WIJI PEOPLE! Episode #2, with Jack Jaselli

Greetings to all you Urban Surfers! WIJI PEOPLE is back with a new special guest who opened the doors of his studio and his world, centered on music and travel: Jack Jaselli !

Musician, singer-songwriter, author and all-round artist. After numerous albums, documentaries and books that combine music and travel , Jack is now also a mindfulness instructor.
We talked about this and much more during an interview, curated by our WIJI Ambassador Ilaria, in which the Milanese singer-songwriter talks about his fascinating career and his strong bond with nature.

⁓ Ilaria: Jack, you are what is usually called a 360° artist: musician, singer-songwriter, author and also instructor of mindfulness techniques. You have created your own world ever since, after graduating in philosophy, you decided to undertake a series of journeys, the common thread of your path and your career. What is the one that has most impressed you and that has left you with something that you still carry with you today?

⁓ Jack: As you rightly say, there have been many trips and to tell the truth I started even before graduation, when during my university years I took a few months to get away from Milan, both to gain experience and instead looking more at music, also to try to play my songs in contexts different from that of my city. At the time I only wrote in English and for me it was an important test to understand if my music was also received in those countries that speak it as a mother tongue. One of the trips that has remained most impressed on me, precisely because we are talking about Surfing, was in fact the one in Australia. It was a trip that put me in contact with nature, with the waves, with the sea and it was for me a huge source of inspiration that made me reflect for the first time on the encounter between music and travel.

⁓ Ilaria: As a 360 artist, you started out as a singer-songwriter and in 2018, after three albums published in English, you released your first album in Italian, "Torno a casa". Why this change and this return to your mother tongue for this production that is also very dear to you?

⁓ Jack: The time had come, I felt the need to go back to singing in my "spoken" language. In reality I have always felt English as my "musical mother tongue", it was my main language in terms of sound. However, then working also with Italian colleagues and artists, including Lorenzo Jovanotti with whom we wrote some songs for the soundtrack of " L'estate addosso " by Muccino, I was encouraged to sing in Italian and so I decided to do new experiments and play with the words of my language. It was something that went out of my comfort zone, as was the tour of " Torno a casa "; a walking tour through Italy starting from Milan and arriving in Rome playing along the stages.

⁓ Ilaria: "Torno a casa" is not only an album but it later gave birth to a documentary released on Discovery and also to a book, "Torno a casa a piedi" in which you tell your story and this tour of yours that started with a backpack and guitar on your shoulders.

⁓ Jack: Yes, it was really an experiment. After dedicating myself to an album in Italian, which was different for me, the tour also had to be special in a certain sense. You know, tours where you travel kilometers and kilometers on wheels, get off, play and then set off again can sometimes be alienating in a certain sense. Instead, this idea of ​​arriving at the stages on foot after my own personal and introspective journey made it so special, meeting people along the way and playing in even unusual places that for me were a Buddhist temple, a bookbindery, a yurt, a women's prison, as well as various spots in the middle of the woods. It was an encounter, a beautiful exchange between my music and the people I met along the way, which I wanted to put in writing.

⁓ Ilaria: Travels are made up of so many ingredients that make them special. From places, to people, to scents, to sensations. Which are the ones that made your travels unforgettable and that left the greatest impression on you?

⁓ Jack: There was a particular feeling. In hindsight I recognize it in a detour that I wanted to make from the Via Francigena, always on foot, when I was in Tuscany. I wanted to pass through Pomaia where there is a Buddhist temple in which I had the pleasure of playing for the resident monks and nuns. There I discovered that there was also a Master in neuroscience and meditation, in collaboration with the University of Pisa. It was the seed of a very important new chapter in my life...

⁓ Ilaria: A new path as a mindfulness techniques instructor, which you care a lot about. I ask you if you want to explain to us first of all what it consists of and what benefits it can bring.

⁓ Jack: It's a million dollar question... it's a thing but it's not a thing. If we want to use the definition of Jon Kabat-Zinn who is the one who brought some components and some mindfulness programs to the West, "mindfulness is the ability, the experience, the attitude that we all have intrinsically, to live by placing our attention on the present moment in an intentional way and without judgment". Said like that it may seem simple but if we think of living the moments of our daily life without any form of judgment it becomes something much more complex and difficult. In essence we can translate it into Italian as an "awareness" that we can nourish and make flourish with a series of techniques and programs that in reality do not necessarily have to have a purpose but that serve to meet the events of life in which we inevitably come across, in a slightly wiser way.

⁓ Ilaria: You are also a great book lover. I ask you if there was one in particular that inspired your "Torno a casa a piedi" and if there are others that you would like to recommend to our entire WIJI community.

⁓ Jack: This is also a very difficult question. My book is actually a story of my experience and therefore I was not really inspired by any particular authors. Instead, there are two books that I would recommend to the WIJI community, one talks about the sea from a slightly different perspective, it is a book by Bruno Munari called " The sea as an artisan ", which talks about objects that he collected from the sea, such as stones, ropes, shells. All objects that after being taken, the sea after a while gives back to us in a smooth, changed and always different form. I believe that those who surf know that the same thing happens with their soul once they enter the sea for the first time and I believe that the same thing happens a bit with life and with music: sometimes life puts us in front of events or experiences to which we then manage to give a shape, an interpretation, through music.
The other book I suggest is " Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance " by Robert M. Pirsig which is a book that should be read for some insights and for the freedom that you can breathe inside it.

⁓ Ilaria: WIJI as you know is a Surf community. What is your relationship with Surf Culture and in general with wave sports?

⁓ Jack: I've always liked them a lot, I've always liked the sea and I remember that the first time I understood what surfing was I was at home with a fever as a child and I saw the videotape of " Un mercoledì da leoni " and there a whole new world opened up to me. I surfed for a long time and I always had a lot of fun, going on many trips dedicated to the search for waves. I also had the pleasure of collaborating with Luca Merli and the guys from "Onde Nostre" who shot my first real video clip and for whom I wrote some songs for the soundtrack of their film. More generally, even if not directly linked to surfing, an indelible experience for me was recording my second album in a sort of cave on the Ligurian sea, near Bogliasco, a destination for many surfers in Italy, which inspired me to write many pieces related to the sea.

⁓ Ilaria: It's a wonderful concept. The sea gives us so many waves and we have to thank it in some way... you found the right way.
We thank you and after having had you on stage at last year's WIJI SURF FEST we obviously also invite you to the 2024 edition next September.

⁓ Jack: I also played at the WIJI launch event. I'm a fan and an "early believer", for me it's a reality that deserves all the support possible and I will certainly be in the front row also at the 2024 edition.