Biography

L' île Noire - feat. Javier Girotto & Badara Seck --- AlfaMusic 2024

music by Manuela Iori - lyrics by Maria Teresa Leonetti

" It's really very rare to find a collection that can transmit such a variety of moods, and with such intensity... Listening to the album, track by track, you are literally dragged away in a mixture of introspection and innovation that goes far beyond what we’re used to." - Francesco Simone - I love Magazine

"The Island found and the people of the Waters ...our artists often succeed in expressing lyrical waves in melodies of both pentagram and poetic text, as in the case of the FIL ROUGE QUINTET in the beautiful and heartfelt performance L'ÎLE NOIRE... a jazz of spacious harmonies and fine arrangements in which to give voice to a universal lyric." - Fabrizio Ciccarelli - Rome InJazz

"... L'île noire, a musical album by the Fil Rouge Quintet, who don’t know what banality is. From song to song, you have the feeling of witnessing a stream of consciousness, a river of emotions that involves and overwhelms in a series of unique suggestions." - Francesco Ferri - Gingermag

" ...an ambitious musical and literary research project, which accompanies the listener through a multi-ethnic journey, where music and words merge in a magnificent melting pot of colors cleverly mixed, as the cultural influences that characterize the record." - Mauro Zappaterra - Jazz & Jazz Reloaded

L' île Noire, released in June 2024 for AlfaMusic, is an introspective and evocative album. Each person is an archipelago, composed and made of a thousand facets like life, as human experiences and "The black island" represents many parts. The album L' île Noire consists of seven tracks: six unpublished compositions composed and arranged by Manuela Iori with lyrics written by Maria Teresa Leonetti in Italian and French, and an important cover, Alexander Platz. Two special guests enrich the work. He is the master saxophonist Javier Girotto in the song Tango romanesco and the great Badara Seck, singer and expert in African music with great collaborations in music and film in Les villes cachées. The latter talks about the dramatic experience of migrants' sea travel.

Fil Rouge Quintet’s second work is characterized by an in-depth and sophisticated musical research that aims to never be taken for granted, even at a structural level. In fact, there are numerous written instrumental sections, as well as improvisation parts. There is a focus on rhythm: the love for odd tempo (where tablas are the masters), rhythmic detachments and sudden changes of tempo that create an always unexpected sound. The harmonic research has been inspired by the music from the world: from the Ethiopian jazz of Mulatu Astatke, from the dream trio of Avishai Cohen (not by chance the double bass is often the protagonist in the various songs), from African music but also from classical music greats like Mussorgsky.

Track by Track

In the first track L'île Noire, which gives the title to the album, it is about the personal experience of loneliness; Les villes cachées is about the journey out to sea and the loneliness of the migrant peoples who continue to live and struggle even after death in the hidden cities of a sea that has unjustly dragged them into its depths. It continues with a melancholy and disenchanted tango, Tango romanesco, which recalls the paternal love and the Sunday walks of a little girl together with her father in Rome forty years ago. We then move on to the freshness and lightness of a summer bonfire fueled by Le vent de la mer, the wind of the sea, which winks at Couleur Café by Serge Gainsbourg and follows an Alexander Platz in Fil Rouge style, clear tribute to the master Franco Battiato alluding to the elegance of Milva’s interpretation. In the last two tracks, united by the theme of no longer being, at least physically, we talk about a grasshopper La sauterelle as if it were a positive presence, perhaps inhabited by the soul of someone we had to greet "running, running": it is nestled in the window of a woman’s house who had to say goodbye to her mother, unexpectedly "soon" and in pandemic times, to remind her that she still lives around her and that maybe one day, as the text says: "I will look for you, I will find you, I will see you again". To conclude a beautiful suite, the Suite des promeneurs solitaires composed of four themes that revolve around four stories: that of a child turned angel, an elegant lady, alone and fragile in her illness, arrived in the sky on a carriage of orange clouds from the lights of the sunset, of a girl who wonders about the meaning of life, of a woman now aware of the transience of life and arrived at a consequent inner stillness.

LINE-UP:

Maria Teresa Leonetti - voice
Manuela Iori - piano, keyboard, choirs
Charles Ferris - trumpet, flugelhorn, effects
Ettore Bonafè - drums, percussion
Michele Staino - double bass

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“We are borne with a red string tied to our left-hand pinkie that ties us to our destiny” — Chinese legend

The Fil Rouge Quintet project was born in 2015 and it rises from the intense understanding between two women, the singer and the pianist, who translate into words and music their melancholic mood, at the same time full of energy and dynamic. The incisiveness of the trumpet, the regular rhythms of the drums and the intensity of the double bass color and fill the sound. The first album "L'inconnue", the unknown in every one of us, published in spring 2016, received a good feedback in italian press (La Repubblica, La Nazione, corriere Fiorentino).

It is difficult to define our musical genre, however, if jazz comprises research and improvisation, with many contaminations, our project can be put into a jazz context.Our music touches the most diverse sounds, timbres and colors: Mediterranean melodies with Arabic and Maghreb echoes. Latin rhythms of bossanova and tango permeated with underground influences tied to funk and hip-hop not least blues and swing. Our music moves across different harmony. Alternating tonal and modal composition. Thus creating never taken for granted atmospheres.

The songs are predominately written in French, the language of the soul of the singer. They speak about the Alsatian Countryside, about people met during a one-year journey; they speak about complicated lives and friendships developed in a Winter-time Strasbourg, a city radiated by a light, white like snow. The songs speak about painful relationships, life beyond illness and oblivion. They speak about a father came to known in senile age with all his fragilities and regained wisdom. They speak about a mother, small and full of life that runs, runs every moment of the day, who finds peacefulness in long walks through the countryside, to look for herbs to cook with. Not least, foggy atmospheres along the Senna, evoked by Jean Gabin’s film o by Maupassant short stories.

Fil Rouge Quintet’s second work is characterized by an in-depth and sophisticated musical research that aims to never be taken for granted, even at a structural level. In fact, there are numerous written instrumental sections, as well as improvisation parts. There is a focus on rhythm: the love for odd tempo (where tablas are the masters), rhythmic detachments and sudden changes of tempo that create an always unexpected sound. The harmonic research has been inspired by the music from the world: from the Ethiopian jazz of Mulatu Astatke, from the dream trio of Avishai Cohen (not by chance the double bass is often the protagonist in the various songs), from African music but also from classical music greats like Mussorgsky.

“The album L’Inconnue is an elegant eulogy of musical and poetic life simplicity:
it draws pieces of life enlightened by memories, affections and love silences.”

Fulvio Paloscia, LA REPUBBLICA

"Amazing urban world music that gravitates toward soundtracks sophisticated film.
A tribute to French music, to chameleonic sensibility of Italian jazz, to music experiments of groups like Les Negresses Vertes and singers like Zaz.”

Giovanni Ballerini, LA NAZIONE

The main live concerts: Cantina Bentivoglio (Bo) - Padova jazz club - U-Percut jazz club (Marseille - FR) - La Sala del Rosso (FI) - Ricomincio da tre (PG) - Marche jazz network (Camerino, MC) - Teatro Miela (Trieste) - Bari in jazz festival - Café Le Bovary (Luxembourg) - Società Dante Alighieri (Luxembourg) - Le Murate Caffè Letterario (Firenze) - Tradizioni Popolari festival (Firenze) - L'Aérogare (Metz, FR) - TUFA cultural centre (Trier, DE) - L'Archiduc (Bruxelles, BE) - De Floeren AAp, (Mechelen, BE) - New Rocky Pompadour, (Bruxelles, BE).

The Band Members

Manuela Iori

Manuela Iori was born in a little town in Italy, in 1987. When she was six years old she started to play piano with M° Fabio Paciaroni at "Liceo Musicale Nelio Biondi", Camerino (MC). In 2009 She achieved, at the Conservatory G.Pergolesi in Fermo, the diploma in classical piano; subsequently she moved to Florence where she studied, at Scuola Musicale di Musica di Scandicci, modern and jazz piano with M° Emanuela Fontana. Then she decided to continue with jazz music. In 2015 at the “Accademia italiana del jazz”, she achieved the diploma in jazz piano with M° Alessandro Giachero. In 2010 she founded "Malibra Trio", a world music project, with the Griot Brahima Dembelè, from Burkina Faso, and the Israeli percussionist Liron Meyuhas. The experience approached her to African and Oriental music; it’s possible to hear it in her music. She has played with Brahima Dembelè, Adama Dembelè, Paul Victoir Debiré, Liron Meyuhas, Paolo Casu, Gianfranco Narracci, Amit Arieli, Franco Baggiani, Renato Cantini, Tommaso Papini, Piero Spitilli, Simone Morgantini. In 2015 she founded Fil Rouge Quintet, a jazz-world music project, with the singer Maria Teresa Leonetti; she is the pianist and composer of the project, and collaborates with Ettore Bonafé, Michele Staino and Nicola Cellai.

Maria Teresa Leonetti

Maria Teresa Leonetti (Rome, Italy 1981). She studied vocal technique with lyrical and light setting. She has a degree in foreign languages and literature, including French. In 2006 she moved to France, to Strasbourg, to work on a European project. Once back in Italy she began to sing in the Florentine scene: she collaborated on the show "Convivenze" directed by Niccolò Fabi at the Teatro Dante in Campi Bisenzio (FI). In 2011 she participated in Fabbrica Europa singing in the Geneva choir of Marco and Francesco Magnelli at the Teatro La Pergola. Since 2013 she has undertaken the study of songs of the Jewish tradition in Yiddish and Hebrew performing together with the Israeli clarinetist Amit Arieli and other musicians in various locations, including the MACRO Museum of Rome, the Synagogue of Pitigliano and Florence, the Alfieri Theatre in Asti. Since 2015 she founded together with pianist and composer Manuela Iori the musical project Fil Rouge Quintet (which includes Ettore Bonafé, Michele Staino and Charles Ferris) that sees for the first time as an author, in French and Italian, and with whom she performs in Italy and abroad. She founded in Rome in 2023 together with Diana Tejera and Désirée Infascelli the project Co' li fiori alla loggetta, an all-female tribute to Gabriella Ferri, the popular soul of Rome.

Michele Staino

Michele Staino (Fiesole 1980) started to study music in 1994. He has studied bass and double bass with the masters Franco Nesti, Furio Di Castri, Piero Leveratto, Raffaello Pareti, Willam Parker. He played with: Bill Smith (Dave Brubeck Quartet), Gianni Coscia, Lu Colombo, Ruben Chaviano, Alessandro Lanzoni, Simone Graziano, Fabrizio Mocata, Paul Dabiré, Bobo Rondelli, Vittorio de Scalzi (New Trolls). Since 2013 he is the bass player of Baro Drom Orkestar, a world and balkan music group with a lot of overnights in Europe and 3000 sold album copies. In 2014 he released his first album, recorded with the trumpet player and music therapist Renato Cantini (Ipnotize). Since 2015 he belongs to the group Fil Rouge Quintet with Maria Teresa Leonetti, Manuela Iori, Nicola Cellai and Ettore Bonafè. Discography Nihil Project: Paria (Materiali Sonori, 2004), Shamain (Materiali Sonori, 2005), Plough Plays (Woven Wheat Whispers, 2007), Alberto Patrucco: "Chi non la Pensa come Noi" (Edel, 2008), Pan Brumisti: "Quelle Piccole Cose" (Alabianca, 2008), Lu Colombo: "Molto più di un Buon Motivo" (Art Up Art 2011), unePassante: "More Than One in Number", "No Drama" (Anna The Granny 2010 e 2013), Baro Drom Orkestar: "Genau!" (Musicastrada Records 2014), Cocainomadi: "Mr. Cunnilingus" (self-publishing, 2014), Michele Staino e Renato Cantini "Ipnotize" (Fractal Infinity, 2014), "Storie di amore e di anarchia - concerto del 1 maggio" (attached to "Cantautore", the magazine dedicated to the 2014 edition of Premio Tenco), Fil Rouge Quintet: “L’Inconnue” (self-publishing, 2016)

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Ettore Bonafè

He started to play percussions in 1980 (he previously played guitar for different years in Cartacanta group). He studied tabla in India (1980/81) with the master Thunny Lal and, in Italy, with the master Shankar Chatterjee. In 1981 he started the study of drums with Piero Borri e then with Timothy Kotowich. Since 1985 he devoted himself to the study of vibraphone with Alessandro Di Puccio as master and in the summer workshops of Berklee school in Perugia wjth Gary Burton and in with the composer Ruud Wiener, in Swiss. In 1990 he founded the group Fuentes with Paolo Casu, in which there were also Brahima Dembelé, an african Griot musician from Burkina Faso; with them he recorded Gram Masala (1998) and Irikelè (2007). Since 1992 he was a member of the original line up of Banditaliana with Riccardo Tesi. They recorded together three albums and went on tour in Europe, Québec, Australia and Japan. He played over ten years with the songwriter Sergio Caputo, recording two of his albums (I love jazz, Senoritas). He played and recorded with: Stefano “Cocco” Cantini, Patrick Vaillant, Franco Fabbrini, Mirko Mariottini, Giulio Stracciati, Antonello Salis, Ares Tavolazzi, Lello Pareti, Gabriele Mirabassi, Riccardo Galardini, Carlotta Vettori, Antonino Siringo, Giuditta Scorcelletti, Alessandro Bongi, Maurizio Dami, Boliwar Miranda, Chiara Riondino, Francesca Breschi, Nando Citarella, Mauro Palmas, Anna Granata, Alfio Antico, Amedeo Ronga, Mino Cavallo. Since 2015 he belongs to the group Fil Rouge Quintet with Maria Teresa Leonetti, Manuela Iori, Nicola Cellai e Michele Staino. He is a master of percussions, drums, vibraphone, and ensemble music in Fondazione Siena Jazz (Siena) and in Mosaico organization (Colle Val d’Elsa, Tuscany).

Charles Ferris

Toronto-born Canadian trumpeter and ethnomusicologist Charles Ferris arrives in Italy as a Fulbright scholar with a research on southern traditions and songs. Since he began studying classical music, forty years ago in the United States, he has crossed almost every musical genre. As a young student he was awarded in New York City as a soloist at the national competition of the Music Teachers National Association. At 18 he won The Louisville Orchestra’s Young Artist Competition and played as a soloist with the orchestra that made the history of American music of the '900. With an Afro-Cuban orchestra he toured all the salsa clubs in San Francisco while during the day he studied jazz and contemporary improvisation with Myra Melford, Fred Frith, Henry Threadgill and Steve Coleman. He has played in numerous projects of Balkan music, rock, jazz, funk, blues, and ensemble of contemporary improvised music and popular music. The common thread that unites the different genres and musical projects in which he played is research, originality and a certain attitude to improvisation. In Italy since 2006, he has collaborated with hundreds of musicians in numerous bands: Sineterra, Marcello Giannini, Badara Sek, Francesco Forni, E Zezi, and began a long path of study of classical music and popular Tunisian alongside Marzouk Mejri with whom he founded, Fanfara Station in 2015, along with producer and beat-maker Ghiaccioli e Branzini.