Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino + Justin Adams & Mauro Durante
Jazz Cafe, Camden, London
17th May 2022
It’s a logical double bill: celebrated Italian pizzica group Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, and CGS leader and violinist Mauro Durante’s duo with global blues guitar explorer Justin Adams – a newer but nevertheless heralded formation. Both outfits were on top form.
The duo were up first. The contrast between silky, elegant folk violin and gritty rock-inflected electric guitar (echoed in Mauro’s clear voice and Justin’s growl) creates the friction that allows the unlikely fusion to spark. The two meet in sparse, contemplative atmospheres with deep emotional resonances. Mauro’s turn on the tamburello (tambourine) called to mind the bendir of Justin’s work with Maghrebi music, and showed the profound musical intelligence and artistic respect at play.
CGS upped the ante by several levels. As the group opened with solo zampogna (bagpipes) and four booming tamburellos, the audience’s swaying quickly made way for large pockets of spontaneous Italic choreography. CGS do have beautiful and intense songs, sung with full-chested passion and bringing to mind medieval cities and pan-Mediterranean cultural connections… but the fireworks really come when all seven members of the group – tamburello, accordion, violin, voice, whistles, bouzouki and dance – thrash out frenetic, extended, heart-pounding pizzicas, whipping the crowd into a rhythm frenzy of sweat and limbs reminiscent of many a mystical ecstatic trance.
The joy and relief of the return of live music is still palpable and acts like a halo around artists and audience alike, filling souls and moving bodies. It was the warmest day of the year so far outside, and inside the Jazz Cafe, it was positively sweltering.
Photo: Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, by Vincenzo de Pinto.