Welcome to our 18th installment of Weis Center Sessions!
Each Friday, we release a video that features a member of the BucknellU University community. Today we feature Carl Kirby on guitar and Steve Catania on mandolin performing “Bossa Dorado.”
Carl Kirby (guitar) is a Professor in the Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences.
Steve Catania (mandolin) has produced instruments such as gourdolins, dulcimers, tongue drums, gourd kalimbas, and his invention Catpaws, a type of wooden spoon percussion instrument with a more civilized sound than metal spoons.
Although Carl and Steve have played a lot of music together in numerous jam sessions, they’ve only been in one band together: a contra dance band called Total Hip Replacement. At times they were joined in this band by Bucknell’s Sabrina Kirby and Jim Van Fleet, of the Writing Center and Library&IT, respectively.
Steve has played in many musical settings, particularly in the duo CatmanStu with Stu Schwrader and in The Little Paris Trio with Ed Scholl and Flora Eyster.
Carl says about the piece, “Bossa Dorado is an energetic modern (1982) jazz tune by French guitarist and violinist Dorado Schmitt. He created and performed in the soundtrack to “Latcho Drom,” a documentary film about the Romani people.”
He continues, “Many Romani (or Roma) people find the term ‘Gypsy’ to be pejorative, but many references to this marvelous music employ the term. The music was essentially originated by the amazing jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who called the music ‘Jazz Manouche’ (Gypsy jazz). This music is carried on by musicians across many parts of the world today.”
Recorded at and produced by the Weis Center for the Performing Arts at Bucknell University.
Enjoy!