Leucasia

Leucasia is a group of musicians, singers and dancers from Italy that were brought together for this CD by Mike Mainieri. This album combines two forms of music: American jazz and Italian music with dance (known as 'pizzica'). It is an atypical ritualistic form of trance music derived from southern Italy called the tarantella or la tarantata whose origins date back to the Middles Ages, with traces of similar songs that can even be found in Magna Graecia. It is in the humble dwellings of these small villages where the locals speak a dialect of Albanian, Greek and southern Italian that this music first came to life. The lyrics are sung in Italian and various dialects. Features saxophonist George Garzone and vibraphonist Mike Mainieri, both Italian-Americans.