IMPFestX Meet the Artists: Andrew D’Angelo & Carlo Cennamo: "Saxophone: The Mechanics and the Artist”

Respected Seattle-based saxophone repairman Carlo Cennamo and iconoclast saxophonist Andrew D'Angelo team up for a masterclass focused on the relationship between the saxophonists' art and the saxophone's mechanics, unpacking how the two influence the resulting sound made by the artist through the horn. 

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Andrew D'Angelo's charismatic presence and iconoclastic musical ambition have been well-established over the course of his twenty year plus career and his key roles in bands like Human Feel, the Matt Wilson Quartet and Tyft. His dedication to pushing his limits and his willingness to delve into new musical areas have been powerful inspirations to his peers and to a new generation of improvisers. His forceful tone and aggressive improvisational style have made him one of the most influential alto saxophonists of his time.

Andrew D'Angelo was raised in Seattle, where he forged powerful musical and personal relationships with fellow young musicians Chris Speed and Jim Black before moving to New York City in 1986. He reconnected with Speed and Black in Boston, where they formed Human Feel with guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel.

Human Feel would prove to be one of the central incubators of new jazz for the 1990's. When the band moved to Brooklyn in the early 1990's, they were rapidly absorbed into the blossoming downtown music scene, becoming sidemen of choice for many world-renowned artists. D'Angelo joined bands and made records with Erik Friedlander, Bobby Previte, Jamie Saft/Cuong Vu and would forge another long-lasting musical relationship with drummer Matt Wilson.

As a composer, D'Angelo has created a powerful personal language rooted in jazz but incorporating influences from electro-acoustic music, noise, and modern classical music. D'Angelo's work as a composer has included music for big band, chamber groups, string orchestra, various jazz ensembles and soloists.

 

Carlo Cennamo

Carlo Cennamo began playing the saxophone in New Haven, CT, in the 1980s and moved to Chicago in the late nineties to join the explosively creative music scene. There he began a more comprehensive study of saxophone tone production, exchanging ideas with all the great horn players there at that time. Those years helped shape his understanding of the saxophone experience. He wrote music for, and played with, various groups, including Him, Orso, The Boom, and Icy Demons. Cennamo toured with these groups and performed in every major city in the United States and Europe, participating in more than thirty professional recordings. 

Making the decision to study instrument repair after his first child was born, Cennamo moved to Elkhorn, Wisconsin to apprentice at Badger State Repair with Ed Strege, focusing primarily on woodwind restoration. The training at Badger was administered one-on-one, by master technicians with more than thirty years experience. Those apprentices that made the cut worked under much scrutiny, learning to complete each job with the greatest attention to detail and quality.

Cennamo moved to Seattle after the birth of his second child and since 2006 has been been providing musicians in the Puget Sound area with expert repair and restoration of flutes, clarinets, and saxophones.