My music is an evolution in Afro-Cuban Jazz. I am connecting two worlds: the world of Jazz with Be-Bop, Hard-bop, Free jazz, funk, gospel, rhythm and blues, and the world of Cuban music with rumba and Yoruba rhythms coming from African slaves.
My music always carries intrinsic Afro-Cuban rhythms from conception to its realization. I am trying to re-invent tradition. For me the rhythms are not rigid. On the contrary, I use them freely to allow intense musical flow, to create a new space of communication amongst the instruments
I build bridges between styles, influences, and instruments. My music is hybrid. I play with Cuban musicians but not only. I need to feel diversity also in the band. My music is the celebration of rhythm, harmony and life.
I was born in Matanzas, Cuba. Since I was a child I was listening to the Jazz LPs my father was bringing back from his business trips in Europe and Canada. Influenced by my uncle I dropped out of my engineering studies to immerse myself into music, and I started to study saxophone, a passion that is guiding my entire life.
I first played with Talla Extra, accompanying Xiomara Laugart, with whom I recorded twice. I toured with the pianist Pucho Lopez in Canada. I collaborated with Afrocuba and Klimax directed by Giraldo Piloto. Then I joined the famous band Cubanismo in a world tour and recorded an album with them. Later I played jazz fusion with Four Runners in collaboration with Dario Moreno, with whom I recorded two albums and won the Best Album at the Music of Andalusia Awards.
I played around the world at the New Morning in Paris with Orlando Poleo, at the Montreux Jazz Festival with Klimax, at the Jazz à Vienne Festival, Nice Jazz fest, Montréal and many more in Tahiti, Japan, Spain, Mexico with Cubanismo. I contributed to more than 20 records.
While collaborating, touring and recording with major bands I started to feel the need to work on my own music and to go beyond my Cuban roots into a personal quest of my Identity and my Origins.
In 2002 I released IDENTITY first CD as a leader featuring Omar Sossa, Sherman Irby and Tata Güines. The CD received very positive reviews worldwide and was selected in the top 10 Latin jazz album of the year by French Magazine Jazz Hot.
In 2005 the Star Tribune of Minneapolis compares my tenor saxophone solo to one of the level of Micheal Brecker.
In 2010 I felt ready to launch a new CD and I released ORIGENES with the Nardy Castellini Quintet. The Album uncovers a new direction in Cuban jazz with ancestral Afro-Cuban rhythms fusionned with jazz.
Jesse Chuy Verela of the San Francisco Chronicle said: “On his second record album as a leader, Cuban saxophonist Nardy Castellini creates a super jazz offering that defines him as an artist beyond category”
In 2012 I joined the World Tour of Rodrigo Y Gabriela and C.U.B.A in an incredible world tour of 46 concerts in 7 months including 3 major TV shows, amongst them Jay Leno.
Since 2012 I am working with a new group of musicians in Paris including Orlando Poleo. We are playing in different places in Paris and I am working on new compositions. We played in Corsica, Geneva, and Nantes early in the year and we are ready for much more in the second part of the year.
TOURING
Costa Caliente
Cuban Tour 1988
Talla Extra y Xiomara Laugart
Cuban Tour 1989
World Tour 1989
Mexico Tour 1990
Spain Tour 1991
Spain and Venezuela Tour 1992
Jazz Band Bobby Carcacés
Festival de Jazz Plaza 91 de la Habana
Grupo Pucho López
World Tour 1992
Afrocuba
Cuban Tour 1994
Latin America Tour 1994
Ronnie’s Scott Jazz Club London
Klimax
World Tour 1995
Nice Jazz Festival 95
Montreux Jazz Festival 95
Jazz à Vienne 95
Son en Talla
World Tour 1996
La Estación
Granada Jazz Festival 97
Al Jaima
Morocco Tour 97
Nardy Castellini Quintet
Granada Jazz Festival 98
Cubanismo
World Tour 97
World Tour 98
World Tour 99
With Orlando Poleo
World Tour 2000
Blues Band of Granada
Spain Tour 2000
Spain Tour 2005
Four Runners
Spain Tour 2001
Nardy Castellini Quintet
Released CD “IDENTITY” 2001
Granada Jazz Festival 2001
Identity Spain Tour 2002, 2003
Identity Egypt Tour 2007
Nachito Herrera
USA Tour 2004
Nardy Castellini and Rasha
Egypt Tour 2007
Khartum, Sudan, 2008
Domestic Jazz Collective
Festival Cines del Sur Granada Domestic Jazz Collective Set
2008, 2009,2010
RODRIGO Y GABRIELA
World Tour 2012
DISCOGRAPHY
Talla Extra y Xiomara Laugart
Xiomara Laugart, 1989
Atrapando espacion, 1992
Afrocuba
Recroded in Argentina, 1994
Ecorded at Ronnie’s Scott Jazz Club London, 1994
Arcoiris, 1995
Cubanismo
Jesús Alemany, Featuring Alfredo Rodríguez 1995
Klímax
Mira si te gusta. 1995
Anacaona
1995
La Estación
La Estación Soul. 1997
Blues Band de Granada
Cuatro. Award best Jazz CD Música en Andalucía (Brass Session directed and arranged by Nardy Castellini) 1999
Graciela Jiménez
1999
José Parra
De Arena y Coral. 1999
Four Runners
Best Jazz and Blues CD at the
Música de Andalucía Award. Co-led by Nardy Castellini and Dario Moreno, 1999
Orlando Poleo
Lo Bueno de la Vida. 2000
Funkdatiòn
2001
Carmen Carmona
Brass Session directed and arranged by Nardy Castellini
2001
Nardy Castellini Quintet
Identity, 2002
Nachito Herrera
Bembé en mi Casa, FS. (Including c Nardy Castellini composition : Big News), 2004
La Blues Band de Granada
Knocking the Door 2004
Greg Byler and the Branded Souls
If I Should See Fire. 2005
Nardy Castellini Quintet
Origenes, 2010