La Banda di Ruvo di Puglia
The Banda RuvoMusica of Ruvo di Puglia was founded in 1993 owing to an idea of Pino Minafra. The aim of this project is to document on CD the classical musical tradition of the banda and, at the same time, to launch it out into the contemporary sound scape, entering in comparison with the most innovating musical language.
Regarded as a museum piece, ignored and dismissed by music critics, composers and managers (in other words, by the whole musical establishment and intelligence), nowadays the ‘banda’ survives only in the simple and secondary role of folkloristic support for religious feasts and national anniversaries.
For more than 200 years the ‘banda’ has been a big workshop and a training place for dozens of music conductors and composers and hundreds of notable wind — instrument players in the most important national orchestras. In the course of this period the ‘banda’ has developed a definite identity and dignity as well as an artistic and social function of its own.
One of its biggest merits consists in having widely spread the musical culture of symphonies and operas all over the country, particularly among the poorest and most isolated people (in a difficult period without radio, television and big mass media). In fact, owing to the scarcity of theatres in the middle and south of Italy, and to the social and economic discrimination which kept thousands of people away from the world of the great opera — houses, the ‘banda’ took literally the place of the world of the ‘bel canto’ (that is to say, the opera), carrying out a thorough musical revolution and creating a unique and original ‘sound’.
The violins of the orchestra were replaced in the ‘banda’ by the clarinets, and the voices of soprano, contralto, tenor and baritone were substituted by the small sopranino flugelhorn, the soprano, tenor and baritone flugelhorn respectively. Such a change proved to be audacious (since it is impossible to take the place of words and humans voices) yet effective, so that it gave origin to a current of only instrumental music inspired from the Opera, which has lived on up to the present day.
CDs released from the Banda:
Video tapes:
- 1993 PASSIONE E MORTE: SOUNDS AND IMAGINES DURING THE HOLY WEEK IN RUVO. Directed by Franco di Palo released by the Association Ruvomusica;
- 1998 PARTENZA PER BANDA. Directed by Bruno Testori, Rome;
- 2000 LA BANDA DI RUVO. Directed by Chloé Glotin, Paris – France.
New reviews:
Le Monde (France) – 13 jun ’09
Interview to Pino Minafra – Le journal de Saint-Denis – 17 jun ’09
La Banda’s Press
JAZZWISE (England):
Big Band, big audience, big sound. Think of Italy and lots of things come to mind. Pasta, ice-cream, Ferraris, Sophia Loren, Fellini, Chianti and style. Truth is that until La Banda’s CD came out in 1997, Italian wind bands didn’t make the list. Well, this 40-piece band just took the roof off, brought the house down and blew the audience away at the QEH on a cold, wet night in November as part of the Racing Green London Jazz Festival.
Musical director, Pino Minafra, wanted to take the traditional town band into the new century, expanding its repertoire to include jazz and contemporary music.
JAZZ CRITIQUE (Japan):
THE JOURNALIST/WRITER NIGEL WILLIAMSON:
…in the 1950s the great Italian film composer Nino Rota became fascinated with banda music and used it in many of the soundtracks he wrote for the films of Federido Fellini. Rota died in 1979 but both Pino Minafra and Bruno Tommaso, who play with La Banda Città di Ruvo di Puglia, worked with him. “Modern banda ensembles play with a “dirtiness” comparable to the old jazz bands of New orleans”, says Achim Hebgen, who produced a double CD with the Banda Città di Ruvo di Puglia. “They make use of a special intonation that gives them a unique sound and an original emotionality in their musical expression which academic wisdom would probably consider “unprofessional” or “not appropriate”.
But then if banda musicians care little for orchestral etiquette, what do academics know about touching our souls?
BRIDGE (Usa):
…both records contain a seductive variety of sound, with the blues blending into the frenzy of the Apulian tarantelle, the typical sonority of the bands which accompany a religious processions enlivened by the fury of the music of the avant-garde, the gentleness of folk songs sharped by the devilish darts of an often desecrating touch of irony. And then if you progress from listening to the records to the live performances, you might even see Minafra leaping and pirouetting about on stage while he raps through a megaphone in a heavy Murgia dialect, as if in an attempt to embody a sort of Commedia dell’Arte with sound effects. That’s the Apulian way of jazz.
JAZZAROUND (Belgie):
Ce rapport à l’italianité, présent chez la majorité des musiciens, de Pino Minafra à Gianluigi Trovesi, d’Ebrico Rava à Aldo Romano, s’éclaire d’un jour nouveau avec la parution de deux albums consacrés à la tradition, restée bien vivante, des bandas au sein desquelles nombre de jazzmen ont fait leurs débuts dans une pratique autodidacte de la musique. Ces bandas italiennes n’ont qu’un très lontain rapport avec nos fanfares de musiciens amateurs: authentiques harmonies de cuivres, anches et percussions, ces orchestres d’une qualité réellement professionelle rassemblent de trente à quarante instrumentistes aussi bien versés dans le répertoire de l’opera que de la musique populaire. Tel est le cas de la Banda Città di Ruvo di Puglia comme de la Banda Sonoro di Chianciano Terme.
Jazzwise (England):
In Southern Italy the “banda” (wind-band) means popularised opera among the poor, especially in rural areas – it is said Verdi became a national hero because of it. Performing folk-arrangements as well as operatic arias, the “banda” played with a “dirtiness” comparable to New Orleans ensembles. Leading jazz trumpeter Pino Minafra was a guiding force with the “Banda Città Ruvo di Puglia” in this remarkable project. Disc 1 features traditional “banda” versions of arias including “La Donna E Mobile” and “Nessun Dorma” – delightful instrumental arrangements especially if bel canto isn’t your favourite kind of singing.
On Disc 2 soloists such as Minafra, Michel Godard on tuba and Gianluigi Trovesi and Willem Breuker on reeds, join the ensemble on a crossover set of jazzy originals plus arrangements of Nino Rota film-soundtracks. Willem Breuker’s 30-minute-long “Time is an Empty Bottle of Wine” is typically raucous and extrovert, while the Rota arrangements by Bruno Tommaso are beautifully vivid and sonorous.
Really fun and life-affirming music.