Palermo (gro) Jazz on public transport: the municipal bus companies of Palermo are coming up with a very special musical revue this summer. Local formations will be performing on regular services between the center of the Sicilian metropolis and the seaside suburb of Mondello. The best part is not only the music itself. The enjoyment of music is also practically free of charge. A normal ticket is all that is needed to get in. Music lovers along the route, who gather mainly at the more central stops, come to the performances totally free of charge. The musical accompaniment along the route (our picture shows a hint of the performance of the trio Giuseppe Notarbartolo) exists this year for the first time. It began on July 18 and continues until September 26.
Through the Parco della Favorita
.
Start of each musical tour is in Piazza Sturzo, at an intersection of the old and the nine Palermo not far from the teatro Politeama. The venue for the concerts is a huge convertible, an open-air bus, from which the jazz music plays unhindered along the route through the Parco della Favorita, a 400 (!) hectare park at the foot of Monte Pellegrino, crisscrossed by fantastically beautiful avenues. The park was created by the Spanish viceroy Ferdinand III in the 19th century, after he had to take refuge in Sicily from Napoleon’s French troops in 1798.
Aat the intersection of the new and old Palermo
.
The initiative “Take the Jazz Bus” was initiated by Palermo drummer Mimmo Cafiero. He inspired for it private sponsors, as well as students and teachers of the Palermo School of Music. So it happens that AMAT, the organization of the public transport, benefits for free from the jazz rides, which are quite promotional. The next music trip in the bus convertible rises on August 22 with cer “Federico Gueci ban”. On 29 August the motto is “Giuseppe Lo Cicero sings Gerswhin”, on 5 September “Gaspare Palazzolo and Igor Ciotta” can be heard, on 12 September the “Claudio Guarcello quartet”, on 19 September the “Diego Tarantino Trio” and, at the final concert on 26 September, the “Carlo Purpura Trio”. For those who would like to join one or the other of the jazz trips: the start in Piazza Sturzo (Cabriobus 806) is at 9 pm in each case. The concert lasts in each case up to the 12 kilometers distant Mondello and back (the line-technical detours not counted).
Bellavista: Additional European accent
.
On several occasions, Mario Belavista, president of AMAT, has been rumored to be along for the ride. “First,” he said in an in-house online message, according to a report, “I love and appreciate good jazz.” Second, he said, he thinks the action is “good also because a public bus is basically nothing more than “a venue for the perpetual theater of music and life.” The Initatiive contributes, moreover, to give the city of Palermo “an additional European accent.”