Cleveland’s Alla Boara To Record Live Album at City Church in Cleveland Heights

Alla Boara. Credit: Courtesy of Alla Boara

“Alla Boara” is the name of an Italian folk song sung by field workers. Translated into English, the name means “to the work,” and Alla Boara, the Italian-inspired Cleveland jazz band, has been doing just that. The busy band has just announced it’ll record a live concert on Friday, June 28, at City Church in Cleveland Heights.

For the concert and recording session, a chamber ensemble will “add color and narrative drama” to Alla Boara’s signature fritto misto of jazz arrangements of Italian folk music.

“The heart of what we do is connecting people and creating new relationships,” says founder and percussionist Anthony Taddeo in a press release. “Folk music unites people, and it connects with the everyday person. Recording with a chamber ensemble is a really cool opportunity to bring this folk music that not many people really know about to yet another audience.”

When he was studying in New York with Miles Davis collaborator Jimmy Cobb, Taddeo encountered a little-known archive of field recordings made in Italy in the 1950s by the folklorist Alan Lomax. Taddeo was so moved by the power of these folk songs, many of which are now forgotten, that he arranged them for Alla Boara.

Ukraine-born violinist Yaryna Tsarynska will join the band as a guest artist for the concert. The addition of the chamber ensemble of clarinet (Alix Reinherdt), flute (Linda White), French horn (Ben Hottensmith) and oboe (Terry Orcutt) will add yet another dimension to the sound.

The upcoming collaboration and recording session grew out of a January concert that Alla Boara played with the Ashland Symphony Orchestra. Amber Rogers, the executive director of the Local 4 Music Fund, which supports Cleveland musicians by presenting concerts, played in the viola section and was impressed with the concert. Local 4 Music Fund will sponsor the upcoming City Church concert.

“I thought it really worked,” she says of the collaboration. “I remember thinking on the drive home, I bet you he’s going to want to do more of this kind of thing. When he asked if the Fund would be willing to help support the project, I was super into it. The Music Fund, and to a larger extent the union, has been moving toward community engagement and providing another platform and another way to realize the projects of the membership and to a greater extent, to be involved in the community arts scene in a supportive and a real way.”

In the wake of the City Church concert, the group will perform on July 12 as part of Piano Cleveland Presents and on Aug. 14 as part of Chamber Music Pittsburgh’s Just Summer concert series.

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