Francesca Remigi - Study and fervor

From Bergamo to Brussels, from India to Canada: drummer Francesca Remigi is young, but her jazz is already a crossroads of major international influences and experiences. Her debut with the band Archipélagos, released in January on Emme Record Label, pairs a strong social conscience with the intricacy of the contemporary scene and the jazz-rock fire of the best Seventies outfits.

Walking us through the project behind the album and its future prospects, Francesca also offers us a fascinating inside view of the youth scene in Italian jazz.

Where are you right now, Francesca?

At the moment I'm in Albino, my hometown in the province of Bergamo, where I live with my mother and my sister. However, I'm about to leave for the United States, where I'll be spending most of this year and the next for study and work.

Archipélagos, the band with which you released “Il labirinto dei topi”, brings together musicians from different countries and – a rare thing for music this intense and hybrid – has a character that's almost entirely acoustic. How did this lineup come about, and in what way does it serve the sound you're pursuing?

Archipélagos is a project born in Brussels (the city where I lived for the last three years) in April 2019, with the aim of experimenting with a new repertoire of mine made up of rhythmically complex pieces inspired by my studies in Carnatic Indian music. The band's name is meant to represent an attempt to bring individuals together through music, and to experiment with alternative paths of social protest through the arts.

I had already been collaborating steadily for a few years with the rhythm section made up of Dutch double bassist Ramon van Merkenstein and French pianist Simon Groppe. From the project's very first steps, they were joined by clarinetist Federico Calcagno, a virtuoso musician equally interested in the world of Carnatic music and contemporary classical music. In the summer of 2019, during an artist residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity (Banff, Canada), I had the good fortune to work with a formidable Australian trumpeter named Niran Dasika, who was due to come to Europe for a few months in early 2020. I immediately jumped at the chance and organized a tour and the recording of the album at Tube Recording Studio for March 2020, thanks to winning the All You Have To Do is Play 2019 contest, launched by the label Emme Record Label.

Singer Claire Parsons joined the band in November 2019, completely overhauling the group's sound: Claire not only introduces new effects tied to electronics, developing dreamlike, aleatoric atmospheres, but also brings the music back down to a human level through evocative lyrics with a deep social commitment. Many of the compositions on offer highlight and condemn controversial aspects of the era we live in: the fluidity of social relationships, the omnipotence of multinational corporations and social media, the evolution of organized crime and the arms trade...

I was very struck by the density of the interplay on the record, with passages where the horns tangle together over decidedly oblique lines and rhythm sections that are truly impetuous. In several spots, moreover, the piano actually comes across as even more percussive than the drums! Listening to such tight phrasing, I kept wondering how much of that interplay is composed on paper and how much room is left for improvisation.

“Il Labirinto dei Topi” is definitely a fairly through-composed record: on this album I wanted full control over the final sonic result, so I gave the musicians compositions written in a fairly dense and detailed way. That said, there are moments of aleatoric, textural improvisation, so the choice of musicians depended not only on each one's technical mastery, but also on the musical sensitivity with which they would approach the material I brought them. If I had to give a rough estimate, I'd say 60% of the material is composed, and 40% is completely improvised.

Even as someone obsessed with odd time signatures, I have to admit I've often struggled to "count" the meters you use. Not just in pop, but in jazz too, resorting to these structures is often seen as a bit pretentious, and yet on the tracks of "Il labirinto dei topi" you use them with great expressive effectiveness. What aspects of odd time signatures fascinate you most, and how do you go about incorporating them into your music?

As a drummer, I have to admit that odd time signatures have always fascinated me in particular: achieving a deep mastery of irregular meters has always been a personal challenge for me.

That said, by delving deeper into musical traditions far removed from Western music (like Indian and Bulgarian music), you realize that odd time signatures are applied in a spontaneous and natural way within the folk traditions of many different peoples. For instance, a 9/8 in a piece from the Ottoman tradition is perceived by musicians native to that tradition the same way we Europeans perceive a simple 4/4.

I believe that the perception of pulse and rhythm is shaped by the cultural and musical environment one is naturally exposed to throughout life. So I try not to think of odd rhythms as irregular, and I'm convinced that practicing your instrument can help you absorb and "normalize" musical constructs that aren't so common in our Western musical tradition.

You mention Carnatic music. I'm familiar with and really appreciate the jazz/minimalist reinterpretation of it by the Indian/Polish group Saagara, though there the influence comes through quite transparently. In your case, on the other hand, the transposition of these structures seems less direct. What aspects of your music do you most distinctly trace back to this specific Indian tradition?

Indian Carnatic music is built on particular "rhythmic frameworks" that I've studied over the years and that I often incorporate into some of my pieces. Just as in Western classical music, where it's common practice to study specific compositional structures like the rondo or sonata form, Carnatic music has traditional compositional configurations that, rather than focusing on melody and harmony, deal with rhythm. Some of these rhythmic techniques include, for example, mukthays, tirmanas, moharas, nadai bhedam... I'll admit that recognizing Carnatic influences in my music isn't exactly obvious, precisely because they don't concern aesthetic, textural, or instrumental aspects, but rather compositional rhythmic rules.

The style of these tracks – intricate yet gripping, abrasive yet full of invention – is clearly rooted in a contemporary context, but it also brings to mind jazz-rock experiences from the Seventies or early Eighties. Did you have any particular inspirations, and in what ways?

I won't hide the fact that I played prog-rock and metal for many years during my teens, so I think the aesthetic choices of bands like Dream Theater, Rush or Porcupine Tree were fairly influential on my compositional style, which tends toward rather dark, enigmatic tones and tight odd rhythms. As for jazz-rock, I admit I grew up on a steady diet of Pat Metheny: being a guitarist himself, my father has always been a huge fan of the Pat Metheny Group's music, which I had the chance to hear live for the first time at four and a half years old. I'm also a big admirer of Frank Zappa, Weather Report and Return to Forever, and the electric period of Miles Davis.

I've always been a curious and socially engaged person. I started reading works by Huntington, McNeill and Chomsky while studying international relations during my first year at university, in a program on parliamentary interpreting that I later dropped to devote myself entirely to music. I believe art can powerfully fuel social awareness, and bring pressing issues of our time to the public eye.

I've always been captivated by artistic voices capable of "saying something" that goes beyond the formal output tied to a specific discipline, and the album "Il Labirinto dei Topi" is precisely an attempt to express my worldview through music. In many cases, my compositions grow out of texts, images or other extra-musical material: "The Shooting", for instance, is meant as a musical translation of the tragic 2017 Las Vegas shooting, evoked through the sounds of machine-gun fire and the victims' cries for help.

The title track itself, "Il Labirinto dei Topi", is a sonic depiction of the various stages of a sociological experiment carried out on rats, recounted by Zygmunt Bauman in his book "Society Under Siege" and conducted by cognitive-behavioral psychologist Edward C. Tolman. In this track the voice takes on a narrative, descriptive role, tracing the various phases of the experiment, where the frantic, chaotic movement of the rats inside the maze is rendered through intricate melodic lines and tight polyrhythms. There are also pieces like "Scherzo" and "Be Bear Aware", though, where it was the sonic material itself that inspired the images and themes, which I only developed afterward through lyrics and vocal improvisations.

Your website also mentions the Soul's Spring project, launched in 2018. Judging from video clips found online, it seems geared toward a more "restrained" style compared to the tracks released in January, even though the stated influences (Avishai Cohen, Tigran Hamasyan, Steve Coleman...) still suggest fairly intricate rhythmic territory. What more can you tell us about it?

I founded Soul's Spring in 2017, right after moving to Brussels; this project marked my first experience as a band-leader, so it's a sextet I'm particularly fond of, one that helped me grow a great deal and gave me more confidence in my management and leadership skills. Although rooted in a modern-jazz aesthetic, the compositions I wrote for Soul's Spring already showed an early tendency toward experimentation and rhythmic complexity, wrapped in singable melodies and more traditional harmonic choices. Given the differing musical direction of some band members, I chose to found Archipélagos to pursue my own personal exploration of rhythm and improvisation.

Soul’s Spring still remains a project I hope to keep going in parallel, so I can have more chances to play with great musicians and friends like Andreas Polyzogopoulos (trumpet), Giovanni di Carlo (guitar) and Flavio Spampinato (vocals).

In Bergamo the annual jazz festival is a fairly prominent event, which in recent times has seen the likes of Paolo Fresu, Enrico Rava, and Dave Douglas take turns as directors... Have you had the chance to follow it in past editions? What have been, in this or other contexts, performances you experienced as a listener that particularly struck you?

It's quite curious to find myself talking about Bergamo Jazz after having spent all of yesterday at the Teatro Donizetti, busy with interviews and video and audio recordings for a new project devised precisely by the staff of this fantastic festival! Bergamo Jazz's organization, led by Roberto Valentino, arranged the recording of five promotional videos at the Teatro Donizetti, involving artists of the caliber of Enrico Rava, Tino Tracanna, Gianluigi Trovesi and Dan Moye. This was done to tell the festival's story and promote its 2021 edition.

Taking part in this project as a representative of today's and tomorrow's jazz was, for me and Federico Calcagno, a huge source of satisfaction and a promising performance opportunity for our musical careers. Personally, I feel particularly tied to Bergamo Jazz not only because Bergamo is my hometown, but because this open-minded festival has accompanied my musical growth ever since I was a child, presenting concerts by great artists such as Dianne Reeves, Paolo Fresu, Ambrose Akinmusire and Mark Turner, which I still remember vividly today. The Bergamo Jazz performance that certainly struck me the most was presented in 2016 by the duo of Geri Allen and Joe Lovano, who is now my teacher at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute. Thinking that one day my name might appear on the Bergamo Jazz lineup alongside these great musicians who made jazz history is a truly emotional thought.

How do you see the Italian young jazz scene right now, also compared to the other European scenes you frequent?

I'm firmly convinced that Italy has a wide range of young musicians with enormous technical and artistic potential: I'm thinking of friends and colleagues like Francesco Fiorenzani, Livio Bartolo, Federica Michisanti, Camilla Battaglia, Luca Sguera, Anais Drago, Federico Calcagno, Francesco Orio, and many other talented musicians who over the years have developed a distinctive musical personality, allowing them to carve out a space in the sadly small Italian jazz industry.

The stark differences I've noticed between Italy and other European scenes don't concern the musicians' preparation or professionalism, but rather the scarce attention paid to education and the nonexistent youth policies for entering the job market in our country, which unfortunately isn't limited to the music sector. Ours is a state where very limited funds are allocated to education and to training teachers in music pedagogy: for a conservatory student in Italy, entry into the working world and opportunities for professional development are seriously at risk. It's a system that undermines and downgrades the cultural sector at the expense of talented artists who have dedicated their lives to studying disciplines considered less important than others.

The resulting outcome is brain drain: so many peers pursue part of their studies, or even their entire musical career, abroad, where policies supporting the arts and culture often make it easier to survive in a profession as inherently precarious as that of the musician.

And these days, what are you listening to? How important is the, let's say, “passive” element of listening to music, for your growth as a fan and as an artist?

Lately I've been listening to the new album by singer Jen Shyu titled "Zero Grasses: Ritual For The Losses", "Pieces Oof Time" with Kenny Clarke, Andrew Cyrille, Milford Graves and Dan Moye, "Code Girl" and "Artlessly Falling" by Mary Halvorson, "Beats" by Dell, Lillinger, Westergaard, and "Bivališča" by Kaja Draksler.

In my particular case, I think that passive listening indirectly influenced me as an artist and pushed me to get close to the music world from a very young age. Being born into a family of musicians certainly had its upsides: I was definitely lucky enough to be exposed to music from a very early age, and I think I still unconsciously draw on what were the musical references of my childhood (mainly classical music). Nowadays, on the other hand, I find it very hard to listen to music without paying particular attention to it: I have to admit it's practically impossible for me to listen to tracks without analyzing their meter, intonation or harmony. Precisely for this reason, I rarely experience truly visceral and spontaneous reactions while listening: as a musician I recognize a strong tendency to rationalize music, and a real limit to the pure, uncorrupted experience of sound material. However, since during my "typical day" exposure to music goes on for many hours, both for study and work reasons, in so-called dead time I often prefer silence to passively listening to more music.

What plans do you have for your immediate musical future?

The main short-term projects in the works are the launch of a new record label (Habitable Records), created in collaboration with an international collective of musicians and improvisers, and the release of a second album as a leader! I'm currently composing and recording new material for a research project that will crown my studies at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute (Boston); the idea is to gather this music into an album that I'll release in early 2022 through Habitable Records. There are also plans to record two more albums as co-leader, a summer tour with Archipélagos, an internship at a record label in the States, and maybe a PhD further down the line.

So many dreams in the drawer, and a reality too fluid to allow for long-term predictions: my biggest hope is that the cultural sector can soon get back on its feet and recover from this standstill we've been forced into for over a year now.

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