ZAPPA&ZAPPA

Music by FRANK ZAPPA, FRANCESCO ZAPPA, GIOVANNI SOLLIMA, VANNI MORETTO

«I have always listened to the music of Frank Zappa with an immense hunger and thirst. Initially introduced to it by my elders, I had no real inkling of the man behind the music. Yet I followed him; I bought every record, read every interview and – subsequently –discovered his incredible symphonic or “contemporary” output (as it was conveniently termed back then). Following his passing, for several years, sourcing his scores would become difficult-if not entirely impossible […].
But the vinyl records were always there, somewhere. Such as the 1984 release entitled Francesco Zappa, dedicated to a figure that we–cellists – knew nothing of: an 18th-century Milanese cellist and composer, the very same Francesco Zappa who was so active in the Netherlands.[…].Together with Giulio d’Alessio and Vanni Moretto, I have engaged in extensive discussions; the intention was to juxtapose these two figures, while avoiding the banality of simply placing their works side by side…Vanni already had something tucked away: a Symphony derived from Frank’s pieces […]. As for myself, one night I felt the urge to respond in the opposite direction; I took a theme from the second movement of a Francesco Zappa Symphony and ‘plunged’ it, quite literally, into a smoke-filled, Be-Bop-inflected soundscape […].My own pieces are also present […] though reworked and, above all, re-imagined in an entirely new light. They share a connection with Zappa, however different they may be…perhaps it is the concept of rhythm-boldly coloured, I would say-and, most notably, a more or less overt presence of roots».

Giovanni Sollima (taken from the liner notes of the new CD)