WRITING & JAZZ - what an encounter!

Stefano Zenni, musicologist and jazz historian, meets Jonny Costantino, filmmaker and writer, and what will come out of it they don't even know. The starting point is two books. What Music. Jazz, blues, soul and the traps of colour (EDT, 2017): where Zenni with an eclectic and multidisciplinary approach dismantles a series of clichés related to colour in black music, questions and interrogates what black and white are, dynamizes consolidated historiographical assumptions that at the end of the day turn out to be racist postulates, establishes stimulating connections between African American, Jewish and Italian cultures, transcends classifications and barriers, all in the sign of the mestizaje that opens, of the comparison that enriches, of the multiplication that creates. Giovanni Blanco (Salarchi Immagini, 2023): where Costantino, in two unrelated but intimately connected texts, on the one hand (Mistero Blanco) traverses the painting of the artist who gives his book its title to reflect on the meaning of adventures that are more radical and profound than those promoted by the art system, that is, by a system whose actual values are not artistic, and on the other (Il bambino oscuro) investigates in the form of an autobiographical tale an obscurity that is as dangerous as it is generative: a darkness that is that of the soul. Add to these ingredients the fact that Stefano Zenni is at least as much of a cinephile as Jonny Costantino is a jazz addict and that they both believe that the only seriousness to be taken seriously is that which children put into their games, and it goes without saying that one can expect anything from this encounter.

Reference books: “Giovanni Blanco” by Jonny Costantino e Giovanni Blanco (Salarchi Immagini, 2023); “Che razza di musica. Jazz, blues, soul e le trappole del colore” by Stefano Zenni (EDT , 2016)