enzo avitabile: black tarantella

album rating: ★★★★☆

Genre

World music, blues, and Neapolitan folk. A densely collaborative album built on thirteen original compositions in Neapolitan and Italian, the record weaves the rhythmic traditions of the Bottari di Portici - wine barrels and agricultural tools used as percussion - with saxophone, electric guitar, and the contrasting voices of a cast of guest artists spanning Italian, African, and Anglo-American music.

Release

Released on March 20, 2012, by Compagnia Nuove Indye (CNI Music). Guest collaborators include Renato Zero, Giorgia, Alessandro Mannarino, Francesco De Gregori, Francesco Guccini, Franco Battiato, Raiz, and Mauro Pagani, alongside Bob Geldof, David Crosby, and Daby Touré.

Production

All music, lyrics, and arrangements are by Enzo Avitabile; artistic production by Andrea Aragosa, Avitabile's longtime collaborator. The album's sonic identity is shaped by the Bottari di Portici, a percussion ensemble rooted in a centuries-old tradition of Portici - the town at the foot of Vesuvius - whose instruments include wine barrels struck with wooden sticks, scythes, and other agricultural implements. 

Reception

The album won the Targa Tenco 2012 for best album - one of the most prestigious awards in Italian popular music - confirming Avitabile's standing at the forefront of the Italian music scene. The Italian music press praised its emotional and spiritual depth, and the "Lost Highways" review described it as "a casket of thirteen perfect pearls, dirty with mud or lustrous with joy," urging listeners to experience it "with the heart." Jonathan Demme's documentary film Enzo Avitabile Music Life, presented at the Venice Film Festival the same year, brought renewed international attention to his work.

Enzo Avitabile

Vincenzo "Enzo" Avitabile (born March 1, 1955, Naples) is an Italian saxophonist, composer, and singer-songwriter who plays a fusion of world music and jazz fusion rooted in Neapolitan traditions and language. A graduate in flute from the Naples Conservatory, he launched his recording career in 1982 with the collaboration of Richie Havens, and went on to work with James Brown, Afrika Bambaataa, Khaled, Manu Dibango, Bob Geldof, and David Crosby, among many others. Since 2000 he has performed with the Bottari di Portici, whose ancient percussion tradition he has placed at the centre of his artistic identity. His accolades include two Targhe Tenco, two David di Donatello Awards, three Nastri d'Argento, and four BBC World Music Award nominations.

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mai cchiu'

enzo avitabile: sacro sud

album rating: ★★★★☆

Genre

Sacred world music and Mediterranean folk. Entirely acoustic, the album draws on the devotional song tradition of southern Italy — in particular the hymns of Saint Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori — blending Neapolitan liturgical chant, Sardinian launeddas, and ancient processional music into an introspective spiritual meditation.

Release

Released in 2006 by Musiche Migranti and CNI, co-edited by both labels.

Production

Produced by Andrea Aragosa, Avitabile's long-standing collaborator and manager. The album was conceived as an entirely acoustic project, featuring Luigi Lai on launeddas, Maurizio Martinotti on hurdy-gurdy, the Cantori del Miserere of Sessa Aurunca, and the Quartetto Polifonico Alphonsiano. 

Reception

Sacro Sud was praised by the international world music press for its spare acoustic settings, which critics noted evoke both wonder and sorrow in equal measure. CDRoots commended its "sparse, all acoustic settings that evoke wonder and passion." The album accompanied a highly successful live touring project of the same name. It was recognized as part of the body of work that earned Avitabile four BBC World Music Award nominations in 2005 and 2006, consolidating his standing as one of the foremost voices in contemporary world music.

Enzo Avitabile

Enzo Avitabile (born March 1, 1955, in the Piscinola–Marianella district of Naples) is an Italian saxophonist, flautist, composer, and singer-songwriter. He built his early reputation as a session musician alongside Pino Daniele and Edoardo Bennato in the late 1970s. His solo career, launched in 1982, evolved from soul and funk toward an ever-deeper engagement with the musical traditions of  His accolades include two Targhe Tenco, two David di Donatello Awards, three Nastri d'Argento, and four BBC World Music Award nominations. In 2012, director Jonathan Demme presented the documentary Enzo Avitabile Music Life at the Venice Film Festival.

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devozioni dialettali

enzo avitabile: napoletana

album rating: ★★★★☆

Genre: Neapolitan song / world music / folk / canzone popolare. Napoletana is one of the most concentrated and emotionally powerful albums in the career of Enzo Avitabile (born Vincenzo Avitabile, Marianella, Naples, 1955), the saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, singer and composer who has spent four decades at the intersection of Neapolitan musical tradition, jazz, soul, blues and world music. The album takes its name in conscious homage to Napoletana, the celebrated anthology of Neapolitan song recorded by Roberto Murolo, and constitutes an act of deeply felt cultural recovery: a tribute to the ancient song of the Neapolitan people — work songs, villanelle, devotional music, the music of the city's peripheral quartieri — rendered with radical simplicity. The sound palette is deliberately minimal and spare: Avitabile's voice, saxophone, sopranino and piffero; Umberto Leonardo on guitar; Marco Pescosolido on cello; Carlo Avitabile on percussion (cassa, tamburo, tamburino, castagnette). All twelve songs are written by Avitabile, with the exception of 'Il lamento dei mendicanti' (music by Matteo Salvatore) and the closing 'Carmela' (music by Salvatore Palomba and Sergio Bruni). The album's subtitle describes its intent: 'Voices of passions, traces of traditions, sounds of devotions for a very human and nobly popular metropolis that has never torn nature from its heart.'

Label: FolkClub Ethnosuoni / Sudarte (Italy), 2009 (catalogue number ES 5378). Reissued by Compagnia Nuove Indye (CNDL 25807) in 2012.

Producer: Not individually credited in publicly available sources; the album was a self-directed artistic project by Enzo Avitabile.

Recording studio: Not individually specified in publicly available sources; recorded in Italy.

Critical reception: Napoletana won the Targa Tenco 2009 for Best Album in Dialect — Italy's most prestigious award for singer-songwriters — and is widely regarded as one of the highlights of Avitabile's discography. The Italian review site Debaser called it 'a heartfelt and minimalistic tribute to Neapolitan culture', praising its 'sparse and minimal folk, free from the excesses and baroques of small and large orchestras.' The opening track 'Don Salvatò', described as delivering 'genuine chills, carried by the crystalline sound of the harp', and the closing 'Carmela' are particularly celebrated.

Commercial success: Napoletana established Avitabile's reputation well beyond the world music niche and opened the door to the high-profile collaborations that would characterise his subsequent albums — most notably Black Tarantella (2012), which featured Bob Geldof, David Crosby, Pino Daniele, Franco Battiato and Francesco Guccini, and which itself won the Targa Tenco 2012. Jonathan Demme (Oscar-winning director of Philadelphia and The Silence of the Lambs) subsequently made the documentary film Enzo Avitabile Music Life (2012), presented at the Venice Film Festival.

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carmela

gerardo nuvola 'e povere

from the album black tarantella

enzo avitabile: meglio soul

meglio soul

mi sveglierò