Classical Jazz

Ferdinando Romano

In 2020 Ferdinando won “New Jazz Generation”(Nuova Generazione Jazz), a program of I-Jazz that promotes selected bands of the new Italian generation in Italy and all over Europe, helping them to perform internationally. Totem toured intensively in Europe, playing in major clubs and Festivals in Italy, France, Germany, UK, Hungary.

Ferdinando has an intense activity live and in studio, as a leader and as a sideman, collaborating with many musicians like Ralph Alessi, Enrico Rava, Robin Eubanks, Benny Golson, Glenn Ferris, Logan Richardson, Elias Stemeseder, Jerome Sabbagh, Simona Premazzi, Jon Boutellier, Yuhan Su and many more

We asked Ferdinando a few questions:

How did your collaboration with Ralph Alessi start?

“Ralph Alessi is a musician I really love and whose records I have listened to a lot. As I was writing the music I began to think that his sound and his personal approach to improvisation would be perfect. I sent him recordings of the pieces I had performed live with the group to ask him his impressions. I later asked him to participate in the project, a request that Ralph gladly accepted. We got along very well both during the recordings and in the funny moments outside the studio. We also had great dinners together!”

So this is a sort of Italian-american connection, did you know anything about Ralph’s Italian origins?

“Well I knew, his surname is typically Italian. It was funny this last summer discovering, while talking to him about a concert we were going to play in Atina, in the Italian region of Lazio, that Ralph’s grandmother used to live there. The major, the organizers and the citizens were very proud of having him there and Ralph was very happy”

Tell us something about the music of Totem and who are the other musicians on the album?