Paolo Profeti

Roxana Vasile, 12.03.2015, 16:05

Paolo Profeti seems to have been predestined to live in Romania. At least this is what he thinks: “I don’t know if this has any relevance but my best friend for more than 25 years is half Romanian. I was 17 when I first came on a visit to Bucharest. Italy is not far away from Romania, neither geographically, nor in terms how I feel here. Furthermore, I’ve always had an attraction for eastern Europe. I find Bucharest a very interesting and beautiful city and I like living here. You might say I have found a kind of home. It does feel like home here.”

Between his falling in love with a young Romanian woman and deciding to move to Romania 2 years ago was but a small step. A jazz musician, Paolo Profeti works with Radio Romania’s Big Band, and was part of the line-up for the band’s recent concert together with Richard Galliano, one the world’s greatest living accordionists.

Here is how Paolo Profeti started his musical career: “I started playing at 13, and after listening by chance to a disc of John Coltrane and Rashied Ali, I felt that saxophone was a very strong instrument. I had caught the bug! After high school, scared at the prospect of having to earn my entire living as a musician, I joined the Agronomy Faculty in Italy, which I graduated, although music was in my heart and in my blood. So I went to the International Music Academy in Milan, then I studied for a short time at the Didier Lockwood Music Centre near Paris and then graduated from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan. I have been working with Radio Romania’s Big Band conducted by Ionel Tudor for a year. It is a group of very good musicians. I like that there are so many instrument players in the band, and we all play together. I also like solo improvisation, but being together in a Big Band requires a certain kind of discipline, you need to be very attentive and hear all the other players. There are five us playing the saxophone, 4 trombones and 4 trumpets and, of course, the rhythm section.”

However, Paolo Profeti’s musical activity is not restricted to his collaboration with the Radio Big Band: “I also work with the Bucharest Jazz Orchestra, a band that has recently celebrated 3 years of activity, and is led by Sebastian Burneci, who also plays the trumpet in the Radio Big Band. Two weeks ago we recorded a live session in a jazz club and this is going to be our band’s first album. It’s called ‘Stories from Bucharest’ and it’s very interesting: the music is rooted in jazz but also draws on hip hop and a reinterpretation of the music of the great composer George Enescu.”

Let us also note that Paolo Profeti has his own band entitled the Paolo Profeti European Collective and that he is preparing to record an album called “Waiting for Bucharest”, which will be promoted in Bucharest, as well as in Sibiu, in central Romania, and Cluj, in the west.

Paolo Profeti: “I will start recording this album at the end of March together with a trio of Italian musicians with whom I used to play back in Italy, with Sorin Romanescu on the guitar and Florian Radu on the trombone, as well as our special guests Cristian Soleanu on the tenor saxophone and Sebastian Burneci”.

A complex artist, with a passion for jazz as well as house music, Paolo Profeti is equally dedicated when it comes to teaching Argentinean tango: “When I was a child, I wanted to be a dancer. This was my first dream. I have been dancing Argentinean tango for about 11 years and I like it a lot. Of course I can’t dedicate it too much time, because I’m so busy playing music, my greatest passion of all, but I believe it’s a good thing in life not to have one single passion. Not to mention that being born under the sign of Libra, I find it hard to focus on just one thing. At the end of March, after I finish work on the album, I’ll go to Iasi with a friend who is a tango teacher, Nadina Cazan, and we’ll both teach tango lessons there.”

There are many Romanians who have moved to Italy in recent years. But as you can see, there are also Italians who decided to live in Romania, where they feel at home. Paolo Profeti’s composition “Milan-Bucharest, One Way” is quite revealing in this sense.