Alberto Popolla
Appears on:Clarinettist, saxophonist, bassist, arranger and composer, he has played in New York, Chicago, London, Berlin, Brussels, Algiers, Lisboa and in many Italian festivals. On electric bass he was a protagonist of the Italian and international neo-psychedelic scene of the 1980s with the band Magic Potion, who released two albums produced by the music critic Federico Guglielmi and recently reprinted in a box set. He has explored the different sounds and the infinite resources of timbre of his clarinets, crossing experimentation and improvisation, writing and conductions, situations more strictly jazz and Balkan music and klezmer.
He has promoted several Italian and European ensembles and collaborated with musicians from all around the world. He graduated Conservatory of Frosinone with a Bachelor’s degree in jazz clarinet and La Sapienza University in Rome with a Bachelor’s degree in Literature, with a plan of historical political studies of modern and contemporary age. He writes regularly for the magazines Prog Italia and Quaderni D’altri Tempi.
In recent years he has dedicated himself passionately to the arrangement and composition to the great blues legacy with the band Roots Magic, voted several times among the ten best Italian groups in the Top Jazz referendum of the monthly magazine Musica Jazz, and to the fascinating sounds of the so-called Canterbury scene and progressive music. He teaches improvisation and jazz history in several music schools.
He has played in concert and recorded with:
John Tchichai, Don Byron, Steve Beresford, Lol Coxhill, David Ryan, Ian Mitchell, Michel Godard, Simon Allen, Chris Cutler, London Improvisers Orchestra, Mamadou Diabate, Bob Moses, Greg Burk, Elliott Sharp, Jamal Ouassini, Noel Taylor, Veryan Weston, Michael Thieke, Ab Baars, Ig Henneman, Lisa Mezzacappa, Mike Cooper, Christian Munthe, Marco Cappelli, Mauro Pagani, Eugenio Colombo, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Gianni Trovalusci, Emanuele Parrini, Ferdinando Faraò, Cristina Zavalloni, Francesco Cusa, Sabina Meyer, Marilena Paradisi, Ettore Fioravanti, Pasquale Innarella…