Marco Santilli CheRoba - L'occhio Della Betulla (2017)

When I looked out the window, clarinet to mouth, practising, it looked back at me. From its spot on the white trunk of a birch tree outside. Was it keeping a check on me? Constantly present, it watched me while my music emerged – kindly, questioningly.

Now the time has come.

What developed from my gaze on “l’occhio della betulla” has found its band: Lorenzo Frizzera, who came to practice one day with his twelve-string guitar and keeps surprising me with his rich sound and imagination. Ivan Tibolla from the Veneto, who is just as flowing and full of ideas at the organ and on the accordion as he is at the Steinway grand, and who accompanies me on all my excursions (including the wild adventures) like a brother. And Fulvio Maras, whom I once heard at a concert, thinking: “now that is a percussionist I’d like to play with…!”

We live far apart, in quite different places, and yet we come together to play this music. When someone in the Ticino tells me an incredible, funny, or simply surprising story, I reply: “Che roba!” CheRoba is alive. Che roba!

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CheRoba: L’occhio della betulla Marco Santilli admits it freely: When he thinks about music, he thinks in Italian. The clarinettist from the Ticino has long become part of German-speaking Switzerland’s jazz scene, but with his new quartet, CheRoba, like with earlier projects, he throws a bridge to the south. And the four musicians tell his stories as if they had been gigging around with them for years. There are reminiscences of poet Hermann Hesse in Montagnola, melodies inspired by a poem in the Ticino dialect, skilfully woven ballads, and citations from the jazz tradition – all interspersed with unbridled collective improvisations. Canzoni and jazz merge into a poetic mix. The eye of the birch tree reflects styles and images.

Marco Santilli #1: clarinet, bass clarinet; Lorenzo Frizzera #2: twelve-string guitar, classical guitar; Ivan Tibolla #3: piano, accordion; Fulvio Maras #4: percussion