Home » Jazz Musicians » Mauro Sigura
Mauro Sigura
Mauro Sigura: Dunia
by Chris May
The Turin-born, Sardinia-based oud and bouzouki player and composer Mauro Sigura gave us one of the most singular albums of 2020 with Terravetro (S'ard Music). Leading an acoustic group, Sigura blended Sardinian and Levantine folk musics with North European jazz. The lineup was oud/bouzouki, piano, bass, drums and, on half the tracks, trumpet. (A review can be read here.) Sigura could have continued ploughing that particular furrow productively, but on Dunia he has rung some substantial changes. ...
read moreMauro Sigura Quartet: Terra Vetro
by Chris May
Although the Italian oud player and composer Mauro Sigura bills his band as a world-jazz group which combines traditional Ottoman-Mediterranean music with modern European jazz, the band's sophomore album is not full-on, capped-up World Jazz in the manner of, say, fellow oudist Anouar Brahem's Blue Maqams (ECM, 2017). That album, made with double bassist Dave Holland, drummer Jack DeJohnette and pianist Django Bates, is founded four-square on traditional Levantine modes and structures. Sigura's work, by contrast, is lyrical European jazz ...
read moreCantus: A Harvest Home
by C. Michael Bailey
There are two major names on the block regarding male vocal ensembles: San Francisco's Chanticleer and Minneapolis' Cantus. The latter releases A Harvest Home, a collection of Autumn pastoral affairs celebrating the traditional season of Thanksgiving. This follows last year's release of Songs of a Czech: Dvorak and Janacek for Men's Voices (Cantus, 2013), a fine if narrowly focused affair. With the Christmas holiday market clotted with recordings, it made perfect sense of Cantus to branch out into the anticipatory ...
read more