“A restless spirit in constant change”: that is how Musica Jazz headed Patrizia Landriani's interview with Felice Clemente in its May 2015 issue, a few months after the trio album “6:35 AM”. The interview is in Italian.
Felice tells how he came to jazz: the clarinet his maternal grandfather gave him at nine, classical training, discovering jazz at around fifteen through Side Steps, Yellowjackets and Weather Report, then working back to Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins.
He talks about teaching, which he began at twenty-one, and the social role of music; about the Mixiland Jazz Band, founded in 2006 so that his students could play together; and about the label Crocevia di Suoni, set up in 2007 so he could choose musicians, projects and release dates freely.
At the centre is the trio with Paolino Dalla Porta and Massimo Manzi, born from a concert on 5 July 2013 and recorded exactly a year later, with Daniele Di Gregorio as guest on marimba and vibraphone. Felice previews the duo album with Javier Pérez Forte that would become “Evolución” and describes how his improvising and his sound have changed, with Wayne Shorter as his reference on soprano. The same pages carry a review of “6:35 AM”.