Mafalda Minnozzi & Paul Ricci

Mafalda Minnozzi comes from the great tradition of European song as she came up in Rome’s #1 Jazz cabaret night club “La Cabala”performing Italian, French and American classics. Later, a fateful invitation to Brazil led to her 27 year touring and recording career there, giving her an unprecedented understanding of Bossa and Samba through her collaborations with Milton Nascimento, Guinga, Leny Andrade and others. Teaming up with Mafalda is guitarist and arranger Paul Ricci. He also has lived and toured through Brazil for some 27 years, beginning with acoustic fingerpicking and later to the NY Jazz scene and a devotion to Brazilian music. He has recorded and performed with Astrud Gilberto, Bebel Gilberto, and others while diving into the Caribbean, Latin and African melting pot with Harry Belafonte, Bobby Sanabria and Coumba Sidibe to name a few. He revisits fingerpicking with all of these influences for his own take on classics that present the duo’s unique language. Performing throughout S.America, Europe, the US and even Bahrain, you can see them on an old classic Neapolitan song in the film “The Chisels Are Calling” dedicated to John Monteleone. Paul likes to think of the collective sound as one big guitar arrangement with Mafalda as the top voice or even the “top string”. This will give you an insight into how the two elements of the duo engage in an exciting interplay seldom seen in a duo setting, uniting diverse classics as if they were one global idiom with sophisticated harmony over infectious grooves. In addition to her over 25 solo CD’s, the duo has released 3 CDs as the “eMPathia Jazz Duo” “Mafalda literally thrills the audience with jazz classics" - Carlos Calado (Folha de São Paulo – Brazil) “I'm amazed at the stuff Paul does harmonically and linearly all by himself and I am fascinated by her way of improvising and interacting" - Gene Bertoncini