Album Notes

Marco Albani, guitarist and composer, was born in Rome in 1963.
He approaches the music through the study of drums, percussion instruments, piano and guitar, which finally became his main instrument.

After his classical studies, he became fascinated by Mediterranean and South American sounds and also absorbed the warmth and the energy of writers like Sor, Tarrega and Villa-Lobos; he is also particularly attracted by the tonal and expressive innovations of great acoustic guitarists like William Achermann, Alex De Grassi and John Mc Laughlin.

His curiosity about jazz music runs deep, from the tradition of Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass, to that of a “painter” like Pat Metheny.
Marco composes several songs in collaboration with the Italian writer Lorenzo Bartoli, performed by vocalists in the artistic area of Rome; he also writes dedicated tunes for local TV programs.
In different stages of his work, guitarists like Ralph Towner, Armando Corsi, Giovanni Palombo as well as bass players like Michael Manring exerted a special influence; Marco appreciated not only their technical skills, but also the evocative potential of their compositions and their on-going research into alternative ways of expression.
In recent years Marco began an artistic collaboration with the dancer Anna Cirigliano, Director of Choros Dance Company, which led to the realization of some of his compositions for choreographies like Agadir, performed in June 2001 at the Victoria Theatre in Rome and then several times on various Italian and Spanish stages.
It is in the link between music and dance, in the possibility for the human body to express through movement the incorporeal quality of music, that one can appreciate the capacity of his image-evoking music to recall emotions and stimulate memories.

Enriched by these experiences and attracted by other images and sounds, Marco follows a personal route through style and composition to a space-time dimension without boundaries.

It is from this background of inter-disciplinary experiences that Marco‘s first musical project, Chronos arose, recorded at Delta Studio in Rome, assisted by the arranger Claudio Bartolucci and his staff of musicians.

Without falling into virtuosity, his musical speech creates an emotional viewpoint for the listener. In order to create a “unicum armonicum” in his compositions (see Agadir or Flamenco Para Ti) Marco particularly concentrates on melodic lines and background sounds by using unusual instruments like charango, bandoneon and kamanja.

Although one cannot detect a specific geographical influence in the various references to the sounds and colours of the Arabic tradition, “Chronos” is permeated by the idea of a global, ethno-world music, which makes us travelling through the rhythm and melody.