Album Notes

Dante Ferrara has been performing popular renaissance and baroque entertainment since 1984. Based in the U.K. he has given concerts and performed worldwide mainly as a soloist. Since 1998 he has released two CDs of renaissance and Tudor music, featuring mainly the lute and orpharion. His third and latest CD Bazimakoo focuses on catches and rounds by Henry Purcell (1659-1695) and his contemporaries – the ‘Restoration Rat Pack’!

Bazimakoo combines earthy humour (sometimes sexual, sometimes lavatorial) with the finesse one would expect from the period. As well as providing all the voices, Dante uses a renaissance-style cittern and four antique instruments: hurdy-gurdy, Milanese mandolin, English guittar and bass colascione.

Bazimakoo is both groundbreaking and controversial. Some musicians have merely dabbled with this style of song but this is the first CD ever to feature this particular art form – the repertoire of The Catch Club. These songs are interspersed with tasteful arrangements of dance tunes of the day, mostly collected by John Playford, and you will not hear this combination of rare antique instruments on any other recording. Although Bazimakoo contains a lyrics warning, it is entirely suitable for anyone with a sense of humour, a sense of history and a desire to celebrate all great things English.

Any visitors to, or participants of, Renaissance Fayres throughout the U.S. or re-enactors worldwide will appreciate the passion and wit of this colourful period entertainment.

Bazimakoo has 33 tracks with a total duration of 76’ 27. It is beautifully packaged and contains a free poster.

Six tracks can be viewed on www.YouTube.com/DanteFerrara

Extracts from recent published reviews:

It's all clean dirty fun and the CD deserves success with a wide range of collectors.
Bazimakoo is a benchmark CD with which I shall assess many others which are, not rarely, perfunctory in consideration of presentation of the background.
Peter Grahame Woolf
www.musicalpointers.co.uk

Bazimakoo is a delightful disc in all aspects, at the same time deeply cultural and pleasing, knowing how to unite passion for meticulous research with a joyful desire for fun, and all with great style.
Giancarlo Bolther (Written originally in Italian, translated by DF)
www.rock-impressions.com

The essential aspect worth noting about Bazimakoo is its bawdy humor. The title is a franglais corruption of the French “baisez mon cul,” which literally means “kiss my arse,” and is attributed to Shakespeare.
It’s difficult not to chuckle at the songs, which have the same solemn cadence as liturgical compositions of the period, and the same mellifluous blend of male choral voices—but the lyrics are jaw-dropping. The low bathroom and bedroom humor are rendered all the more effective by their solemn and intricate harmonies.
Charles Rammelkamp, 2008 for Renaissance Magazine