MARCO TAGGIASCO & Friends – Things And Moments Live (2011)

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Now we have a real treat for classic WestCoast AOR lovers, Marco Taggiasco’s “Things and Moments Live”, a wonderful live recording featuring soulful rendition to songs of this great composer.
I can easily place Marco Taggiasco besides David Foster, as he is a terrific songwriter, arranger and pianist as well.

In the eighties Marco formed his first band with full line-up featuring sessions players from the jazz rock world and together with his brother he wrote most of the material. During the 90’s Taggiasco focused on studio works producing and arranging for different singers, and beside that write music for theatre productions and movies.
At the end of that decade, decided to released the promo EP ‘Three Love Ballads’, containing 3 songs written and produced in a classy Westcoast Adult Contemporary style.
In 2000 he met Andrea Sanchini, a young male vocalist and they decided to collaborate and eventually to make a record. So they started working on ‘Thousand Things’, earning compliments from music giants such as Eric Tagg or Jay Graydon.

But his real full album was the acclaimed 2008 release “This Moment”, recorded between Rome, Copenhagen and LA. The album counts two unreleased tracks written by Eric Tagg and Eric is on the opening track as a lead vocalist, coming back in the studio after 10 years of absence.
Among the special guests there’s David Pack delivering an incredible performance on the title track ‘This Moment’.

Now, Taggiasco is back with a great live recording featuring 15 cuts of his entire career, including many songs of ‘This Moment’ with new arrangements. Not the usual live album, since 5 tracks never released on CD are performed live for the first time.
The record features Marco’s signature songs like “April In My Heart” and “This Moment”, as well as his recent hit “Got To Believe This Time”, written with Robbie Dupree and played for the first time, in addition to the classic “Never Too Late (For Love)”.
There’s two gorgeous ballads performed by emerging female vocal talent Daphne Nisi, along with an emotive version of Marco’s “Healing Rain”, performed by Danish singer-songwriter Claus Leonhardt.
But the star here are the brilliant vocals of the awesome Andrea Sanchini, a fantastic singer with a huge and deep tone very similar to maestro Bill Cantos.

“The idea behind the project is: I had some unreleased songs” – Marco explains – “songs that didn’t find a way on my records, good songs in my opinion, and I also had the songs from my very first cd, which was made with a massive use of programming and very little live playing so Riziero (Riziero Bixio, album producer) and I thought it would have been nice to gather round some friends and make a concert to share those songs and give them a chance to be heard in a fresher way”.

All in “Things and Moments Live” sounds perfect, immaculate, with a quality that seems recorded into the best L.A. studio.
No doubt that you can hear the inspiration from artists such as David Foster, Michael McDonald, Bobby Caldwell, Eric Tagg or Richard Marx.
It is great to know that musicians from Europe still dig into the Classic WestCoast music, and Marco Taggiasco & Friends are the best representation of it.
I can’t recommend this album enough. Excels quality on all aspects.
“Things and Moments Live” is simply A Must Have.

01 – Ouverture In D (Instrumental)
02 – Let My Love Grow (feat. Andrea Sanchini)
03 – Thousand Things (feat. Andrea Sanchini)
04 – Burning For You (feat. Andrea Sanchini)
05 – This Moment (feat. Andrea Sanchini)
06 – Angel of August (feat. Andrea Sanchini)
07 – April In My Heart (feat. Daphne Nisi)
08 – Before the End of Time (feat. Andrea Sanchini)
09 – Wish On a Star (feat. Daphne Nisi)
10 – Breathless (feat. Daphne Nisi)
11 – Got to Believe (This Time) (feat. Andrea Sanchini)
12 – Healing Rain (feat. Claus Leonhardt)
13 – Radio Silence (feat. Andrea Sanchini)
14 – Hangin’ On Tomorrow (feat. Andrea Sanchini)
15 – Never Too Late (For Love) (ft. A.Sanchini, D.Nisi & C. Leonhardt)

Marco Taggiasco – Piano, Keyboards
Andrea Sanchini – Vocals
Daphne Nisi – Vocals
Claus Leonhardt – Vocals
Pino Iodice – Guitars
Giancarlo Capo – Guitar
Fabio Penna – Bass
Gabriele Pistilli – Sax, Clarinet
Riziero RB Bixio – Drums

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