Sara Longo, Alvise Seggi – Mystery Tour – 03/29/25 @Sunside, Paris.

Mystery Tour, the new album by Franco-Italian singer Sara Longo and poly-instrumentalist Alvise Seggi, is an invitation to reverie and, above all, a daring and sensitive re-reading of the Beatles’ repertoire.

What a Voice!

Sara Longo whom we’ve always listened to with equal pleasure in Paris jazz clubs, strikes hard with this album full of surprises and delicacy.

And what an overall sound! Thanks to Alvise Seggi’s playing and rhythmics.

Vivid yet tender colors, a true group sound on original compositions, such as “All that Matters is Today”, which on first listen we thought might be a previously unreleased Beatles song, or on covers of women who have made jazz history, such as Carla Blay or Mercedes Sosa.

It’s a symbiotic relationship, a daring gamble in which each enhances the other’s talent, creating a musical experience that invites attentive listening and immersion between two sound worlds: Sara Longo‘s warm, tender, delicate voice and Alvise Seggi‘s atypical 5-string cello.

Among listeners, sometimes serious music lovers, there are the absolute fans of the 4 boys from Manchester, then there are those who prefer the Stones or who, as pure jazz addicts, have never been convinced by sixties pop. But all agree on one thing: Beatles melodies are a must. There are some 200 of them, written in the eight years between 1962 and 1970. Enough to continue to inspire our duo!

What’s interesting about Mystery Tour is that it’s a contemporary, timeless voyage in sound, which revisits these familiar melodies with a rare sensitivity, but adorned here with new rhythms and colors, offering a rereading that’s both intimate and universal, culminating in a magnificent creation, “All that Matters is Today”, an original composition in pure Beatles style, and perhaps heralding the color of the next record!

Sara Longo has been kind enough to reveal a few aspects of this Mystery Tour.

«It was while playing in jazz clubs with Alvise, where we were showing our compositions as standards, that one day we said to ourselves, “What if we changed our repertoire and revisited the Beatles…?” So we came up with four initial arrangements, which aren’t necessarily the titles you’ll find on the record. But if I remember correctly, they included And I Love Her, Cant’ Buy me Love and For no One… These first three songs, which we arranged, have kept all their freshness and are thus integrated into the album. The other arrangements are more sophisticated.

So we started with fairly spontaneous arrangements on those three tracks. After that, I took out my loop station, because I really enjoy doing a track on my own at the Loop Station during our concerts. I did Tomorrow Never Knows, for example, and from then on we thought we had a sound!».

And at the same time, we’d been wanting to do a tribute to women for a long time, so we said to ourselves: “The Beatles as the first boy band in the history of music, that’s perfect, and so it fits in well with the second half of the concert, which is a tribute to women”.

So the first concert was half Beatles, those four songs, and the other half about the women composers who inspired us.

Carla Bley came out first, because Alvise is a big fan! He came up with a beautiful arrangement of Endless Lawns, which also features on the album.

Then, in turn, I suggested Camille’s Que je t’aime, because I think it’s a feminine revisiting of a song by that male muse Johnny (Haliday), but which works really well when it’s sung like that and as we’ve arranged it.

Then came Mercedes Sosa with Alfonsina Y el Mar, a song we’d been playing for a long time and which we also wanted to include on Mystery Tour, and then finally Cesaria Evora – because how can you miss such a woman, such an artist? And we did this song with a text that I transcribed in Neapolitan.

So the choice of songs for Mystery Tour is a handmade one, born of experience in the field. It’s the arrangements that work best and sound great that decide whether they are retained or not.

All the tracks on the album have been reworked and fine-tuned over the course of our concerts and audience feedback.

As a result, we’re more than ready and seasoned for the festivals and venues that will want to program us.

Mystery Tour goes on tour again!

À ce propos, illico presto, au Sunside, Paris, le samedi 29 mars 2025 à 19H.

Des couleurs vives et tendres à la fois, un vrai son de groupe comme par exemple sur cette composition originale, « All that Matters is Today » que nous avions pensée, à la première écoute, être un inédit retrouvé des Beatles.

Mystery Tour, un album à écouter d’urgence, puis à repasser ensuite en boucle et à offrir. Un duo à programmer dès ce printemps et cet été dans les salles et les festivals »

By the way, book your Tickets now, at the Sunside, Paris, on Saturday March 29, 2025 at 7pm.

Brightly colored and tender at the same time, with a real band sound, as on this original composition, “All that Matters is Today”, which we thought, on first listen, was a previously unreleased Beatles track.

Mystery Tour is an album to be listened to as a matter of urgency, then played over and over again, and given as a gift. A duo to be programmed this spring and summer in concert halls and festivals”.

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