Davide Cerreta to perform at Oulala Café & Lounge
In his first time performing on Long Island, Davide Cerreta, a world renown jazz singer, will be performing traditional jazz standards, swing, hard bop melodies and contemporary original compositions. He will be performing in a duo at Oulala Café & Lounge in Lynbrook with guitarist James Zitto. The performance will be held on April 8 at 7:30 p.m.
According to his publicist: “Cerreta was born and raised in Roma, Italy and for the past 13 years has toured throughout Europe, North America, South America, and Central America. He moved to the United States to continue his studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, in which he won a fellowship to teach at the Danilo Perez Foundation. Soon after, Cerreta went on to lead collegiate level workshops and become an Assistant Professor for the Voice Department at Berklee College of Music. In November 2023, he married Long Island native, Chastity Seda, which later then resulted in him discovering Oulala Cafe in Lynbrook, Long Island. Oulala Café is one of the very few jazz clubs in Nassau county. Oulala Café not only offers live entertainment, but also has exquisite dishes and drinks from the Caribbean.
Cerreta is currently based in New York City, performing, composing, and arranging for an upcoming project. His sound has evolved as he continues to be inspired by Kurt Elling, Jon Hendricks, and Frank Sinatra.”
Long Island Weekly spoke with Cerreta ahead of his performance about his experiences performing around the world and what attracted him to jazz in the first place.
Long Island Weekly: Can you tell me what attracted you to jazz in the first place?
Cerreta: It’s a funny story. I was looking at The Jungle Book when I was little. There are these little monkeys that scatting and improvising vocally, and that was my first approach to jazz and when I first fell in love with it without even being able to name it. I didn’t know it was jazz, I didn’t know they were scatting and I thought that it was really cool, and I wanted to do that. Later on, I discovered that was jazz by listening to all the greatest: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, to earlier Christmas albums my parents were listening to. And slowly I got more into jazz.
Long Island Weekly: Can you tell me about touring all these different countries throughout the world. It must be amazing to know that your love of music has taken you to so many amazing places.
Cerreta: It’s amazing that music brought my so far. I would have never imagined that as a kid. It was always my dream to travel the world through music and I would have never had imagined that I would have gotten me so far. I have so many other projects and ideas and dreams I would like to do. I started in Avellino, which is close to Napoli. which is where I lived when I was 15. I moved there from Roma, where I was born. And I moved to Napoli. That’s where I started to sing around bars, cafes, little clubs. And then I studied at the [Domenico Cimarosa] Conservatory and during that time I had the opportunity to perform on a television show called Rai Uno Mattina In Famiglia. It’s a variety morning show that’s very famous in Italy. I performed there in my quartet. From there, I started to perform more and more around Italy, and then I moved to Germany where I worked and traveled back and forth between Italy and Germany playing in festivals, jazz clubs, theaters. Then I went back to Rome for a while, where I owned a jazz club called The Wolf Tree. And after that, I traveled to South America where I sang and played piano all over South America. I was in Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil. Then I went back to Germany where I did X-Factor Germany. And I got to the top nine of X-Factor.
Long Island Weekly: You’ve been to so many places and have met so many people. Would you say this has impacted your music?
Cerreta: I sing in Spanish, French, German, Italian and in English. And when I was living in Paris, that’s where I started to sing French… All those cultures I’ve
experienced have influenced my music to this day. My own compositions are a mix of all these cultures, sounds and experiences.
Long Island Weekly: What stands out to you about the iconic New York jazz scene?
Cerreta: It is amazing. It’s beautiful to be a part of this jazz scene because it’s unique in the world. It’s where everything started, in a way. It has such a huge history and this is the real sound. That’s where you really meet the people that created this music and keep on expanding the meaning of jazz.
To learn more about Cerreta, hear his music and find out how you can see him live, visit www.davidecerreta.com.
