Enzo Avitabile ::: Napoletana

“Napoletana” is an artistic project sprung forth from the enormous desire to bring back the old Neapolitan lyricism, its purest and most poetic expression, always guarding itself against the risk of being set aside and catching dust or finding to have been overshadowed by a deceiving and stereotyped folkloristic postcard, which is the image that has always been portrayed all over the world: a city, Napoli, where “appearing” means more than “being”. A research-project that reconnects, with simplicity, to the sources of sounds, made of work-songs and villanelle, but, at the same time, of songs that are totally unedited, etched in the cement of the city, with eyes fixed on the past and a heart that breathes in the scent of the future.
A new music born from an old art, unique and overflowing with feeling, sought-after and innovative in the language.
The Neapolitan minor scale (harmonic and melodic) is a spawn of the Greek tetrachord and it represents the starting point of this journey; then, under the concrete of Naples’ housing projects it discovers its ancient truths, the universal and eternal questions and answers to the misery and the suffering that each new day brings. The lyrics, raw but intense poems that are born in the street, recount all this.
The musical intermezzi with the sopranino saxophone and the small Neapolitan harp, coupled with the classic guitar, give life to a striking representation of a musical ambience that is, at once, new and old. On the trail of one the rarefied scales recuperated and reused by Avitabile, we find the “scala nova”, of popular origins, which dates back to the XIV century. It resumes the instrumental music in accord with the sung pieces.
Napoletana is the old that sounds new, the new that sounds old. Napoletana is a snapshot of Neaples, a city with historical sources that are at the heart of a culture that moves along, aware of its roots, and of its expressed and unexpressed capacity for cultural development, both national and international.
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Enzo Avitabile: vouce, arpina, sopranino sax in MIb
Umberto Leonardo: guitar
Carlo Avitabile: bassdrum, drum, tamburino, castanets
Marco Pescosolido: cello
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01 Don Salvato'
02 Libberazione  
03 Malincunìa 
04 Ricurdànne 
05 Benedítta sia
06 Ca nun mancasse màje 'o sole
07 Amaro nunn' éss"a essere màje
08 Il lamento dei mendicanti 
09 Sango e grano
10 Figliola ca guarde 'o mare
11 Canto 'e primavera 
12 Carmela
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2009 • Folkclub ethnosuoni ES 5378
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> 192 kbps VBR • complete scans
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Napoletana