zyndars , non disdegna progetti “di frontiera." Qui ci occupiamo di due suoi recenti lavori che lo vedono impegnato appunto in ambiti molto diversi ...
read moreLuciano Troja: At Home with Zindars
by Ian Patterson
Italian pianist Luciano Troja--like saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, drummers Philly Joe Jones and Tony Williams, accordionist Dino Saluzzi, guitarists Larry Coryell and Emily Remler,and trumpeter Donald Byrd before him--discovered the beauty of pianist/composer Earl Zindars' music via the numerous interpretations of pianist Bill Evans. Enchanted by Zindars' compositions, Troja embarked on a five-year odyssey to meet the sources of Zindars' inspiration--his wife and daughters--and to record, over several years, sixteen of Zindars' pieces. Troja's dedication and evident inspiration gave rise to ...
read moreLuciano Troja: Second Earl Zindars Tribute
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Fans of pianist Bill Evans know that one of his favorite composers was Earl Zindars. The American songwriter's work recorded by Evans includes Elsa, How My Heart Sings, Mother of Earl, Lullaby for Helene, Quiet Light and Sareen Jurer. Today, one of the most exquisite interpreters of Zindars' music is Italian pianist Luciano Troja (above). Luciano recorded his first Zindars tribute album—At Home With Zindars—in 2010, which I mentioned in a 2018 post (here). Now he has issued his second ...
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"16 jewels strung together into a luminous arc of meditation” -Thomas Conrad, Stereophile
“Troja adds to Zindars's reputation, succeeding admirably in translating the beauty that lies in Zindars's simplicity, and in navigating the deceptively complex structures in which these rhapsodic poems of love abide” -Ian Patterson, All About Jazz
“ It is one of the better new piano CDs I have heard in a while.There are still many great up-and-coming artists emerging, but far fewer poets. Here is a chance to discover one.” -Maxwell Chandler, Jazz Police
Photos
Music
My Love Is An April Song
From: At Home with ZindarsBy Luciano Troja
