THE TAMBOR Y CANTO COMPANY
Director Simon Bolzinger
The Tambor y Canto Company
blends jazz with the numerous
kinds of traditional music from South America and the Caribbean.
The Tambor Y Canto Company was founded in 2013 in Marseille during the 10th "Rencontres Tambor y Canto", festival of the same name. It blends jazz with the many kinds of traditional musics from South America and the Caribbean, under the direction of pianist Simon Bolzinger.
It is composed by :
Julio Molina Perez / vocals and percussion from Cuba.
Patinho Axé / vocals and percussion from Brazil.
Rocco Sedano / dance and percussion from Argentina.
Daniel Ochoa Licero / vocals and percussion from Colombia.
Olivier Temime / saxophone.
Willy Quiko / double bass, bass.
Simon Bolzinger / piano, direction, composition.
​
Four master percussionists sing, dance, recite, strike their drums, eager to share with you the richness of ancestral songs and rhythms.
The blending is done by means of the piano, the saxophone and the double bass competing each in their virtuosity in a back and forth from one country to another, that finally arrives at a new unclassifiable music somewhere between jazz and traditional music, one made up of rhythms of African origin, Amerindian melodies, texts from ancient Europe and contemporary creation.
Tambor Y Canto: concentrated energy, pleasure and creative boldness !
​
Pianist, composer, arranger, Simon Bolzinger has a background in classical and jazz (having trained with Magali Souriau and Guy Longnon), in addition to his scientific career (with Jean-Claude Risset). He is passionate about traditional music from South America and the Caribbean, which he transcribes on piano or rewrites for orchestra, always respecting tradition and striving for authenticity.
In 1989 he went to live in Venezuela where he performed for two years.
Originally from the Liberdade neighborhood (Salvador de Bahia - Brazil), Patinho Axé trained with the legendary group from Salvador ILÊ AIYÊ, where he became an internationally renowned percussionist and teacher.
Alongside his career as a professional musician, he has worked as a percussion teacher and educator for underprivileged youth in his neighborhood, and has taught at the Mae Hilda Jitolu school for ten years.
He has played with the greatest, from Carlinhos Brown to Björk, by way of Doudou N'Daye Rose.
Julio Molina Perez is a percussionist, singer, and dancer as well. At age 7, his family educated him into a ritual musician. For 3 years
he was a member of a famous Camaguëy and Rumbata group. In his 12th year, he joined the Folkloric Set of Camaguëy, one of the finest Cuban ballets operating in the interior as a singer, dancer and musician studying very Cuban folklore. For the last 12 years, he has been collaborating in Europe with several conservatories in France and Italy, in addition to being the artistic director of the group
La Mezcla of Genoa.
Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, he started playing music at a very young age. Daniel Ochoa Licero studied at great schools of folkloric music as well as at the Universidad del Atlántico in the Department of Fine Arts of Barranquilla, thanks to acclaimed professors like Einer Scaff. Over the course of his career, he has represented his country at various international festivals (CIOFF) in South America and Europe. In the last 10 years, he has also accompanied well-known artists such as Sebastian "El Chato", the Richard Gardet orchestra.
Born to a father who was a dancer and choreographer of Argentine folklore and mother, a classical dancer and pianist, Georges Rocco Sedano has been immersed art his entire life. He studied piano for nine years at the conservatory of Rennes with Pierre Froment (a student of Alfred Cortot's) and Eliane Froment.
His father later taught him malambo (Argentinean tap dance), boleadoras (percussive dance instrument), Argentinean percussion and jazz dance techniques, while his mother rounded off this work by teaching him the rudiments of classical dance.
These traditional percussive dances are his specialty and he has honed them thanks to his diligent work on percussion and drums.
At age fourteen, Olivier Temime studied music with
a private teacher, and then under Philippe Renault at the Marseille Conservatory, where he obtained a gold medal in the jazz class. Winner of the Jazz Futur 90 contest sponsored by Dee Dee Bridgewater and the soloist award winner at the La Défense 97 festival, he established himself at festivals (Marciac, Calvi, Antibes, Montreux... ), jam sessions
and encounters (Johnny Griffin, Wynton Marsalis, Jon and Michèle Hendricks, Steve Grossman, Daniel Humair, Emmanuel Bex, Laurent de Wilde, les Belmondo, Jean Loup Longnon, Eric Le Lann, just to name a few), as one of the most spirited improvisers on the European scene.
Of Guadeloupean and Sicilian origins, the double bass player, bassist and composer from Marseille Willy Quiko has taken part in numerous projects mixing different musical universes such as jazz, classical and some world music, and more particularly African music (the K.B.K trio, P.A. Bona group), Latin America and the Caribbean (Kontigo Salsa, Orchesta Sabroson). He graduated in jazz music from the conservatory of Marseille, and also graduated in classical music from the conservatory of Aix-en-Provence, where he earned a chamber music award with special mention of the jury. hHe has collaborated on concerts and teaching sessions with various orchestras and ensembles, such as Roy René's Les archets, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Aix-en-Provence, the Chamber Orchestra of Marseille, the OJM, the Chamber Orchestra of the Toulon Opera, the London Symphony Orchestra...