Among the lights of the street lights and Broadway theaters, there is a place that for every guitarist has become a little cult: the Iridium. Opened in 1994 and then moved to the current venue in 2001, it is one of the few jazz clubs that can resist over time, and that has tied indissolubly to the name of the legendary guitarist Les Paul, who played there every Monday evening from 1995 and until the last days of his life.
It is there that on August 6 will climb on stage Davide Pannozzo, guitarist and Italian author who has long chosen New York as a home and as a test bench. “Suonare all’Iridium, for a guitarist, is not a concert like the others: it is the stage of Les Paul. I come with respect, but also with the desire to bring us something of mine”, says Pannozzo.
His story begins very far from the blues. Classical guitar at six years, then graduation at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome: a rigorous training that Pannozzo never denied, but bent to another language when he met the blues. From that graft – classical discipline and expressive blues and jazz – a recognizable sound is born, in which technical control never takes over the story.
Twenty years of poles brought him from the Ronnie Scott’s in London to the Bitter End in New York, to the IBC in Memphis, and to share the stage with musicians like George Benson, Robben Ford and Steve Jordan. Jordan, along with Will Lee, who will join Iridium, produced his album Unconditional Love, which entered the Top 50 of the American radio jazz-blues album SiriusXM. The single Be Blessed, Keep On Loving You and Love is a Simple Thing ended up in Spotify’s editorial playlists on four continents.
And with him, that night, there will be a rhythm section that is the story of American television. Accompanying him is in fact an all-star band: Will Lee on bass, for decades face and sound of the David Letterman Show, Shawn Pelton on drums, historic drummer of Saturday Night Live, and Etienne Stadwijk on keyboards, with which Pannozzo composes and produces his latest works.
By Davide Pannozzo, Will Lee said: “There are very few artists these days that can inspire and are filled with inspiration and great ideas; Davide Pannozzo is one of them. ”
The concert is part of the new series of the club “In The Pocket”, an expression that in the musicians’ jargon indicates the exact point where time, groove and band breathe together. In the ladder, next to the new albums of Pannozzo, they coexist the pages that formed generations of guitarists – from Hendrix’s Little Wing to the Jeff Beck of Brush with the Blues, up to Stratus’ jazz-fusion.
Then there is the other half of his work: GUITARlab, the online academy that Pannozzo founded to teach modern blues, with a community of students divided between Italy and Anglophone countries. A project that arises from a precise conviction, which is also its most quoted phrase: “blues is a language – a language that anyone can learn to speak with authenticity and soul.”.
For one evening, one of the most identified poles of the American guitar will also speak Italian. Tickets are already available for purchase.
L’articolo Un italiano all’Iridium: Davide Pannozzo brings his blues to the stage of Les Paul proviene da IlNewyorkese.
