Occhipinti mines Sicily

Jazz

The Boys from Modica will be putting a big jazz spin on the music of Sicily this weekend.

It’s another project from the fertile mind of electric guitarist Michael Occhipinti, whose parents emmigrated to Canada from the Sicilian town, now a UNESCO heritage site and fast becoming a tourist attraction for its architecture.

He’ll play at the Rex on Saturday from 9: 30 p. m. with a band that includes his elder brother and esteemed bassist and bandleader Roberto, Louis Simao on accordion, Ernie Tollar on sax and drummer Barry Romberg.

Occhipinti, already a mainstay of the Toronto jazz scene, dreamed up the project after a recent visit to his hometown ( also hometown to another talented local guitarist, cousin David Occhipinti).

“ My mother and father, who was an amateur tenor, loved Italian music and I was already familiar with it before I thought of applying it to jazz, “ the York University grad said in an interview.

“ I asked my numerous cousins and friends in Modica to send me CDs of the music, which includes those lively tarantellas, at a time when I was looking for another project to follow Creation Dream ( a successful adaptation of Canadian folk hero Bruce Cockburn’s songs with which the band has toured Canada).

“ It would be similar to that, but I would be using different sources for the music and in the beginning I thought of using a singer/ songwriter.

“ Hearing those CDs didn’t really do it for me, however, but I changed my mind when Roberto brought a CD of field recordings made in Sicily in the 1950s by Alan Lomax, who’d done the same for blues artists in the rural U. S.

“ I though if I didn’t record something now, that old Sicilian music would be lost forever.

“ Lomax had recorded such things as the songs of a fish seller and the music of the ribbon sellers in Palermo, as well as a solo by someone playing a mouthharp.

“ It really is intriguing music. It has some Arabic scales and some say it sounds African. But there have been no recent instrumental recordings and what I heard was very raw, lacking interesting settings and wasn’t in the usual 4/ 4 format.”

Occhipinti noted that much of it was in 12/ 8 format, something akin to the music of Miles Davis, and he thinks the Sicilian sounds with changed melodies, reharmonized structures and altered time signatures work well as jazz.

“ The chord progressions are simple, using an accordion ( Simao’s first instrument) gives my arrangements a foot in the Old World and the New, each tune has its own personality and Ernie has his own voice on sax. We’ve done four gigs so far, one at the Distillery Jazz Festival, two at the Rex and one at Jordan in wine country — we’re developing this music ever so slowly.” A CD will be forthcoming. Sampling some of its unique music has already given this writer a taste for more.

First, however, in the busy Occhipinti schedule is releasing another album early next year from the Creation Dream team, which includes trumpeter Kevin Turcotte, violinist Hugh Marsh, bass Andrew Downing and drummer Romberg. An acoustic trio recording with saxman/ Lester McLean is complete, and then there’s always NOJO (its full title the Neufeld-Occhipinti Jazz Orchestra), which he co-leads with pianist Paul Neufeld. It has released five albums of the leaders’ compositions, has toured the U. S., western Canada and Holland and hopes to perform in Greece in April, followed by jazz festivals.

“ We’re setting our sights more on Europe” Occhipinti notes. Just the facts Who: The Sicilian Jazz Project Where: The Rex, 194 Queen St. W. When: Saturday @ 9:30 p.m. Admission: $8 @ 416-598-2475