Artist: Leonardo Radicchi’s Arcadia Trio feat. Robin Eubanks
Release: June 2020, Alfamusic
Songs For People (Alfamusic) is Italian saxophonist Leonardo Radicchi’s fourth album as a leader, and his second to feature Grammy winner Robin Eubanks, the premier jazz trombonist of his generation, as a guest with Radicchi’s Arcadia Trio.
Already well-established in his home country, playing regularly at the major Italian festivals and selected as one of the ‘100 Greatest Jazz Albums’ in the Jazzit 2019 Awards, he now appears ready to make his mark on the international stage.
“tense, but lush on the tenor and more abstract, fragmentary and ultra-modern on the soprano” – All About Jazz
A Berklee alumnus and a respected educator himself, the saxophonist’s politically-charged compositions grapple with today’s big issues, including climate change and the migrant crisis.
There are also moving dedications to John Coltrane and Radicchi’s own son. The bandleader’s powerful saxophone (tenor and soprano) sound is complemented perfectly by Eubanks – who has played with the likes of Dave Holland, The Rolling Stones and Art Blakey – in the frontline of this unusual, harmony-less ensemble.
Ferdinando Romano (double bass) and Giovanni Paolo Liguori (drums) complete the lineup.
More info: Leonardo Radicchi (bio)
Leonardo Radicchi is a saxophone player and composer. He graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, of which he was Student Ambassador with his band Creative Music Front.
He studied with, among others, George Garzone, Ed Tomassi, Greg Hopkins, Hal Crook, Bill Pierce, Greg Osby, Dave Santoro. In Italy he studied with Maurizio Giammarco and Emanuele Cisi. In addition to the study of the saxophone he also studied the arrangement and composition for small and large ensembles, including a range of styles and repertoires.
He has played in many festivals and clubs in Italy and abroad with different formations and musicians: Pisa Jazz, Barga Jazz Festival, Firenze Jazz Fringe Festival, Auditorium Parco della Musica [Rome], G.Verdi Conservatory [Milan], Casa del Jazz [Rome], Lucca Jazz Festival, Roccella Jonica Jazz Festival, Villa Celimontana Jazz Festival, Gubbio NoBorders, Vieterbo JazzUp, EcoJazz, Fano Jazz, The Shrine [USA-NY], Monterrey Conservatory [Mexico], Berklee Performance Center (USA).
He has played with, among others, Robin Eubanks, John Surman, Italian National Jazz Orchestra, Massimo Nunzi and Orchestra Operaia , Ulrich Gumpert, Silke Eberhard, Marta Capponi, Cettina Donato, Eliel Lazo, Jose Andres Marquez, Greg Fiengold, Eleonora Bianchini, Roberto Gatto, Alan Benzie, Marton Juhasz and Simona Bencini.
In 2019 he was nominated at the JazzIt Awards as one of the best Italian saxophone players of the year. He is leader of “Arcadia Trio” Italian renowned jazz band, which enjoys an ongoing collaboration with the famous American trombone player Robin Eubanks.
With him the band completed a tour in Italy (Febraury 2019) to present the music of Leonardo’s last release Don’t call it Justice. In September 2019 they recorded a new album with Robin Eubanks called Songs for People (release Spring 2020).
Radicchi has released three previous albums as a leader: Don’t Call It Justice (Alfamusic-2019), I Hear Voices In My Head (GME-2011) and Riot (GME-2013), and he appears in several others as sideman. He was part of the German collective Tonarbeiten, which recorded the album Wrong Turn Swing (TBE-2013). He was selected for the annual Jazz Revelation Records (USA) Octaves release in 2010.
In 2019, the Museum of Anthropology of Florence, with the support of the Faculty of Anthropology of Florence, commissioned the realization of a concert of original original music on ethnographic material entitled “Migrant Melodies”.
An active composer, in October 2017 he received a commission from the Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Foundation for the original song “Opus Nigrum”, which was first performed at the festival dedicated to the Renaissance composer Palestrina, alongside works by Tonu Korvitz and Christopher Cerrone. His symphonic poem “Il Conte di Montecristo” was first performed by the Corciano Festival 2016. In 2012 he was ranked third in the competition for composing music for film, Ponti e Torri, chaired by Ennio Morricone.
Since 2011 he has dedicated himself to teaching woodwinds, harmony and composition classes in various Italian schools. He has given workshops for composition and improvisation in Messina (Lizzard School – 2013) and in Germany (Gissen).
As of 2018 he is the director of the Master in Jazz at NoBorders Jazz Festival (Gubbio-PG, Italy), where he is also a teacher of harmony. In October 2016 his book In Fuga was published (Ed. Rupe Mutevolem, Parma 2016). The second edition appeared in October 2017.