Casale Monferrato – A total of seven thousand visitors at thirty events, forty trees donated to the Pau Park: a great celebration of music and territory ends with a farewell to 2024.
The 2023 Monfrà Jazz Fest ended with dancing. If one of the main themes of the music festival, now in its sixth year, was “Let’s Smile”, then the latest event on Saturday 9 September at the Magnobert Distillery was all about smiles and fun. From 19:00, the visit to the historical Casalese company and dinner with Il Vetusto Monferrato drew a full house of the public, organizers and sponsors. A few hours later, they were all dancing in the yard as the music of The Kitchen Swing Band filled the air along with the smell of marc.
However, we also experience the atmosphere of a long goodbye. Jenny Notarianni presents the main characters of the evening for the last time this year. The deputy mayor of Casale, Emanuele Capra, sends greetings to the institutions: “There is a bit of melancholy because the festival is ending, but we are sure that Le Muse is already working on the next edition, which the municipality will be happy to support.” Valeria Luparia, the owner of the house, remembers the support of the festival from the moment it was first held. Davide Rolandi, who supports the festival with the Rolandi Auto dealership, talks about how fun it is to explore the streets of Monferrato on a motorcycle. Finally, Ima Ganora, President of Le Muse Academy and creator of MonJF, invites for the last time the ritual of all this year’s events: smile at your neighbor.
Moreover, the Fest has many reasons to smile: about thirty events from the April announcement to today, concerts, exhibitions, master classes, exclusive productions, which in total attracted about 7,000 spectators, but, above all, confirmed the ability to attract more always in the territory in its various parts, bringing it to Casale, to UNESCO Monferrato and finally to Wine and Spirits precisely during the harvest days. Another topic that the Monfrà Jazz Fest actively developed was the topic of sustainable development, which saw next to Piedmont’s Pau Park and promoted various green initiatives. The most obvious of these, related to the distribution of water during the events, allowed the collection of sources for the planting of about 40 trees in Pau Park.
And we come to the musical part: before the final on Saturday, Thursday, September 7, a meeting was scheduled at the Moonfrà brewery in Casale with the warm voice of Mila Ogliastro, Riccardo Marchese on drums, Gigi Andreone on double bass and Andrea Rogato. , keyboards. An overview of the greatest women’s jazz standards was offered, explained in their themes by Mila Ogliastro, who managed to capture attention of the large audience present. On the other hand, the Kitchen Swing Band is very good at using swing and blues as weapons of mass entertainment. Mara Panico’s enchanting voice dominates the exciting rhythm section consisting of Marco Serra (drums), Andrea Rogato (piano) and Gigi Andreone (double bass).
Alberto Gandin, on guitar, fronts the band and leads the increasingly engaged audience like a seasoned entertainer. To such classics as “Fly Me to the Moon,” “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” “My Baby Just Takes Care of Me,” Nicole and Alan Pipino start dancing: this is a spin-off of the “Kitchen Swing” project, launched in collaboration with “Muse”, who brought together many Monferratos to learn the Lindy Hop (and from September 13 will invite others to take courses at the premises of the Le Muse Academy in Palazzo Vitta). The dancers increase until an actual lesson is being held below the stage for about thirty people. The band picks up the pace for the last 40 minutes, alternating between Ray Charles and swing-style hits from Rihanna or Daft Punk. Eventually, when they released “Never Can Tell” and “Rock & Roll”, no one could sit still and the whole distillery became a dance floor.
