Marina di Grosseto: Friday 18 August 2023, 21 pm, at the Forte di San Rocco, Stefano Di Battista in concert

Marina di Grosseto: Friday 18 August 2023, 21 pm, at the Forte di San Rocco, in concert by Stefano Di Battista.

Friday 18 August at the Forte di San Rocco in Marina di Grosseto, Gray Cat Festival in collaboration with the fourth edition of San Rocco Festival presents the concert by Stefano Di Battista. “Morricone Stories” is his latest album, a perfect marriage between jazz and a selection from over five hundred Morricone soundtracks: from films such as "Once Upon a Time in America", "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", "The Mission" and “Veruschka” up to the song “Flora” which the Maestro wrote to Di Battista.
Ennio Morricone's film music is an inexhaustible mine, a treasure of fantasies of thought associated with images of all kinds, and they are also extremely versatile, available to be treated, retracted, rediscovered. Morricone's music means the exaltation of often highly emotional melodic tracks, in a web of intelligent harmonies, and this is exactly what jazz does, and even more so what someone like Stefano Di Battista does, who plays with the Maestro's themes as if they were magical matter, the substance of that special and mysterious area of ​​music that almost inexplicably fills our soul. And there isn't even necessarily a need to draw on the giants of cinematic imagery. In some cases Stefano has chosen marginal themes, or rather marginal or forgotten films.

Refinements certainly but very precious, and of course there is the pure enjoyment of listening to themes that we know very well that become perfect jazz standards, such as “Metti una sera a cena”, swinging and ironic, or “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” which reveals itself as a duel of improvisations, with the sax taking the part of that brief burst of notes which was originally inspired by the cry of the coyote, before melting into the pure emotion of Deborah's theme from “Once upon a time in America”, which is one of Morricone's most beautiful inventions, which he cared a lot about because it expressed very well his ideal of a melody written with a small number of notes with maximum results. Not to mention the delicate rereading of "The Mission", with an elegant transition from the original oboe to the soprano sax, up to the surprise of an unreleased piece entitled "Flora", which the Maestro gave to Di Battista. In the end it seems like a perfect mechanism, which could continue for other records, like a series, as if a part of Morricone's thought had always been, perhaps without knowing it, devoted to jazz.
Before the concert it will be possible to take part in a guided tour of Fort San Rocco.

Entrance: €12 – reduced Arci members, Under € 25 10
Gray Cat Festival is promoted by the municipal administrations of Follonica, Scarlino, Grosseto, Roccastrada, Castelnuovo Val di Cecina, Castiglione della Pescaia, Massa Marittima, Monterotondo Marittimo, Montieri, Roccastrada, Suvereto, (involving three provincial territories) and by Parco delle Colline Metalliferous. The organization and management of the festival is handled by the Music Pool Association, the artistic direction by Stefano "Cocco" Cantini and boasts a very rich series of collaborations, including the FAI - Grosseto Delegation.
The Festival is supported by the Tuscany Region and, as part of the Music Pool projects, by the Ministry of Culture and the CR Firenze Foundation.