Interview with Marcelo Paganini from 2018

I won a Facebook contest at the last minute and went to Cruise to the Edge in November 2015. I played in the jam at Miami Magic Casino and on the ship... It was a life changing experience. I met lots of wonderful people that became my best friends. I saw many great bands, some wonderful musicians that are no longer around us. I saw both shows of Allan Holdsworth, spoke to him twice, he signed a CD for me. I took  breakfast with Billy Sherwood of Yes who recorded one song on my album released in 2014. I could go on forever talking about this cruise... And the next one of course...

I worked on a new musical film I wrote called "Requiem for Belchior" that was co-directed and co-produced by Juliana de Oliveira,  with wonderful drone aerial images of Rio de Janeiro. It was a lot of hard work, there is a trailer on my Facebook page, the film was completed in the Summer 2017.

Fall 2017 I finally released 2012 Space Traffic Jam in France with a show at Reveillon Jazz Cafe in September and a showcase in October at Music'Alençon with my new band with: Ricardo Fiuza on keyboards, with Marc Madore on bass and Christophe Bras on drums. Some video excerpts of this show were posted on the internet and got thousands of views...

I invited Pink Floyd's singer Durga McBroom to come to my studio in the Normandy countryside in France in August 2016. We recorded four songs and two videos. It was one of  the highest points of my musical life.  I worked several months on the music and videos. It was released  on March the first 2018 as a four song EP B4ever now with me on guitar and keys, Durga McBroom on vocals, Eumir Deodato on keys on two tracks, Gary Husband on drums and Marc Madore on bass.  It is getting airplay in several countries...

Most recent, a couple of weeks ago "Almost every other guitar player out there is a copy of somebody else, but not you, your playing is fresh and original." It was not printed anywhere. It was a chat with a guitar player after radio show Friday Night Progressive.  Maybe I am just not good at copying other people. Who knows?  I guess I try to make wrong sounds kind of interesting. When I saw Durga McBroom inside my studio singing like an angel  it was powerful. I knew I must be doing something right when she said "yes"...

Work on my new prog album. There is a song  I wrote about my Cruise to the Edge experience called  "Captain's Face" that is already recorded. It is dedicated to Larry Morand, the producer of the cruise, who I never met, but had such an huge impact on my musical life. Vocals were done by Karla Downey and Jamison Smeltz, who also did the wicked sax solo. I met them on the cruise, of course. Jamison also recorded vocals on the song "Soul Much Further Away" with music by Lo Borges and lyrics by me.  Jan Dumee from Focus already recorded an awesome guitar solo on this song . Adam Holzman from Steve Wilson's Band already recorded keyboards in another track. I will release it next year. I am also working on a couple of new films.

Lately I took the time to listen to all the Genesis albums and several Steve Hackett solo albums. Now I will move to watch live shows. I never had the time to really dig in this stuff before. I am re-listening to all the music I grew up listening to to find out what is still moving me today. I discover new bands on the internet and on prog radio programs that play my songs - lots of great music being released lately by new and old bands. Truth Decay by Adam Holzman is fantastic. Now it is like a Golden Age of music, yet some people complain, it is hard to get noticed in the flood of info arriving at ever increasing speeds... Sometimes I got the impression that there are more and more musicians, to play in fewer venues and shrinking public... People interested in music now want to play it instead of just listening to it... Only the live performance still has the impact to make most people look away from their electronic devices. But for how long? Only time can tell...