Roberto Tola presents his second and awaited album COLORS with collaborations from the best international artists such as Michael Lington, Paula Atherton or Bill McGee. And surprises from collaborations with Spanish musicians. Do you want to discover more about this color mix? Read the exclusive interview for #HotJazzMagazine:
1.- Roberto we want to start talking about your new album, why Colors as title?
1.- Roberto we want to start talking about your new album, why Colors as title?
Building this my new album, I extrapolated the best from every musical genre congenial to me, painting a picture of notes, used as colors on a white canvas, which I transform into an overall multicolored, multiracial image, without excluding any chromatism.
They are brushstrokes of liveliness, cheerfulness and light-heartedness alternating with experiences of suffering, sadness and nostalgia, just as it happens a little in everyone’s life.
Thus, elements of Bossa Nova, Jazz, Salsa and Latin Music, Soul, few pinches of light Rock and why not?! some impetus of refined Pop; a multi-dimensional project, full of COLORS which together creates harmony!
2.- In the 9 songs that make up the album, 6 of them have been composed and arranged by you. What is it like to work on a record so personally?
From when I was young, I always used to create music… It has always been a natural thing for me… It looks strange, but some of these 6 tracks in the album, which you are talking about, I composed almost 40/35 years ago, as Preludio, first, and Libeccio, after… Both written in the early roaring ‘80s. In my previous album was the same. I have many songs still stored in the drawer, that I would wish to arrange and release in the next albums, in the years ahead. My music experience and composing skills improved during my long musician carrier, and now I can say that I found my way, mood and dimension. All this makes well to my spirit and heart… and I feel like I’m a better person, with myself so as with other people.
3.- The other 3 versioned tracks you include are Time and Place by W. Sharpe and J. Saward, Laura by Ginetto Ruzzetta and Slow Motion, by Celso Fonseca and Ronaldo Bastos. How did you manage to make these versions of yourself and why did you choose these songs for your new album?
In my opinion, Time and Place is one of the best Shakatak’s songs of the last 10 years. It is not so famous, and so this makes it all much more interesting for me. Indeed, I think I am also the first artist or musician in the world that has arranged this nice tune. I don’t know about other existing versions, actually. Sometimes I decide to arrange songs that touch me personally. This is the case of the song Laura (originally titled L’Asthru Isthiu), which in my town dialect means Last Summer. Originally it is a popular folk song, which tells the story of unrequited love, between people who have really lived, in places that are very familiar to me, with the smell of the sea and salt, on distant summer days, that will never return. Slow Motion, is a song that touched me for its sweetness and smooth mood. It was a classical Bossa Nova song in the origin, which I arranged in a Funk Smooth Jazz and Soul style. When a song touches me, I can feel that inevitable desire to adapt it to me, as if it were a dress to wear.
4.- The collaborators who accompany you are more than remarkable… 36 musicians such as Michael Lington, Paula Atherton, Rocco Ventrella, Darryl Walker, Mando Cordova, Bill McGee, and many more. How has it been to surround yourself with these artists in your new CD?
When I compose or arrange a new song, I immediately imagine how it has to sound. I never choose the musician casually. First, I choose the instrument and the sound that I need to fill, then I think who can better play it. I also need to feel a certain empathy with people, and therefore even more with musicians, to understand each other better, and to express the best together. This is the case of all artists You mentioned above.
5.- We also discovered accompaniments of the #HotJazzBand of Smooth Hot Jazz that played with you in your performance at the 2nd edition of the Smooth Hot Jazz Festival in Madrid: José Vera, Micky Martínez, Ismael Dorado, Marco Raza and Juan Carlos Mendoza. Do you keep more than a nice memory of that unforgettable date?
Having part at the 2nd edition of the Smooth Hot Jazz Festival, allowed me to meet with a great roster of musicians, as they are all members of the in house band… fine artists, sensible and passionate, which I immediately found the right complicity with.
Beyond the collaboration and concerts of those indelible days at the festival, a beautiful friendship was born, both with the musicians so as with the staff and management of the Festival.
When I decided to work on my new album, I wished that this friendship and collaboration could continue. and what a better occasion than my new album COLORS? So I invited some of those excellent musicians to be part of my new musical project, José Vera, Ismael Dorado, Micky Martinez, Marco Rasa, Juan Carlos Mendoza, who can record from home in their home studio… also, a way to continue to work on music in the pandemic time. They all responded with fraternal availability and sincere pleasure. Which honored and sincerely pleased me.
6.- Smooth Jazz, funk, Bossa Nova, Latin Jazz, Bolero, Jazz Ballad … Cannot resist any style?
They are all genres of Music that influenced me throughout my carrier… I enjoy to take from other culture and blend all together, in a multicultural harmonic picture…
I worked a lot to find my sound, my arrangements style… that is absolutely melodic…
Some critics even defined my compositions as a new music genre, some also gave it a specific name… the New Melodic Jazz… I am very happy and honored about this critical intuition, this is the sign that maybe I got the dream to build my own way to compose and arrange.
7.- Although your album is pure energy, we want to stop on the third track, “Sandro’s Song”, because it is a ballad with a very special dedication, right?
Yes, absolutely. This is a song which I dedicated to my beloved Dad, so as all entire album.
He was a sportsman, especially a cycling lover, a port that he practiced for many years, and as “Technical Director”, he also actively dedicated himself to making generations of Sardinian young cyclists growing up, including myself, discipline that I also practiced, for eight long years.
He left me a great example of a father, always present and supportive of the family. That has always been his first priority.
Cheerful, optimistic, always inclined to find the good and cheerful side in any situation, I should have been inspired by an equally lively and cheerful composition; instead the song in question, in reality, does not describe my father, but it is simply the fruit and expression of the feelings that I felt in losing him forever.
Melancholy mixed with sweetness and serenity but also melancholy.
8.- The references to your beloved land could not be missing either, because Sardinia is also present on the album. Have you already been offered to be an honorary ambassador for your land, because few sell it as well as you do?
Yes, after dozens of International Awards and honors they I was lucky to gain in the last three years, got the attention of the Municipality Administration of my native town Sassari.
The town major Nicola Sanna, an his Councilor of Culture Manuela Palitta, officially invited me in the Town Palace, in presence of press media, and also some Italian TV and Radio channel, in August 2018, in order to give me a nice silver plague that honored me for bringing the name of Sassari and all Sardinia Island around the globe, a special recognition for my rule as the Music Ambassador of the Town and Sardinia around the world.
9.- With your first album Bein ‘Green you set the bar extremely high and as it shows all the international recognitions you received, what do you expect from Colors?
My new album COLORS comes after the multi awarded album Bein’ Green, as you have mentioned, but meanwhile I also released some other singles which also got outstanding and important honors on some prestigious Music Contest in USA and England. So, on the experience of these, my musical works, I built my new project, with more attention and skills.
I think I got an excellent result, since I am just getting the first positive feedbacks coming to me from any corner of the planet.
Colors is just becoming critically acclaimed among hundreds of radio stations and mass media that are daily sending me enthusiastic comments and impressions. All this gives me the right energy to continue to produce, compose and arrange new music. Indeed, I am just featuring my next album. I don’t want to wait again three years before to release another disc. Meanwhile I enjoy the moment, crossing the fingers for eventually other potential awards.
The album will be submitted to the next Grammy Awards.
Last year I passed all the ballots of the event, and get up to the last, when only a step separated me from an eventual Grammy nomination. It is not easy to even get to that pre-nomination point. For me it was just as a victory. I don’t know if I will be able to repeat it again, but never mind, I am going to try it again. Let’s cross the fingers J
10.- It is mandatory to ask yourself about Kandinsky … Why the reference to the Russian painter?
I like painting. I am not an expert, but when I have the opportunity, I wish and have to go to some painting show, wherever I am. I adore the lyrical abstraction of Kandinsky or the colorful impressionism of Gauguin, where colors are used as musical notes to create harmony.
I do the same. I see the music like a white canvas which I adore to paint with all the colors of my feelings and emotions…
Mine are brushstrokes of musical notes, but the result is the same, obtains a unique harmonic and melodic.
This gives a sense to my life, the reason to say, look I have a reason to stay in this world, especially if the people and the audience appreciate and understand what I wished to express and communicate with my music.
Thank you very much for your words.
