An elegant and sanguine Brazil between songwriting and ethnofolk

 

Cristina Renzetti & Tatiana Valle: vocals, guitar and percussion
Ferruccio Spinetti: double bass, electric bass
Roberto Taufic: guitars
Bruno Marcozzi: drums, percussion

Ten years after their first live show, the long-awaited third album of the duo As Madalenas, an artistic encounter between Tatiana Valle, a Brazilian from the State of Paraná, and Cristina Renzetti from Bologna, was released in spring 2023. In this album the two musicians and multi-instrumentalists present themselves as singer-songwriters, signing almost all the songs. Cristina and Tati, two singers and songwriters who exchange skins. A show capable of mixing worlds and continents and this is also thanks to their dedication to music, live and their particular 'symbiotic' composition: from songwriting to ethnofolk, using voice and guitars, pandeiro, surdo, triangle and clarinet, pushing to mad race on delicate and deep registers of a new female musical world aimed at building a captivating and refined model of easy listening, conscious, elegant, intelligent. Surfing, playing, enchanting and entering into this new raw material, which does not give up the great song writing in Chico Buarque style, but also capable of reinterpreting in a new way a pop song like "Coccodrilli" by Samuele Bersani or "Pigro" by Pino Daniele. For a new idea of Brazil that is never inflated and of an Italy in music full of changes of rhythms, elegance and melody. As they themselves say, "As Madalenas is an album born and raised by four hands, a work made up of encounters, of interpenetration into the essential, of emotions experienced firsthand in recent years, small intimate stories in the form of songs. The raw material in question is music itself, it is what we cannot do without, in its simplicity, the unthought and unprocessed emotions, the fundamental feelings that nourish the human being as raw material."
The artistic production of the album, published by Jando Music and Via Veneto Jazz, is by the elegant double bass player Ferruccio Spinetti (Avion Travel, Musica Nuda) who also plays bass and double bass on the album; guitars are by Roberto Taufic, drums and percussion by Bruno Marcozzi. The prestigious guests are Gabriele Mirabassi on clarinet, Giancarlo Bianchetti on electric guitars and Giovanni Ceccarelli on trumpet. "Our third album (third! Who would have thought?!?) It is homonymous and has for us the flavor and freshness of the first one. It's called "As Madalenas", like our duo born ten years ago from a chance and lucky encounter. A duo where confrontation is inevitable: two women, two leaders who share the stage, exchange instruments, language, passion for Brazilian music and who find themselves faced with the spontaneous need to transform a work above all made of sound research and author's repertoire, to a more direct and intimate approach with the public. For the first time, the sound is entrusted to a super band from start to finish. The helm of this new journey has been entrusted to Ferruccio Spinetti who finds himself as double bass player and artistic director, full of enthusiasm to whom we are immensely grateful! Together with us the wonderful musicians and brothers from other trips, Bruno Marcozzi and Roberto Taufic with whom we were able to enter the recording studio without rehearsing, with the certainty that this meeting was the right mixture for the magic we were looking for for our music and went beyond expectations. Welcoming our loyal guests who accompany us from "Madeleine" album: Gabriele Mirabassi and Giancarlo Bianchetti. This is us! Songs written together, on Friday mornings of the last year of the pandemic. A lyric by Cristina, a music by Tati and vice versa, in a few hours the songs of this album took shape and we can't wait to sing live, at full voice".
A recommendation, that of following them live, also underlined by Ferruccio Spinetti... "When Cristina and Tati asked me to follow the artistic production of their duo, I accepted with enthusiasm. I already knew and followed As Madalenas, being a great fan of Brazilian music for years. This being their third album after ten years as a duo, I fully understood their need to have an outside ear that could follow their new work. It had happened to me in the past with both Avion Travel and Musica Nuda to have the same need. Moreover, since almost all of them were unpublished, the work was even more delicate to tackle. I'm really happy with the end result. However, I like to remember that ours was also a team game where the magic word that inspired us, and which has become a dogma of mine in recent years, is subtraction. Despite the fundamental contribution of Roberto Taufic and Bruno Marcozzi's guitars, in addition to the elegance given to us by guests such as Gabriele Mirabassi, Giancarlo Bianchetti and Giovanni Ceccarelli and the refined work of Alessandro Guasconi, we have worked from the beginning in search of essentiality, where for me this word translates first of all with the composition itself,  more than with the dress with which it was then decided to dress up the songs with the arrangements. I wish Cristina and Tati to take this beautiful work around Italy and the world, because their strength, for those who have not yet intercepted them live, is precisely the stage, after all they are two pure and extraordinary artists, who manage to capture and excite the audience from the first note".
Among the most active interpreters of Brazilian music in Italy, the two singer-songwriters met in 2013 to combine their voices, guitars, percussion and give life to this unique project, full of freshness and intensity. With hundreds of concerts under their belt, their first album "Madeleine" arrived in 2015 and positively surprised audiences and critics. According to Il Venerdì di Repubblica it is "one of the best Brazilian records of the year". O Globo (Brazil) wrote about it: "Pure harmony!" Record of the week for Fahreneit (Rai Radio3). In their second work "Vai, menina" (2018) the extraordinary guest participation of the great Brazilian composer Guenga stands out, as well as those of the musicians Gabriele Mirabassi, Valentino Corvino, Vince Abbracciante. They have taken the stage of the most important national clubs and festivals including Time In jazz, Crossroads Festival, Ravenna Jazz, Trentino in jazz, Casa del jazz di Roma, Bravo Caffè, Torrione Jazz Club, Piazza Verdi Live (Radio 3), Brasil (Radio 1). In 2021, together with Joe Barbieri, Musica Nuda and Chiara Civello, they were guests of the Officina delle Arti Pier Paolo Pasolini for the program "D'Altro Canto" conducted by Tosca and Giorgio Capozzo. 

 

www.cristinarenzetti.com
www.tatianavalleofficial.com