Maria Rita

Maria Pia De Vito is an Italian jazz singer, composer, and arranger. A native of Naples, Italy, she studied classical music, opera, and Italian folk music. In 1976 she performed folk songs as a singer, guitarist, and pianist. In 1980 she sang with jazz musicians such as Art Ensemble of Chicago, Michael Brecker, Uri Caine, Peter Erskine, Paolo Fresu, Billy Hart, Maria Joao, Nguyên Lê, Dave Liebman, Bruno Tommaso, Gianluigi Trovesi, Steve Turre, Miroslav Vitous, and Joe Zawinul. In the 1980s she worked with Toots Thielemans and Mike Stern. She collaborated with Rita Marcotulli in the 1990s on the albums Nauplia and Fore Paese. She has often worked with the British composer Colin Towns and with pianist John Taylor.

With the arrival of Delta Lady: The Rita Coolidge Anthology, one can only remark: what took so long? No other singer – not Maria Muldaur, Bette Midler, Bonnie Bramlett, Carly Simon, or Linda Ronstadt – more perfectly embodied the wide range of changes that popular music underwent from the late '60s through the mid-'80s, and continues to seek new means of expression today. This two-disc anthology on Hip-O offers the first complete portrait of this complex and multivalent talent on CD (though a box set would have been nice). Rita Coolidge scored her first chart hit with friend Donna Weiss' "Turn Around and Love You" in 1969. That song earned her a studio spot where she fell in with Delaney & Bonnie, Leon Russell, and a huge cast of musicians. Being a background vocalist on Delaney & Bonnie's classic Accept No Substitute earned her a place on Russell and Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen revue and the rest is history, including a handful of chart hits and guest appearances that stagger the mind.

Heinrich Baermann is quite well known today as Carl Maria von Weber’s source of inspiration. The famous virtuoso, for whom Weber personally created his clarinet concertos, repeatedly took up the pen on his own – and did so with great success. Several dozen works by Baermann have been transmitted to MDG and on this recording Rita Karin Meier and the Belenus Quartet turn to his three quintets for clarinet and strings and with them bring back to life his much acclaimed cantabile playing as well as his legendary virtuosic capabilities.

Italian jazz, world and classical singer Maria Pia De Vito has a penchant for British pianists. Before hooking up with Huw Warren, in the late 1990s/early 2000s she made three albums with John Taylor, including her breakthrough set Phone (1998).
Dialektos is a richly fruitful collaboration between the two musicians, playing as it does to their mutual love of folk roots, energetic rhythms and strong melodies. Its cultural fulcrum is the southern Italian city of Naples, whose popular songs the virtuosic but earthy De Vito has celebrated on previous recordings…

Lunedì 4 aprile, il concerto di Rita Marcotulli "A Pino", un omaggio a Pino Daniele, con il quale ha collaborato a lungo, da parte della pianista Rita Marcotulli. Con lei sul palco alcuni dei più prestigiosi musicisti del panorama musicale nazionale ed internazionale: Tore Brunborg, sax, Luca Aquino, tromba, Nguyên Lê, chitarra, Matthew Garrison, basso, Alessandro Paternesi, batteria, Michele Rabbia, percussioni, e Maria Pia De Vito, voce. Un omaggio alla musica di Pino Daniele, soprattutto alla sua musica, il concerto sarà quasi esclusivamente strumentale, Maria Pia De Vito improvviserà con la sua straordinaria voce su alcuni brani.

Oltre ad essere un’interprete di livello, la cantante Maria Pia De Vito ha al suo attivo progetti sempre interessanti e originali. Ricordiamo Il Pergolese, omaggio jazz alla musica del compositore settecentesco, e il recente Coraçao dedicato alla musica brasiliana con i testi tradotti in napoletano (ne abbiamo parlato in occasione di Umbria Jazz Winter 2017/18). Stavolta la musicista recupera la forma della moresca, antica danza di origine araba con i testi generalmente di carattere grottesco. Nella Napoli, città di origine della solista, questa forma fu molto popolare: uno degli artefici della sua riscoperta in tempi moderni è stato Roberto De Simone che l’ha inserita nella sua Gatta Cenerentola, ma al tempo stesso vari gruppi vocali (King’s Singers e Orlando Consort) la propongono nel loro repertorio.