CHRISTMAS WITH GOSPEL NEW YEAR WITH GELATO

namely Bobby Jones’s Gospel songs and Ray Gelato’s mesmerising jumping blues as a tribute to Louis Prima

At the end of the year, the Teatro delle Muse is set to host two highly different performances, both entirely relevant to the period of year in which they take place. Soon after Christmas, on 27^th December to be precise, Le Muse will host its very own “gospel singing” day in the main hall of the theatre, featuring Tennessee gospel singer Bobby Jones, accompanied by an impressive 20-member choir, the Nashville Superchoir. On 2^nd January, the irresistible Ray Gelato will be wishing the audience a happy new year and rekindling the flame of the Italo-American jumping blues of the fifties, accompanied by his small orchestra.

A true star of the American gospel scene, Bobby Jones has been appearing regularly on television (B.E.T.) every Sunday since 1980 in a programme devoted to religious music, during which he does not limit himself to conducting, he also becomes a powerful preacher and lecturer. He recently won a Grammy Award for best gospel record together with his group “New Life”, and for best live performance. For thirty years, Jones’s career has developed in a variety of areas: he is a baritone singer, a composer, a producer, a promoter and a gospel preacher for the new generations. His shows are the only gospel shows to be aired on American television: the audience size in the United States has exceeded all expectations, revolutionising the entire music industry, in terms of productions and sales.

Bobby Jones’s records include: Sooner Or Later, his début album (1976), There's Hope For This World (1978), Caught up (1979), the two successful albums of the early 80s, Soul Set Free (nominated for a Grammy) and Come Together (awarded the Dove Prize for contemporary black gospel), Another Time (1986), Never Forget (1990) and Bring It To Jesus (1994).

And after Christmas comes the New Year, celebrated by the most exhilarating group in business, Ray Gelato and his Giants, for an evening that is set to be a cross between Louis Prima, Dean Martin, Sam Bufera and Robert De Niro, plus a ton of swing and fun. This band of jokesters from England is in the business of recycling jump, jive and pop songs for fun and dancing. Ray Gelato (stage name) is the son of an Italian American who performed his military service in Great Britain. His father loved “hard” saxophonists and, as a child, Ray used to listen to Illinois Jacquet and Eddie Lockjaw Davis’s records, as well as rock’n’roll. It was love at first sight, and Ray has never abandoned that genre, even if he now adds more than a pinch of self-irony to his music, which people like a lot, especially when he lends his clumsy Italian to old hits like “Buonasera signorina”. The “retro” swing of the 40s-50s was only rediscovered a few years ago in the USA, with new groups spreading like mushrooms, and now the revival has come to Italy. Mention must be made that the Italian “swing” tradition is far from negligible: on the contrary (Buscaglione, the Cetra Quartet, Carosone, Rabagliati, Natalino Otto, Jula de Palma, to mention but a few), this is why the British Ray Gelato has found the receptive spirit for recording his first live record here in Italy. Ray Gelato’s popularity in Italy is due mostly to his work with Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo and with the Good Fellas. Passionately fond of jazz and swing and, to the same degree, of big talkers like Buscaglione, he likes to portray the figure of the dim-witted gangster. A saxophonist, singer and “front man”, his CDs and concerts include a sparkling range of songs with the utmost performing and interpretation credibility: O Marie, Josephine Please No Lean On The Bell, Tu Vuo' Fa l'Americano, Carina, along with the evergreen Everybody Loves Somebody and a medley of Just a Gigolo and I Ain't Got Nobody, Solitude by Duke Ellington and Apple Honey by Woody Herman.