Jalisse

File:Jalisse Sanremo 1997.jpg

The Jalisse, winners of the 1997 Sanremo Festival

Jalisse (Italian pronunciation: [ʒaˈlis]) is an Italian musical duo consisting of spouses Alessandra Drusian (born 18 May 1969) and Fabio Ricci (born 5 September 1965), who have been performing together since 1993.

In 1997 they won the Sanremo Festival, "Big" category, with the song "Fiumi di parole" and took part in the Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, ranking 4th.

Career

Beginnings

The two met for the first time in 1990 in the studio of a record company. Drusian in that period competed with numerous victories in musical competitions in Veneto and Friuli–Venezia Giulia; Ricci was the singer and keyboardist of a group called Vox Populi, with whom he had released a maxi-single entitled "I'm So Bad" and presented himself as a songwriter to the record companies.

From 1990 to 1993 Drusian, after being launched by Pippo Baudo in the TV program Grand Prix, made a series of appearances on television broadcasts. In 1992 she found herself with Ricci: the two decided to work together and two years later they formes Jalisse, taking their name from a character in the television series The Cosby Show. The poet Younis Tawfik later revealed jalisse (جليس jalīs) in Arabic means "diner who knows how to entertain in the tale of fables and music: sit, sit and listen".

In 1995 the duo participated in Sanremo Giovani (the Sanremo Festival competition for emerging artists) with the song "Vivo", finishing third in the second evening and acquiring the right to participate in the Sanremo Festival proper the following year, where they ranked sixth in the "New proposals" section with the song "Liberami" ("Set Me Free").

Victory at the Sanremo Festival

In 1997 they participated again in the Festival, once again by right, thanks to the rule, introduced two years before and present for the last time, which allowed the non-winning finalists of the "New Proposals" section of the previous edition to compete for 4 places among the "Champions". The song, "Fiumi di parole", passed the selection and ranked first in the event, getting the Jalisse two prizes: the Golden Lion as winners of the Festival and the Silver Lion as authors (Alessandra Drusian and Carmen Di Domenico for the lyrics, Fabio Ricci the music). This victory turned out to be among the most debated in the history of the Festival, for the controversial aftermath that followed. The song bore resemblance with "Listen to Your Heart" by Roxette, but no actions were taken in this regard because plagiarism was non-existent.

During the 1997 Sanremo week, the duo's debut album, Il cerchio magico del mondo ("The Magic Circle of the World"), was released. The result in terms of sales (50,000 copies) was below expectations, but due to the fact that the two had reached the Sanremo victory as unknown artists and with an unreleased album.

Two months later they took part in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997 in Dublin with the same song, reaching the fourth place; there were speculations of boycott from the national broadcaster RAI, which revamped in 2009 when Gigi Vesigna, in his book Vox Populi, stated that the defeat of Jalisse at the event had been driven by RAI: if the duo had won, the Italian public TV would have had to organize the 1998 edition, an operation deemed commercially disadvantageous given the scarce interest of the Italian audience for this event. Italy withdrew from the musical competition until 2011.

The following year, Jalisse submitted to the Sanremo Festival commission the song "Le cime del Tibet" ("The Tops of Tibet"), written and composed by Maurizio Fabrizio and Guido Morra, but it was discarded. Soon the duo was labeled as a "meteor" in Italy and belittled by the mass media which, among other things, played on the alleged plagiarism of "Fiumi di parole". In fact, thanks to the good placement at the Eurovision Song Contest, they began a series of concerts and tours abroad, including the United States of America (Boston), Canada, Russia (Moscow) and Chile (Viña del Mar International Song Festival). In the meantime, the duo's record was included in the programming of United Airlines and chosen by Fred Bronson for Billboard as one of the most interesting albums of 1997.

In 1999, on the occasion of the beatification of Padre Pio, they wrote the song "Luce e pane" ("Light and Bread"), sung only during concerts and never marketed until 2014. In 2000 they released a single, "I'll Fly", distributed through the internet, which saw Drusian as a soloist.

Return

In 2001–2002 Drusian debuted as an actress in the musical comedy Emozioni ("Emotions") directed by Sergio Japino. In the meantime, Ricci decided to leave the vocal parts of the songs to his wife and devoted himself to their small independent label, the Tregatti Produzioni Musicali.

In 2004 the single "6 desiderio" ("U R Desire") was released, advertised with an innovative formula: it became the soundtrack of a Roman taxi company that inserted their voices and the recording of the song in their call center. The poet friend Norman Zoia (also author of the Madonna dei Maestri Cantori, dedicated to Drusian) wrote "Un taxi chiamato desiderio" ("A Taxi Named Desire"), contributing to baptize the initiative "Jalisse's Taxi Music".

In the spring of 2005, the album Siedi e ascolta ("Sit and Listen") was released in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, containing two unreleased tracks and some tracks from the previous album totally revisited, including a Spanish version of "Fiumi di parole" titled "Ríos de palabras" dedicated to South American fans. The record was promoted in Northern Europe and some extracts from it were included in compilations in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. In Sweden, they reached third place at the Baltic Song Contest in Karlshamn. The German magazine Für Sie distributed 600,000 copies with the compilation attached.

After the 2007 announcement of San Marino's first participation in the Eurovision Song Contest the following year, Jalisse immediately said they were ready to return by representing the country, and subsequently presented a song for internal selection to San Marino RTV, which failed to be selected.

The pair also took part in the selections for the Sanremo Music Festival 2007, but their song "Linguaggio universale" ("Universal Language"), inspired by an essay by the Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi-Montalcini, was rejected. The album Linguaggio universale came out in September 2007, containing 12 poems set to music by Jalisse and narrated by Valeria Ducato, plus the homonymous track and "Ali tremanti di pace" ("Trembling Wings of Peace"). Presented at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, the CD was attached to the book Education, the key to development by the Rita Levi-Montalcini Foundation, published by Baldini & Castoldi.

In November 2009, the duo collaborated with the Greek site Oikotimes.com, analyzing the entries of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest of that year. They played the role of themselves in Fausto Brizzi's film Many Kisses Later, performing their signature song "Fiumi di parole".

In 2010 they launched the project Crescere insieme a L'Aquila ("Growing Up Together in L'Aquila") which involved schools and local artists into writing songs and brought them in concert on 8 June at the Stadio Tommaso Fattori in L'Aquila. Both emerging and well-known artists worked alongside children. The project was conceived in 2005 to highlight the pupils' creativity in schools, having their lyrics put to music by professional musicians, and had already involved numerous schools in the province of Treviso.

In 2011 they took part in the 50th international Human Rights Tour exhibition in Monselice with a new musical formation that included the Paduan guitarist and singer Carlo Zannetti, also known as Poetasternote, on stage. The three began that year a series of concerts and collaborations.

In 2012 the single "Tra rose e cielo" ("Between the Roses and the Sky"), written together with the Italian-Iraqi poet Younis Tawfik, who had escaped from the regime of Saddam Hussein. The song is about a love story of a woman for a man who left for a peace mission. The single was accompanied by a video directed by Massimo Toniato and was broadcast in Iraq on the Christian television Ishtar TV, with Arabic subtitles. Two other singles came out later: "E se torna la voce" ("And If the Voice Returns") in March 2013, linked to the laboratories with prisoners from the San Vittore Prison in Milan with the Mike Bongiorno Foundation, and in June 2013 "Dove sei" ("Where You Are") with artists from the Czech Republic.

On 26 March 2014, Drusian presented herself to The Voice of Italy but failed to be blind-chosen by any of the coaches. Also in 2014 they won the Mondragone Città Career Award at the Mondragone Festival, the Campania Festival Award, the Alessandra Corà Award in L'Aquila, the Premio dell'Umanità Award. They also launched Song of the Knight, a literary competition for World Knights' Day which took place on 20 September in Fornovo di Taro.

In 2015 they launched the international Light Song Contest 2015 for the UNESCO-sponsored International Year of Light: they wrote the song "Faro de Estrellas" ("Star Lighthouse") and presented it in Meridas, Mexico.

In 2016, they toured Kazakhstan in three sold out dates. In December of that year, The Best of Jalisse was released, with all of the duo's singles, and promoted it throughout 2017.

In 2018 they started an art project with record producer Gianni Errera of One Music Publishing and begin an artistic project that included a the soundtrack for the film Niente di personale with Claudia Cardinale, released in September 2018. The film is presented in May at the Cannes Film Festival, out of competition. In the same year, they were among the competitors of the TV program Ora o mai più, broadcast on Rai 1 and presented by Amadeus, where they won the third episode (out of its four) and overall came second.

In the autumn of 2018, Alessandra Drusian took part in the eighth edition of Tale e quale show and the seventh edition it's tournament edition, ranking second in both.

On 3 May 2019, the single "Cavallo bianco" ("White Horse") was released, a cover of the 1976 Matia Bazar song, with the collaboration of its co-author and co-founder of the band Carlo Marrale. The video was made by cartoonist director Andrea Princivalli and its preview premiered on 11 May on TG1 during Vincenzo Mollica's column DoReCiakGulp. They were on tour with ORATOUR 2019.

Personal life

The two got married in 1999 and later had two daughters: Angelica and Aurora (the latter born 22 January 2007).

Discography

Albums

• 1997 – Il cerchio magico del mondo
• 2006 – Siedi e ascolta
• 2009 – Linguaggio universale
• 2016 – The Best of Jalisse

Singles

• 1995 – "Vivo"
• 1996 – "Liberami"
• 1997 – "Fiumi di parole"
• 1998 – "Le cime del Tibet"
• 1999 – "Luce e pane"
• 2000 – "I'll Fly"
• 2004 – "6 desiderio"
• 2006 – "Fede dell'amore"
• 2007 – "Un giorno a Napoli"
• 2009 – "Siamo ancora qui"
• 2009 – "Non voglio lavorare"
• 2009 – "No quiero trabajar"
• 2011 – "Ritornerà il futuro"
• 2012 – "Tra rose e cielo"
• 2013 – "E se torna la voce"
• 2013 – "Dove sei"
• 2014 – "L'alchimista, per sempre tuo cavaliere"
• 2015 – "Faro de estrellas"
• 2018 – "Ora"
• 2019 – "Cavallo bianco"

Television

Title	Year	Notes
Eurovision Song CZ	2018	International jury member