When Cafiso catapults out of the ensemble, soaring then circling back to blast open the songs, there is no name for his passion but jazz. (The marching band is a foundation of Sicilian music.) The parade steps sound ethnic and unfamiliar in a jazz context, but the primal energy is infectious. But marching down the middle of La Banda is a rowdy Sicilian street band. There may be suggestions of Carla Bley, and Nino Rota’s circus music for Fellini films, and perhaps Charles Mingus. “It brought back emotions, images and sounds of my homeland.” La Banda is like no jazz that has been played before. “I was inspired by a photo of Sicily taken by Luca Parmitano from the International Space Station,” Cafiso says. The music he has been performing in public for over a year comes from the second CD, La Banda. 3 is kind of like a photograph of what I am now.” The project has been released in three versions: a regular three-CD pack a lavish box with amenities including a beautiful 64-page hardcover book and a “deluxe edition” adding vinyl LPs.Ĭafiso has never been known as a composer, but 3 contains 29 new compositions. This period gave me new eyes to see every step in music: composing, arranging, improvising. For three years I almost quit performing. “The basis is introspection,” Cafiso, now 26, said in an interview in Belgrade. By late 2015, with his appearance at the Belgrade Jazz Festival, and especially with the release of a new three-CD set, 3, it became clear that the old Cafiso was gone, and a new one was on the loose. Some of those who heard him at the Umbria Jazz Festival in July of that year were startled (and puzzled) by his new band, his new repertoire and his new saxophone language. In 2014, word began to get out that Cafiso was up to something. There were no new recordings, and he cut way back on his busy touring schedule. In an art form that prioritizes innovation, Cafiso seemed to be mired in history.Īfter Moody’n, he went quiet. By 2011, when he released Moody’n through Verve and was still playing (brilliant) bebop, some critics began to worry. The project confirmed two things about Cafiso: He was a virtuoso and a conservative. He used the original arrangements from Parker’s two LPs with strings from 1950, but improvised new solos containing lines of flawless elegance, in wave upon wave. In 2005, just after his 16th birthday, he made A Tribute to Charlie Parker with an Italian orchestra. But when Francesco Cafiso was 14, he was good enough on alto saxophone to tour Europe with Wynton Marsalis. Francesco Cafiso, Umbria Jazz Festival 2012Ĭhild prodigies in jazz are most often pianists.
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