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Carla Marciano

Carla Marciano is an Italian saxophonist and composer from Salerno considered by specialized critics among the best talents of European jazz. She is an alto saxophone specialist, appreciated for her great passion and energy, her strong expressiveness, her advanced tecnique as well as her distinctive performative and compositional streak. She is also one of the leading experts of the rarely used and hard to master sopranino saxophone. She has performed her music projects, with her quartet, around the world at a lot of prestigious international jazz festivals, theaters and clubs as well as at most of the major Italian jazz festivals and clubs and she has under her belt some tours in America and in Russia.

She started studying music first playing the piano and then the alto saxophone and she graduated in clarinet from the Conservatory of Music in Salerno.

"TRANE’S GROOVE” (with Alessandro La Corte - piano, Aldo Vigorito and Dario Deidda - bass, Donato Cimaglia - drums) is the title of her first CD, released in 2003 by DDQ - DISCHI DELLA QUERCIA (one of the three Bonandrinis' famous labels together with Black Saint and Soul Note). Thanks to this project she paid homage to the great John Coltrane, with original compositions and some standards, exploring and re- examining his instrumental language with a particular attention to his modal period. Her second CD "A STRANGE DAY" was released in 2005 by BLACK SAINT, the Bonandrini's prestigious as well as legendary label (the DownBeat critics poll's best label in the world, from 1984 to 1989), so much appreciated in USA. Few Italian musicians have recorded for this label and Carla Marciano is one of them, along with giants of the caliber of Max Roach, Archie Sheep, Steve Lacy, Charlie Haden, Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Lester Bowie, Art Farmer, Dewey Redman, just to name a few. With this project and the precious collaboration of Alessandro La Corte on piano, Aldo Vigorito on bass and Gaetano Fasano on drums, she develops a personal discourse, mainly through her original compositions. With a precise sketch at the bottom, the quartet proposes a passionate and instinctive music, sometimes impetuous and vehement and sometimes interrupted by spiritual atmospheres and moments of meditation and reflection. You can pass from the modal pieces, which are the right ground to express a liberty of phrasing that often pushes on to extreme harmonic solutions, to the soft and seductive ballads.

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5
Album Review

Carla Marciano: Psychosis - Homage to Bernard Herrmann

Read "Psychosis - Homage to Bernard Herrmann" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


On this CD Italian saxophonist Carla Marciano pays tribute to a lifelong influence, the music of film soundtrack composer Bernard Hermann. Hermann wrote a lot of significant scores in his time but Marciano concentrates on his music for thrillers. She mostly deals with his scores for Alfred Hitchcock, but also tackles his music for Martin Scorsese's “Taxi Driver" and Roy Boulting's “Twisted Nerve." Marciano's arrangements of this music divide into two motifs, darkly seductive love themes and boiling ...

5
Album Review

Carla Marciano: Psychosis - Homage to Bernard Herrmann

Read "Psychosis - Homage to Bernard Herrmann" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Of all the music that might enchant the ears of a child, the dark and often foreboding themes designed by film composer Bernard Herrmann would seem to be at the far end of the line. Nevertheless, as a young girl in Salerno, Italy, that is the music which saxophonist Carla Marciano says “dazzled" her senses, as it has to this day. Hence Psychosis, an earnest salute to Herrmann in which his film scores have been compressed from full orchestra to ...

5
Interview

Carla Marciano: Tensione, melodia e improvvisazione

Read "Carla Marciano: Tensione, melodia e improvvisazione" reviewed by Paolo Marra


La libera improvvisazione, aspetto fondamentale della dialettica jazz, ispirata da colonne sonore di film entrati nella storia della cinematografia moderna ormai patrimonio della memoria collettiva. Così potremmo sintetizzare l'ultimo lavoro discografico della sassofonista Carla Marciano, tra le più apprezzate a livello internazionale, dal titolo Psychosis. L'album rappresenta un personale omaggio al direttore d'orchestra statunitense Bernard Herrmann compositore delle colonne sonore dei film di Alfred Hitchcock, tra cui “Psycho," “Marnie" e “Vertigo" oltre che di altri grandi registi come Martin Scorsese. ...

5
Album Review

Carla Marciano Quartet: Psychosis - Homage to Bernard Herrmann

Read "Psychosis - Homage to Bernard Herrmann" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Quest'omaggio a Bernard Herrmann si erge oltre la media delle produzioni italiane e internazionali per la sincera e personale adesione di Carla Marciano all'autore di evocative colonne sonore: i classici di Alfred Hitchock (Marnie, Psycho, Vertigo), Brian De Palma (Obsession/Complesso di colpa) o Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver). Un disco così coinvolgente e appassionante (frutto di tre anni di lavoro) non poteva che legarsi a potenti emozioni infantili che reclamavano una matura rielaborazione. Emozioni suscitate da quel magistrale ...

389
Album Review

Carla Marciano: Change Of Mood

Read "Change Of Mood" reviewed by Mark F. Turner


The force: the essence of the great John Coltrane that so many musicians and fans have drawn inspiration from--its roots in the blues, swing, spirituality and exploration. Italian saxophonist Carla Marciano has been heavily influenced by it and channels that energy into her own music where she's well known for her awe-inspiring chops as witnessed on the Black Saint releases--Trane's Groove (2002), A Strange Day (2005), and here on A Change of Mood. As Star Wars' Yoda might ...

240
Album Review

Carla Marciano: Change Of Mood

Read "Change Of Mood" reviewed by John Barron


On Change of Mood, her third release for the Black Saint label, Italian saxophonist Carla Marciano displays her aggressive alto and sopranino playing on an all original set of straight-ahead blowing, featuring the swinging rhythm section of pianist Alessandro La Corte, bassist Aldo Vigorito and drummer Gaetano Fasano. The native of Salerno, Italy bares her musical soul with the same level of heartfelt passion displayed on her previous release, A Strange Day (Black Saint, 2006).

With a tone that is ...

238
Album Review

Carla Marciano 4tet: A Strange Day

Read "A Strange Day" reviewed by Mark F. Turner


Listening to the opening “Dance of Mind on A Strange Day, you'll hear why Carla Marciano is probably as fierce and relentless as anyone who plays the saxophone. Her passion, articulation and tone also show that she has been greatly influenced by the great John Coltrane. From Salerno, Italy, Marciano has performed in many bands and events, forging a name as a musician with unbridled abilities. Like her first recording, Trane's Groove (BlackSaint, 2003), she continues to show that she ...

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92

Event

Carla Marciano 4tet at New Haven's Firehouse 12 on September 29th

Carla Marciano 4tet at New Haven's Firehouse 12 on September 29th

Source: Improvised Communications

Friday, September 29th at 8:30 and 10:00 p.m. Carla Marciano 4tet Firehouse 12 45 Crown Street in New Haven, CT Tickets are $15 (opening set) and $10 (second set) Tickets and info are available at http://www.firehouse12.com or (203) 785-0468 Learn about Carla Marciano at http://www.carlamarciano.it

Carla Marciano, alto and sopranino saxophones; Alessandro La Corte, piano; Aldo Vigorito, bass; Gaetano Fasano, drums

The Carla Marciano 4tet will ...

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Performance / Tour

The Carla Marciano Quartet US Tour Dates Announced

The Carla Marciano Quartet US Tour Dates Announced

Source: All About Jazz

Italian saxophonist Carla Marciano's quartet with Alessandro La Corte on piano, Aldo Vigorito on bass and Gaetano Fasano on drums, will play three dates in the United States from September 29th to October 7th. Marciano will perform music from her latest release A Strange Day on September 29th in New Haven at the Firehouse 12, on October 3rd in New York at the Italian Women in Jazz Festival (artistic director: Enzo Capua), and on October 7th in Hartford at the ...

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Recording

A great tribute to Coltrane. The young saxophonist Carla Marciano dedicates her debut CD to...Trane's Groove

A great tribute to Coltrane. The young saxophonist Carla Marciano dedicates her debut CD to...Trane's Groove

Source: All About Jazz

"It is the debut CD of this young saxophonist from Salerno, in which she decided to pay homage to Coltrane the way a guitarist would pay homage to Wes or a trumpetist would pay homage to Chet...Doing this at the beginning of one's career is quite risky, but if this tribute is paid naturally and sincerely, one can understand other sides of the musician's personality emerging from Coltrane's influence..." Marco Losavio for Jazzitalia click below to read the full review ...

CADENCE MAGAZINE (USA) “She comunicates on a personal level, taking advantage of her beautiful tone quality to "sing" lyrically with genuine passion and a powerful force, absorbing all the energy from the room and channeling it into an open space as would the eruption of a volcano.” Jim Santella

JAZZ TIMES (USA) “Marciano is a marvelous saxophonist and improviser, consistently demonstrating impressive control of her instruments and her material most of which she composed herself.” David Franklin

ALL ABOUT JAZZ (USA) “One of today's strongest female saxophonists

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Psychosis - Homage to...

Challenge Records
2020

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STREAM OF...

Black Saint
2012

buy

Change Of Mood

Black Saint
2008

buy

A Strange Day

Black Saint
2006

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Preceding/Inner blast

From: STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
By Carla Marciano

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