Roy Paci meets Banda di Collesano
Strombazzare is his noble rhetorical art. Roy Paci, with a trumpet in hand, grew up in the band of Augusta, his hometown. The hot years of the seventies were running, and young Rosario was 10 years old when he took his first steps in the band. A year later, he was already the first trumpeter. “Where the hell are you going with that trumpet in hand,” they repeated to him. But young Rosario didn’t stop blowing, and the more they mocked him, the louder he made that trumpet scream. “When I picked up the trumpet for the first time, I was struck, like when John Belushi saw the light in the church in the movie ‘The Blues Brothers.’ Within a month, I already knew how to play it. At home, I listened to jazz, especially Louis Armstrong. Then my father gave me a vinyl of Roy Eldridge, and to me, he seemed even better than Satchmo, so much so that my nickname Roy is dedicated to him.”
Roy Paci then attended the “university of calle,” the school of the street, as the old Cubans of the Buena Vista Social Club used to say. In 1990, he moved to South America to play with the State Big Band of Argentina, with Cumbia groups, and popular music from Brazil. Then he stopped in the Canary Islands and finally in Senegal, playing with street musicians and Senegalese griots like Baaba Maal. He joined Manu Chau’s Radio Bemba Sound System. Finally, back in his homeland, he formed his band, Ionica, an original formation that recorded the music for bands that accompany the Holy Week processions in Southern Italy. Then he made half of Europe dance with the gangster and soulmen band Aretuska. Forty-two years later, with that trumpet in hand, he played on prestigious stages, toured the world, achieved success, did theater, television, and cinema (Silver Ribbon for the music of the film “La febbre” by Alessandro D’Alatri), has eight albums to his name and countless collaborations, has a record label, and is a highly sought-after producer.
With such a background, it was only a matter of time before the old flame for the band rekindled. The opportunity is offered to him by the Marranzano World Fest, which on July 1st will entrust the direction of the Collesano Band (PA), one of the oldest in the province of Palermo, founded in 1863, to the trumpet and baton of the musician from Augusta.
