Sexuality by Simone Graziano

Simone Graziano Explores The Rhythms Around Us
On His Latest Album “Sexuality”, Out Now On Auand Records
It’s the third work with Frontal, his music project featuring Dan Kinzelman (tenor sax), Reinier Baas (guitar),Gabriele Evangelista (double bass) and Stefano Tamborrino (drums)

The shape: almost a concept album on polyrhythm. The essence: an invitation to take human contact back. “Sexuality” – out now on Auand Records – is Italian pianist Simone Graziano’s new album as well as his third work with Frontal, one of his strongest projects.

Dan Kinzelman (tenor sax), Reinier Baas (guitar), Gabriele Evangelista (double bass), Stefano Tamborrino (drums), and of course Simone Graziano (piano and Fender Rhodes) have been playing together for ten years. They share the same vision on music. The latest addition is Reinier Baas, who managed to strike the leader in 2017 at Südtirol Jazz Festival. And David Binney is missing for the first time: «We’ll keep two parallel projects – Graziano says – a quintet that includes sax, and another one that includes sax and guitar.»

The work on “Sexuality” started in 2017 and was inspired by Simha Arom’s “African Polyphony and Polyrhythm”. «Simha – he adds – was a horn player who was supposed to stop in Central African Republic for just a few days (for some orchestra concerts) and eventually stayed there for four years, after bumping into Pygmy music and instruments.» Graziano examined polyrhythm in deep, trying to get a grasp of the differences in the African approach. «The main idea is to have different rhythms layering up at the same time, which is what we experience in real life: we talk while we hear the noise from outside the window, other voices, or the fingers on a computer keyboard. We’re used to select and filter out what we consider unnecessary, although nature is filled with polyrhythm. This album tries to represent the complexity of nature.»

If this is where the shape comes from, the essence can be found right in the album title. «It’s inspired by Stephen A. Mitchell’s book, “Can Love Last?”. Which starts from a basic assumption: we only know some elements about sex – environmental, biological, generational elements. Science can’t fully explain this unstoppable energy that is common to all mankind. And here is where the power dominance could take place: religions and governments have always tried to control our sexuality, as they knew they could then control human beings. Today, we experience another form of sex control: chats on social platforms. And web porn is just another step further». All of this is paid with a valuable currency: our personal data, tracked and sold as a commodity. «Sexuality – Simone Graziano adds – aims at being a push to take back human contact. And not for moral purposes, but as a form of rebellion to fight a system that makes money off of our pleasure.»