The Release
On thursday march 31, 2016 comes out "Memorie del Principio” (Memories of Beginnings) of the pianist, composer and improviser Theo Allegretti. Produced by Dodicilune label (recognized by Jazzit Award among the top Italian labels), distributed in Italy and abroad in the IRD circuit and in the best digital stores, the album offers nine songs that represent a journey along an ideal path through the beginnings of philosophical thought.

The Artist
Allegretti seeks a personal language which, through the mingling and reworking of different styles and the use of evocative sounds, reveals itself into a kind of "spiritual expressionism". He undertakes classical and jazz studies, specializing with masters such as Giorgio Gaslini, Enrico Pieranunzi and Gianni Lenoci. Over the years he engages in collaborations and compositions of various kinds, creating jingles, arrangements, music for radio, tv and theatre and performing in solo, in recitals of poetry and theatre-music, in a variety of ensembles, as well as with the merger of other arts.

The Concept
"Memorie del Principio” is based on texts taken from the first philosophers in history (VI and V century B.C.) and is designed to represent the period which led to the birth of Western thought, where philosophical knowledge was still closely connected to that of other sciences and doctrines and carried with it the embryo of an idea which, coming to light several centuries before the birth of Christ, is still surprisingly current today, a good two thousand years later. The search for the “beginning” of everything, the various ideas on “cosmology” and similar topics are narrated by the protagonists themselves on their delightful journey to the origins. The vivid experiences evoked arouse strong emotions regardless of the current of thought one belongs to when justifying one’s presence in this world.

The Album
The concept gave rise to a theatre-music show consisting of a reading of atmospheric music with poetry and prose from the early days of philosophy. The musical material was then synthesized into nine tracks (even omitting some authors and many musical ideas), merged into the cd, that propose a blend of atmospheric ambient-jazz, minimalist and ethnic, with some allusions to styles of ancient Greek music. Each of the seven main pieces is dedicated to a philosopher and his respective ideas, with its own mood and reasoning, while the two remaining pieces act almost as a corollary. The first of these, which is also the first musical piece on the album, “Towards Miletus”, introduces Thales, the first philosopher in history, with a text by Callimachus that provides the context. The second, “And there was chaos...”, represents mythological thought and is dedicated to Orpheus, with a passage from “The Birds” by Aristophanes. From both a logical and a chronological point of view, it would have been more appropriate to place it at the beginning of the work (as is in fact the case in the live performance), but it is at the end of the album because of its dark atmosphere, almost as if it were an appendix not affecting the brighter sounds in the rest of the work, which ends ideally with a piece dedicated to Democritus.
To accompany each musical piece there is an excerpt from the writings from which the music is drawn to try to provide a context, an interpretation, food for thought as well as a compass to guide the listener along this path.

The Label
The label from Salento "Dodicilune" has been active since 1996, and recognized by Jazzit Award among the top Italian labels. It has a catalog of about 200 productions of Italian and foreign artists, and is distributed in Italy and abroad by IRD at 400 stores including record stores, Feltrinelli, Fnac, Memories, Messaggerie, Melbookstore. The Dodicilune discs can also be purchased online (Amazon, IBS, LaFeltrinelli, Jazzos) or downloaded into liquid form of 56 among the world's major platforms (iTunes, Napster, Fnacmusic, virginmega, Deezer, eMusic, RossoAlice, LastFm, Amazon, etc ).

www.dodiciluneshop.it/dettagli.asp?sid=3331560920160309163859&idp=204