Roy Paci
Encyclopedia
Rosario Paci (born September 16, 1969) is an Italian
trumpet
er, singer, composer and arranger.
, Paci started playing the piano as a young child and picked up the trumpet at age 10. By 13, he was playing with traditional Sicilian jazz
and performing in some of Italy's most famous clubs.
Paci moved to South America in 1990 where he traveled to play cumbia
and popular music
in Uruguay
, Argentina
and Brazil
. Further trips to the Canary Islands
and Senegal
helped him to train and develop his musical influences. These travels set Paci on the path that would lead him into a series of collaborations and tours involving music projects, film, television and political causes, including relief efforts in Africa
and Amnesty International
's campaign against violence on women.
Returning to Italy, Paci entered the alternative rock
scene to play with several bands, including Persian Jones, Qbeta, Mau Mau, Banda Ionica
, and ZU. Paci's tastes reflected his broad influences and these bands played musical styles ranging from ska
and punk
to free jazz
and Italian funeral marches.
In 1999 Roy Paci met Catalonian musician Manu Chao
with whom he recorded the critically acclaimed album Próxima Estación: Esperanza. Paci continued to record with Chao and toured extensively with his group Radio Bemba Sound System. In 2001 Paci began a long standing collaboration with Dutch
post-punk
band The Ex, touring and recording with their Ex Orkest, a 20-piece band made up of various European improvisors revolving around The Ex's scratchy anarcho-punk
anthems. Along with Wolter Wierbos
(trombone
), Mats Gustafsson
and Ken Vandermark
(saxophone
s), Paci has continued to tour with The Ex as a member of Brass Unbound and contributed trumpet tracks for the band's album Catch My Shoe
.
In 2002 Paci formed his own band Aretuska and founded the record label Etnagigante in 2003 to produce their second album Tuttapposto, which explored calypso
, rocksteady
and swing rhythms alongside new arrangements of classic Sicilian folk music. Collaborations continued with Tony Scott
, Mike Patton
, Gogol Bordello
, Shantel
and Zap Mama
.
In 2006 Paci joined forces with Grammy Award
-wining klezmer
musician Frank London
and Balkan brass band
leader Boban Markovic
for an album combining Paci's Sicilian tradition with Jewish melodies and Balkan sounds called Trumpet Triumph.
theaters. Paci's penchant for experimental theater and music mingled in the Trade Almost telepathy, written by Ivano Fossati and subsequently released as audiobooks. Starting in 2005, Roy Paci's group Aretuska served as the house band on popular Italian television shows, making him and his music familiar to the general public. Paci has composed film score
s for Italian cinema and several of Paci's songs have been commissioned for film soundtracks, including a version of "Besame Mucho
" in Leonardo Pieraccioni
's 2003 film Suddenly Paradise.
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
er, singer, composer and arranger.
Music and career
Born in SicilySicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, Paci started playing the piano as a young child and picked up the trumpet at age 10. By 13, he was playing with traditional Sicilian jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and performing in some of Italy's most famous clubs.
Paci moved to South America in 1990 where he traveled to play cumbia
Cumbia
Cumbia is a music genre popular across Latin America. The cumbia originated in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where it is associated with an eponymous dance and has since spread as far as Mexico and Argentina...
and popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
in Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. Further trips to the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
and Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
helped him to train and develop his musical influences. These travels set Paci on the path that would lead him into a series of collaborations and tours involving music projects, film, television and political causes, including relief efforts in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
and Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
's campaign against violence on women.
Returning to Italy, Paci entered the alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
scene to play with several bands, including Persian Jones, Qbeta, Mau Mau, Banda Ionica
Banda Ionica
Banda Ionica is an Italian folk group focused on the brass band traditions of Sicily. The roots of the music played by the band can be traced to Holy Week and funeral marches...
, and ZU. Paci's tastes reflected his broad influences and these bands played musical styles ranging from ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
and punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
to free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
and Italian funeral marches.
In 1999 Roy Paci met Catalonian musician Manu Chao
Manu Chao
Manu Chao , is a French singer of Spanish roots . He sings in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Galician, Arabic and Portuguese and occasionally in other languages...
with whom he recorded the critically acclaimed album Próxima Estación: Esperanza. Paci continued to record with Chao and toured extensively with his group Radio Bemba Sound System. In 2001 Paci began a long standing collaboration with Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
band The Ex, touring and recording with their Ex Orkest, a 20-piece band made up of various European improvisors revolving around The Ex's scratchy anarcho-punk
Anarcho-punk
Anarcho-punk is punk rock that promotes anarchism. The term anarcho-punk is sometimes applied exclusively to bands that were part of the original anarcho-punk movement in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and early 1980s...
anthems. Along with Wolter Wierbos
Wolter Wierbos
Wolter Wierbos is a Dutch jazz trombonist.Wierbos has played throughout Europe, Canada, USA and Asia...
(trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
), Mats Gustafsson
Mats Gustafsson
Mats Olof Gustafsson is a Swedish saxophone player and a stalwart on the Scandinavian free jazz scene. He is known for his tonal belligerence and intensity when improvising....
and Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark is an American jazz composer and saxophone and clarinet player.A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered compositions, which typically balance intricate orchestration with passionate...
(saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
s), Paci has continued to tour with The Ex as a member of Brass Unbound and contributed trumpet tracks for the band's album Catch My Shoe
Catch My Shoe
Catch My Shoe is an album by Dutch anarchist band The Ex. It is the band's first record after the departure of their original vocalist G.W. Sok and features Arnold de Boer, from the band Zea, on vocals, guitar and keyboard...
.
In 2002 Paci formed his own band Aretuska and founded the record label Etnagigante in 2003 to produce their second album Tuttapposto, which explored calypso
Calypso music
Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...
, rocksteady
Rocksteady
Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor to ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was performed by Jamaican vocal harmony groups such as The Gaylads, The Maytals and The Paragons. The term rocksteady comes from a dance style that was mentioned in the Alton...
and swing rhythms alongside new arrangements of classic Sicilian folk music. Collaborations continued with Tony Scott
Tony Scott
Anthony D. L. "Tony" Scott is an English film director. His films include Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, The Last Boy Scout, True Romance, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, Spy Game, Man on Fire, Déjà Vu, The Taking of Pelham 123, and Unstoppable...
, Mike Patton
Mike Patton
Michael Allan "Mike" Patton is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and actor, best known as the lead singer of the metal/experimental rock band Faith No More. He has also sung for Mr...
, Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello is a Gypsy punk band from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, formed in 1999 and known for theatrical stage shows and persistent touring.Much of the band's sound is inspired by Gypsy music...
, Shantel
Shantel
Shantel, real name Stefan Hantel , is a German DJ and producer of Bukovina German Romanian descent, known for his work with gypsy brass orchestras, DJing and remixing traditional Balkan music with electronic beats...
and Zap Mama
Zap Mama
Zap Mama is a Belgian musical group founded and led by Marie Daulne. Daulne says her mission is to be a bridge between the European and the African and bring the two cultures together with her music...
.
In 2006 Paci joined forces with Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
-wining klezmer
Klezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
musician Frank London
Frank London
Frank London is a New York City-based trumpeter, bandleader, and composer active in klezmer and world music. He also plays various other wind instruments and keyboards, and occasionally sings backup vocals. With The Klezmatics, he won a Grammy award in Contemporary World Music for "Wonder Wheel...
and Balkan brass band
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
leader Boban Markovic
Boban Markovic
Boban Marković is a Serbian Romani trumpet player and brass ensemble leader from Vladičin Han, frequently recognized as the greatest trumpet player to emerge from the Balkans...
for an album combining Paci's Sicilian tradition with Jewish melodies and Balkan sounds called Trumpet Triumph.
Theatre, television and cinema
Roy Paci has worked for the Italian alternative theater scene, putting up the show Poetry and Andalusia, which was performed in Italy's the most prominent avant-gardeAvant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
theaters. Paci's penchant for experimental theater and music mingled in the Trade Almost telepathy, written by Ivano Fossati and subsequently released as audiobooks. Starting in 2005, Roy Paci's group Aretuska served as the house band on popular Italian television shows, making him and his music familiar to the general public. Paci has composed film score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
s for Italian cinema and several of Paci's songs have been commissioned for film soundtracks, including a version of "Besame Mucho
Bésame Mucho
"Bésame Mucho" is a Spanish language song written in 1940 by Mexican songwriter Consuelo Velázquez.-Inspiration:According to Velázquez herself, she wrote this song even though she had never been kissed yet at the time, and kissing as she heard was considered a sin.She was inspired by the piano...
" in Leonardo Pieraccioni
Leonardo Pieraccioni
Leonardo Pieraccioni is an Italian film director, actor, and screenwriter.Born in Florence, he made his directorial debut on Italian TV in 1995, directing I laureati...
's 2003 film Suddenly Paradise.
Albums by Roy Paci & Aretuska
- Kiss the Hands (2002)
- Tuttapposto (2003)
- Word of Honor (2005)
- Wei Wu Wei (2005)
- SuoNoGlobal (2007)
- Bestiary Siciliano - Greatest Hits of Roy Paci & Aretuska (2008)
- Latinist (2010)
Singles
- "Cantu Siciliano" (2002)
- "The Duse" (2002)
- "Besame MuchoBésame Mucho"Bésame Mucho" is a Spanish language song written in 1940 by Mexican songwriter Consuelo Velázquez.-Inspiration:According to Velázquez herself, she wrote this song even though she had never been kissed yet at the time, and kissing as she heard was considered a sin.She was inspired by the piano...
" (2003) - "Yettaboom" (2003)
- "Viva la vida" (2006)
- "What you see is what you get" (2006)
- "Toda Joia toda beleza" (feat. Manu Chao)
- "Giramundo" (2007)
- "Bonjour Bahia" (2010)
With Manu Chao
- Próxima Estación: Esperanza (Virgin, 2001)
- Radio Bemba Sound SystemRadio Bemba Sound SystemRadio Bemba Sound System is a live album by Manu Chao that was released in 2002. It is the accompanying CD to the performer's live DVD Babylonia en Guagua, filmed over two nights in 2001 during the tour for Proxima Estacion: Esperanza...
(live, Virgin, 2002) - Sibérie m'était contée (Virgin, 2004)
- La RadiolinaLa RadiolinaLa Radiolina is the fifth solo album by Manu Chao. It was released on 4 September 2007. Italy saw an advance release of the album on 30 August....
(Because/Nacional, 2007)
With Negrita
- Soy Taranta
- Infinite Joy
- Move!
- Notte Mediterranea
- Brother Joe
With other musicians
- Quattroemezzo - Brusco
- Closet Wonder - Cesare Basile
- Conjure - Conjure
- Same Wave - Dj Jad
- Electro Cabaret - The Fire
- Malacabeza - Harpoons
- No Doubt - Jaka
- Mondo CaneMondo Cane (album)Mondo Cane is an album by Mike Patton, released on May 4, 2010 through Ipecac Recordings. It features cover versions of 1950s and 1960s Italian pop music, performed by Mike Patton with an orchestra of about 65 people...
- Mike Patton & Metropole Orchestra*Tacabanda - Pelù - Unidentified - Subsonica
- Hard World - Tonino Carotone
- Explosive (KOB) - Cor Veleno