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Andrea
Celeste is Something Amazing! |
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Andrea Celeste is a singer and songwriter who makes her home in Genova, Italy, a
bastion for Italian musicians, singers and songwriters and although she is still
in her twenties, Andrea Celeste has been turning heads in several circles in
Italy since she was a teenager and in recent years music fans and journalists in
other countries have begun to take note of her talents. She is completely fluent
in Italian, English and Spanish and she can somewhat navigate her way through
the German and French languages, plus she is also studying Portuguese. During
our conversation Andrea Celeste who is equally comfortable singing Pop, Gospel,
Jazz and Soul music hinted that her next album may have more of an international
flavor and it may be recorded in several different languages with a return to a
Jazzier feel to the music. She is also getting close to releasing her most
recent album Kaleidoscope. “Kaleidoscope, wow! It took two years to complete this album. We were
mastering it this morning and I couldn’t believe this, because the album took so
much time. I think it is a good production and that we have good songs. I can
say this, because they are not just my songs. I wrote the songs with Massimo
Trigona who is a friend of mine. He is a fretless player and he is an amazing
musician. We started to write together two years ago.
I had a very hard period of my life when my father died and I was a
little bit confused and sad. Massimo came into my life as a friend. He is
(great) musician. We said let’s try to write songs together. It was like a jam
session and we wrote thirty songs in two months. He also plays bass guitar and
acoustic guitar. When we are together he just played a few chords and I said the
melody could go like this and the lyrics could go like this. We work very fast
together and we like each other. He likes the way that I sing and the way that I
put down melodies and I like the chords and the harmonies that he uses. They are
not so usual. We wrote all of these songs and we said maybe we should make an
album. We chose the songs that we like the most and then we had
a great dream come true, because we had the chance to record some of the songs
on this album with Al Schmitt (Winner of
23 Grammy Awards and some of the artists that he has worked with include, Henry
Mancini, Steely Dan, Toto, Natalie Cole, Quincy Jones, George Benson). I am
still excited when I am say this, because I just can’t believe we did it. It wasn’t in Los Angeles; it was in France, because Al
Schmitt goes every year to Provence, France and a wonderful recording studio
called La Frabrique Studio. He has seminars there (on recording and mixing) and
each time he has a group that he records. We were the band this year and I still
can’t believe it. We recorded four songs with him and they sound wonderful. He
is just magic. He is the most humble and genuine person that I have met in this
crazy (she comes to life on the word
crazy and stretches the word out) business. He is an amazing professional
and I know that everybody knows that he (worked) with the top level artists in
the world. To be there to see it and to hear it with your ears is just
(unbelievable). He just puts the mics and records (the music), he touches two
buttons and everything is perfect. It was a great, great experience,” she says. Andrea Celeste talks about one of the reasons why there
are songs on Kaleidoscope that are
sung in English and Italian, “It is a little bit of both, because I did this as
a tribute album to the singers and songwriters (of Italy). I discovered that
entire world. I already knew it was there, because I am Italian, but I didn’t
think about singing those songs and making them mine. I started putting a
tribute song to Umberto Bindi, which is a song that he wrote in Italian with
Gino Paoli who is another great star. It is called “Il Mio Mondo,” but it was an
international hit. It wasn’t a hit here in Italy. It became an international hit
with Cilla Black and in English it is called “You’re My World,” (She
starts to sing beautifully) “You’re my world you’re every step I take…” It
is a beautiful song, so I just had to do it. Cilla Black was an amazing singer and I loved her
repertoire too. She used to sing Burt Bacharach songs. I love Burt Bacharach (she
giggles). He is one of my favorites. I decided to do “Il Mio Mondo,” because
we were going to record with Al and I wanted to record something in Italian in
this half Italian, half American production.” The album
Kaleidoscope is scheduled to be released in December (2015). Andrea Celeste grew up in the little village of
Pontedera located in Tuscany and she says, “I grew up in a country home with my
family. I have two older sisters and my mom and my father are from the south of
Italy. They went to Germany as
immigrants and when they had the money they came back to Italy and they decided
to stop in Tuscany. It is one of the most amazing places in the world and it has
been (great) to grow up in such a beautiful environment. I grew up where I had
the woods close to my house, so there were trees and the beautiful countryside,
(beautiful) landscapes and also a lot of history.” Andrea Celeste started off by singing in a Gospel choir
and she says that every Sunday they would sing in a different church. “Musically, I was lucky, because there is nothing there.
It is just a little town and a small village where I grew up. I don’t know why
there was a Gospel choir there (she laughs). I grew up between the Gospel choir
and the Classical training. I met my singing teacher, my voice teacher when I
was thirteen years old and I started studying Classical singing with him. It was
wonderful training, because I had Classical training, plus the modern sound of
Gospel, which blends Jazz, Blues and also Pop. We went from Mahalia Jackson to
Kirk Franklin. It was wonderful. (My teacher) was Vittoria Scali and he was amazing. We
lost him when he died last year. It is a void to me, because he taught me
everything that I know about the voice. He was like a father to me and it has
been a hard loss. He lives in me, because he taught me so much. He also went
further, because he was a very deep person and a guide to me, a spiritual guide
to me. He is still with me,” she says. A discussion ensues regarding the popularity of Gospel
music in Italy, “I think it is all because of that movie
Sister Act (she
laughs). It all started in the ‘90s and each Gospel choir in Italy sings the
songs from the soundtrack of that movie. I think they just discovered a new
sound and then they went further. There are a lot of good Gospel choirs here in
Italy and they work with American Gospel choirs too. When I was fourteen I sang
with Cheryl Porter, an American singer who grew up and graduated in Chicago. She
moved to Italy, because she wanted to be a Classical singer. She was Classically
trained too, but she discovered that Gospel music was popular here and she
started teaching Gospel music. She started a choir and when I was fourteen she
invited me to this seminar and she also invited a lot of Gospel singers from
Chicago. It was great, because there were all of the Gospel choirs from Italy
were there and I met a lot of people. Everybody was in love with Gospel music
and me too of course. I loved it, because it has a wonderful sound and I love
the passion that they put into this kind of music. It taught me a lot. I also participated at the Milan Gospel Festival and in
Rome at this cinema festival. When I was sixteen I sang with a very strange group.
There was an American rapper and producer and she used to write Gospel songs. I
was the singer with two other singers and the pianist. We were all young and
crazy and we used to record all of this stuff. It was very, very nice. In this
group I had the chance to do Gospel, but also Jazz, Soul music and Rock. We
experimented a lot and it gave me an open mind. I am very grateful to Gospel
music for this,” she says. As for the variety of influences that can be heard in
her music today, Andrea Celeste says, “I think it is good in some ways and it is
bad in other ways. It is good for me, because I love to experiment. I am a
musician first, so I listen to a lot of music and I fall in love with a lot of
music. Each time that I have something to say and that I want to write something
I can choose a color from the palette. It depends on the feeling that I have,
that I want to express and that I want to write. I meet a lot of people and
producers and people from the other side of the music and they say oh, but you
have to choose a style. If you don’t choose a style people don’t know how to
sell your music. I understand this and I just can’t stop, but I love everything
about music. Right now I am back to Classical music and I am studying piano. I
am studying Chopin and Mozart and these beautiful composers. For this new album
Kaleidoscope I also wrote a string arrangement, while thinking about
Classical music. It is just wonderful having an open mind to all of the
wonderful music that is out there. I just can’t choose. It is impossible for
me,” she says laughing lightly and you can hear the warmth and enthusiasm in her
voice, and then she continues, “Italian Pop is different than International Pop,
because we are Italians and French Pop is different. It has a different road. We
are more melodic, because we had opera and Classical music and so it is more
about the melody sometimes than other things. We have a lot of great singers and
songwriters (in Italy) too. I dedicated an entire album (Se
Stasera Sono Qui) to the songwriters
which were born in the city that I live in, which is Genova. They wrote such
amazing songs and it is pure poetry in music. There is another generation of
songwriters now who are very, very good.” In 2008 Andrea Celeste’s debut album
My Reflection was released and it was
comprised of thirteen songs that were written by her, including the love letter
“Real,” sung to a lover asking him to take a chance on love and the hauntingly
beautiful “The Power Of Our Love.” The lyrics for “The
Power Of Our Love,” stir the heart, “Don’t
judge by the way / I look tonight / You don’t know how many dreams / I’ve left
behind me / Just close your eyes and feel / The power of our love / Listen our
hearts can beat as one / Deep inside of you…You know who I am / Just close your
eyes and see / The power of our love.” Robert Izzo’s violin and Stefano
Cabera’s cello make this song soar and Andrea Celeste’s heartfelt phrasing is
impeccable.
“I started singing with the group in Italy when I was
sixteen and I was twenty when everything went wrong with them. I came home to
Tuscany and I was a very sad girl. I found inspiration for writing songs. I had
a lot of stories that went wrong and I had this group that went wrong and I just
didn’t know what to do. I came out of school and I didn’t know if I had to go to
university or to do music. During that period when I was so sad I wrote those
songs and the crazy part is I never had an internet connection at home when I
was a teenager. I didn’t want a computer, because I am old fashioned. I was a
very strange teenager. I used to listen to Billie Holiday, while my teenager
friends were listening to Beyoncé. I didn’t want an internet connection and then
when I was nineteen I was broke and with four day jobs, so I started to think
that I needed an internet connection. I put this internet connection at home and
I opened a Myspace page for the first time in my life. I needed a friend to do
that. I put on this page a demo of the songs that I wrote like “The Power Of Our
Love,” and “My Reflection.” Then I received this friend request from Genova. and
(he became) my boyfriend (He is still her
boyfriend). It was crazy to me, because I never had an internet connection
and I was new to this thing. I just hated those things, but this helped me.
Roberto Vigo contacted me and we became Myspace friends and I had all of these
musician friends on Myspace. It was wonderful. I still have those friends now.
It was just about the music and that is why I liked that. He asked me (if he
could produce) this album (My Reflection)
with the songs that he heard on Myspace. I said okay, let’s try and I came to
Genova that summer in 2007 and I think that we recorded the album in three days.
It was like a dream to me, because I had other people ask me to do an album when
I was a teenager. I used to sing and I sounded like an idiot. The producers were
like we should do an album. I didn’t feel ready and I said a lot of times no. I
didn’t have my songs and I didn’t think that I had things to say. I waited and
the songs came. The producer and I thought the songs were okay for an album and
we did this album and we were very happy. That is where I met Dado Moroni (Italian
Jazz pianist and composer) and we did the song “Real.” It is one of my
favorites and I just love Dado,” she says. In 2009 the Celeste / Vigo team released another album
Enter Eyes recorded with pianist
Andrea Pozza and it featured covers of “Blackbird,” (Lennon / McCartney), “This
Masquerade,” (Leon Russell), Stevie Wonder’s “All In Love Is Fair,” and Paul
Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Andrea Celeste describes her 2012 album
Something Amazing, “Something
Amazing is truly something amazing to me, because it also brought a lot of
amazing connections. I have to mention the wonderful Joe Locke who is one of the
greatest vibraphone players and that came through Dado Moroni. It still seems
like a dream to me, because I come from a small village and to have such a
wonderful artist in the studio was just a dream come true.
Something Amazing was also a crazy
production if I may say something like this. We didn’t choose our music genre.
It was more on the Jazz side when I did
My Reflection and Enter Eyes. I
just wrote songs (for Something Amazing)
that sounded more Pop and we decided to explore more of the Pop world, but to do
that in our way. We only used acoustic instruments and we didn’t use drums,
except for “What’s Wrong?” when we used percussion that acted like drums. We
tried to experiment with a few things and I just loved the sound of that album.
I think it is different from the other things that we did. We went to the studio and we took a lot of time to
understand the way that we wanted to play the songs. When you put together a lot
of great musicians something magic will happen. It is just about the soul of the
musicians who came to play the songs. Sometimes I listen to the songs and I say
it is a strange album (she laughs). I
don’t understand if it is Pop, Acoustic Pop or R&B. I like the stories behind
the album.” Andrea Celeste’s album
Something Amazing is aptly named with
eight of the ten songs being outstanding original songs. You will not hear many
songs sung better than how Andrea Celeste sings her own song “Fascinating Fear,”
which opens this album and the title song “Something
Amazing,” is equally breathtaking. As for covering Patrick Hernandez’s song “Born
To Be Alive,” she says, “Everybody thought that I was totally
crazy. Maybe they were right. I don’t like Disco music. I love Jazz music, I
love Blues and all of the other stuff, but we heard the song and it was like a
challenge. The producer said to me why don’t you try to reharmonize this song?
You should try. I said no I won’t do that and I don’t like that (Andrea
Celeste is quite funny, as she changes her voice and recounts the conversation).
Then I said, hmm let me sit at the piano
and let me see the melody. I started to play other chords, I reharmonized the
song and I said, hmm I like that. I decided to put this song on the album, also
because of the lyrics. They sound light, but they have some kind of wisdom. We
were born to be alive and to be free. Freedom is just a religion to me.
Musically speaking it is what I try to keep. I want to be free when I write my
songs, so I want to be free to sing what I like. It was just like a little
manifesto. It is a dance song and I said okay let’s try it. I just want people
to think that I am crazy, what’s the problem? (She
says jokingly) I didn’t want to become that serious Jazz singer, I want to
do this. I love music. I said no,
let’s play with this song and it was a good experiment. In Italy they love
covers. Radio noticed this cover and it was featured on some national radio
(stations). Radio likes to play on the safe side, like okay
“Volare,” is famous, so let’s cover “Volare.”
We were talking about this before, business is something else. It is not
about music sometimes anymore.” In 2013 Se
Stasera Sono Qui was released and the album takes its title from the song of
the same name. She says, “I love “Se Stasera Sono Qui,” which is a song
by Luigi Tenco. It is about this guy who says if tonight I’m here it is because
I love you and you don’t know this yet, but you will need me (she
laughs). I just love the lyrics, because it is crazy that someone has the
honesty to say you just don’t know this yet, but you are going to need me. If
tonight I’m here it is because I can forgive. It is like the other person did
something that he didn’t like, but he is so in love that he has to go back to
this person. It is because you need me and because I can forgive you and I just
don’t want to throw away the love that I feel for you. To me coming here has
been like climbing the highest mountain in the world. Now that I’m here I just
want to forget the sad memories that I have. If tonight I am here it is just
because I love you and it is because you need me, but you don’t really know this
yet. Normally they do the song as a Blues ballad. It is not
sad, but it is a serious ballad. When I found out about the lyrics and I truly
understood what I felt about this song I decided to do this in a Jazz Manouche
style because I wanted it to be ironic. I think that being ironic is something
that will save the world. You don’t want to be so serious. It is also because
Luigi Tenco committed suicide and so he is this mysterious figure and this
mysterious life also. People did not understand why he committed suicide. It is
still a mystery to us. In Italy it is like he was a sad singer and songwriter.
He was a sad person, but it is not just like this. If you go through all of the
lyrics that he wrote he was a smart guy. You know he was just twenty-nine years
old when he died. He wrote these masterpieces when he was twenty-five years old.
I just wanted to bring out the ironic part of this song and of this song and
also Luigi Tenco is one of my favorites. Everybody thinks about him when writing
a song, because he was one of the best singers and songwriters that lived here.” The song “Se
Stasera Sono Qui,” is recorded as a duet with Zibba. “Zibba, you have to know that he is one of the best
singers and songwriters that we now have in Italy. He is an amazing, amazing
songwriter and singer. He just came
to the studio and in one take everything was perfect. Another incredible song from the album
Se Stasera Sono Qui is the upbeat
Italian song “Che Cosa c’è,” which Andrea Celeste explains, “is translated as
What’s Up? It is hard to explain this in English, but I am going to try.
It is about a person who discovers that he is in love with this woman and
it was written by Gino Paoli who he is a great, great star in Italy. He is from
Genova. It is a male song, but a lot of female singers have sung this song. It
is Che Cosa c’è, what’s up? I’m in love with you and I don’t care about the
other people who are not you. I love you so much that the world belongs to me, a
world that is you. I don’t know if that is a good translation, but I’m trying. I
don’t know how to explain how much I love you. I don’t know what I feel for you,
but if you look at me and you look into my eyes for just one moment you will
understand yourself. So, what’s up? I’m in love with you and I feel good and I
can live, because we’re together. I can live if I am close to you. This is what
is going on. It is a beautiful song from the sixties and Gino Paoli is one of my
favorites.” Andrea Celeste is not just one of Italy’s best singers
and songwriters, but she is also one of the best singers and songwriters that
Riveting Riffs Magazine has interviewed in our almost thirteen years of
publication. Make sure you
visit her website.
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