Filomena Campus

Alison Bentley writes:

Winter’s blowing in, but the Sardinian sun is coming to London’s Pizza Express for three nights. Sardinian vocalist Filomena Campus, who lives partly in London, plans to ‘bring the sunshine and the warmth of my island through our music.’

Mon 11th Nov (TICKETS)

Campus and fellow Sardinian, London-based guitarist Giorgio Serci, will be playing music from their new CD (Dùos). It’s on the prestigious Italian label Egea/Incipit, home to Enrico Rava and Stefano Bollani. Campus has written lyrics to Serci’s music in a tribute to Brazilian masters, such as Hermeto Pascoal and Chico Buarque. Campus: ‘We’d chosen the title Dùos for the simplicity, voice and guitar, and suddenly in the recording, we said, okay, we can have some guests, and immediately we thought of Adriano Adewale, the Brazilian percussionist- it really works.’ Fellow Sardinians Paolo Fresu and Sonia Peana will also be guesting on trumpet and violin on this gig. (SEE ALSO ALISON’S INTERVIEW WITH PAOLO FRESU)

Tues 12th Nov (TICKETS)

Brings original music by the UK pianist Steve Lodder (Andy Sheppard sideman) and bassist Dudley Phillips (often heard with Mark Lockheart and John Parricelli) together with Campus’ lyrics in their Jester of Jazz project. She sings them with great passion and élan, weaving in a very original style of improvisation. Their music is beautiful: melodic but challenging: ‘I love the way Steve and Dudley write music- I’m so inspired to write lyrics. It’s just a great team to work with.’ NY, UK-based drummer Rod Youngs completes the team.

Wed 13th Nov. Italy v. England (TICKETS)

Filomena Campus is a theatre director as well as jazz singer, and draws on her skills to present dialogues and poems, written and performed by the renowned Italian writer Stefano Benni. Campus: ‘It’s an ironic view of British and Italian culture from an Italian point of view. In Italy Stefano is really like a rock star- he can fill theatres. And he has such a sense of rhythm, like a jazz musician who doesn’t really play. He can really follow the music. Every single text is going to be accompanied by music written by Steve Lodder and Dudley Phillips.’ It’s an incredibly varied mixture of swing, blues, funk, as well as atmospheric free jazz to accompany the poems. ‘In Cagliari [Part 1 of the festival. Reviewed HERE] he performed in Italian; here I have to ask him to perform in English. We have a special guest- singer Cleveland Watkiss performing the part of God. It might be a little bit easier for Cleveland to play an English God than an Italian one! ‘ It’s a lot of fun, with a satirical bite.