Jemma Crew - Alchemy, experimentation and bones of sand

interview by Giulia Papello

Among the liveliest corners of the new Italian jazz scene, the Jemma Crew project moves with a free and curious stride, weaving together world sounds and structured improvisation. A journey with no fixed coordinates, where the search for vocal tradition meets experimentation and melody becomes a universal language. The name itself - Jemma - can represent a female figure, a precious stone, or the echo of a jam session. And if even the name, the essence of identity and the definition of any real thing or person, can be open to interpretation, what might happen within the music that comes from it? We have a chat with them, talking about improvisation and synergy, stories of people, the sea, and mineralization…

How did you come together?

Jemma was born from the meeting of several members of the collective during a well-known Roman jam session we had organized, called "Gemma Session". Those nights of music and free experimentation gradually built a connection and a synergy between the musicians that became impossible to ignore. That's where the Jemma project came from: as a nod to the "jam session", as the proper name of a mysterious female figure, or as a precious stone. There's no single correct interpretation, and that's exactly what we like about it.

Is there a concept or a feeling you'd identify as the common thread running through the album and your music in general?

Contamination and instinctive experimentation. These are the two principles that guided us as we built our first album, "Jemma", sound by sound - an album that shares its name with the band because it's meant to be both a manifesto and a starting point. The album speaks of energy, earth, sea, wind, moving through original compositions and folk tradition pieces, across different languages and sonorities. It's a mix of our identities: intimate, tribal atmospheres, rock accents, groove, jazz, pop and ethnic touches. A synthesis of distant timbres and genres, with a very special guest: Gianluca Petrella. The next record, already in the works, will explore new sonorities: a new journey we're about to embark on. Spoiler: we're about to record it!

Your music has an almost landscape-like, fairy-tale sound, like a daydream - are there any artists who inspired you in this direction? How much do images and the visual dimension matter in your compositional process?

The dimension of the journey is central to our music, and it will continue to be so, even if each time it leads us toward different destinations and suggestions. For this first album we drew inspiration from projects that make contamination and travel their very essence, like Snarky Puppy and works released on Michael League's label "Ground Up Music", Tigran Hamasyan e Radiohead, as well as a deep interest in folklore, particularly Mediterranean folklore.

The tracks also seem to speak of inner spaces - is there a correlation between the physical place where you live and the music you produce?

I couldn't say whether there's a direct link with Rome, the city where we live, but there's certainly a connection with our places of origin and with our interest in distant cultures or the roots of our own culture. Another important correlation is our passion for travel: traveling to learn, to savor customs and traditions, to explore new landscapes.

Some tracks, for example "Timelapse", feel like real jam sessions. In jazz, improvisation is often an act of freedom and a test of the musicians' rapport. In your writing, though, how much room do you leave to chance and how much to structure?

Our compositions are generally well structured, but within these structures there's always room for improvisation andinterplay. Listening to each other is fundamental and often leads to small variations, especially rhythmic and dynamic ones. Even in the written parts, we let the music breathe and transform according to the energy of the moment.

The tracks on the album feel more like fairy tales than songs, with a beginning and a crescendo ending - I'm referring in particular to "Nenia Grika", "Hija Mi Querida" and "I Iriden Sa". Why did you choose to include so many story-songs on the album?

These are tracks that reflect our interest in seeking out ancient public-domain texts, in archaic or unusual languages. Their beauty and simplicity - precisely because in most cases these melodies were passed down orally - inspired us to build new musical arrangements around them, turning them into our own original pieces. The lyrics are true stories in themselves, which is why we gave the tracks an extended, immersive form. Without going into too much detail: "Nenia Grika" is a lullaby in Griko, the Greek dialect of Salento; "Hija Mia Mi Querida" is the song of a Sephardic mother in prison; "Kaneloriza" is a rebetiko that tells a tale of obsessive, sick love; "I Riden Så" recounts a very raw ancient Nordic legend, in Old Swedish.

Is there a song in your repertoire that you consider a kind of manifesto of your identity?

Certainly “Ossi di sabbia”, the first single released, well represents the concept of the debut album. It tells the story of humanity's journey across the sea, understood as a fabric connecting lands and cultures. In the lyrics we included phrases in Portolotto, a mixed language used by Mediterranean sailors to communicate. The “ossi di sabbia” (sand bones) represent the mineralization of human stories: adventures, hardships, memories that the sea and wind carry with them.

Your live performances seem to give the songs new life. How interested are you in the unpredictability of the stage as a creative space?

It's not a conscious choice, but something that comes naturally to us. Each of us comes from different musical backgrounds and brings with them an attitude of mutual listening. Even outside the sections dedicated to improvisation, we follow the impulses of the moment. It often happens that during rehearsals, when something special happens, we change the arrangements: the songs are therefore constantly evolving.

You manage to make a niche musical “genre” without being inaccessible: what's the secret?

Un ensemblehaving such a rich lineup certainly helps: many instruments mean a strong stage presence and remarkable harmonic variety. We try to avoid technical excess or superfluous dissonance, focusing instead on cinematic, engaging atmospheres that tell musical stories and often include groovedanceable passages. I think this balance makes our music accessible while still maintaining its complexity.

Looking ahead: in an increasingly homogenized musical world, what does taking risks in jazz and world music mean to you today?

We believe that labels like jazz or world music are by now almost philosophical concepts: they represent a way of experiencing music, of searching, of cross-pollinating.

We don't set ourselves any limits. Our path is made up of encounters, discoveries and sonic collisions. On the next record, for instance, we'll be exploring influences from electronic music too.

Are there artists on the current Italian music scene you'd like to collaborate with?

There are many, including friends, especially among the younger artists we share artistic affinities with: La Martire, Samuele Cima, Christian Mascetta, Mudphon3, Tangram, Stereoteismo, and many others. Basically, we'd like to create an exchange with any artist open to seeking out new sounds, not necessarily within our own "niche". Among the more established artists, after our collaboration with Gianluca Petrella, we'd love to work with Adriano Viterbini, Verdena, Coca Puma, C'mon Tigre, Caparezza, Ze in the Clouds, Neffa or Javier Girotto. And thanks for saying "in Italy": if we opened the list up to international artists, we'd never stop!

(17 December 2025)

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Giulia Papello, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition