Enzo Avitabile
Lotto Infinito

With “Black tarantella,” a wonderful album that features duets with great artists like Guccini, Geldof, or Crosby, Avitabile probably created his best work. It was really difficult to replicate, but the saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist from Marianella, an immense giant of world music, managed to surpass himself by producing “Lotto infinito” in 2016. An album that profoundly shakes you, an album of pain but also of struggle, cries, and hope, an album about the outskirts not only of Naples but of the entire Earth. A work that includes contributions from extraordinary musicians and performers, a poetic, secular, and religious album filled with contamination of genres and musical styles. Avitabile does not sing about the Naples of the gulf, the seafront, and luxury. He sings of the anger, the disappointment, the defeat of the periphery wounded by unemployment, decay, pollution. He sings of the land of no one, the land where those born there are “at a disadvantage.” But Enzo's nobodies are capable of fighting and dreaming, and for this reason “Lotto infinito” is also an album of hope wisely opposed to pain and negativity. Only Avitabile could create it.

The work opens with the sound of the Bottari of Portico, who, by hammering barrels and tubs, set the rhythm of “Napoli nord,” a periphery known to the musician, with its decay that is not only physical, of course, but also moral (“here Napoli north, a damn highway, a disadvantaged land, people out of sight non-existent”). As incisive as a scalpel in flesh, the final sax solo played by the extraordinary musician. In “De profundis,” probably the most heartfelt song by the artist, one is enchanted by Giorgia's voice (“from the depths, I am coming to you. Listen to my voice”), a moving and courageous piece because “you need to be very strong to want solitude.” “Attraverso l’acqua,” a “wonderfully sad” song featuring Francesco De Gregori. A slow rhythm in which Enzo's saxello accompanies the Prince in the lyrics that lead us to Lampedusa, a port of hope and promised land for thousands of migrants. The words are among the most beautiful ever written on the theme of immigration, enriched by De Gregori's collaboration on the text (“I am a sacred image, I am a black angel, the end of a dead-end street. I am the shoe that flies, the diesel that slips, a place to add to the table”). He urges us to open the doors to every human being. Immense. “San Ghetto martire,” also arranged by Mannarino (and you can feel it) honors Felice Pignataro, the inventor of the Scampia carnival and the father of San Ghetto, protector of all the peripheries. There really is a saint like that “killed by good Christians, died of sleep and things, resurrected alone,” sanctified by the people of the peripheries who, evidently, no longer believe in the classic saints of paradise. The desire to get up and undertake the fight for life is worthily interpreted by the Apulian rapper Caparezza in “Amm’a amm’a”: great rhythm set by the Bottari, strong energy, and desire to “live.”

A work that, as already said, possesses a perfect balance between negativity, pain, and the desire/hope to fight and be reborn. And with “Abbi pietà di noi” we reach the peak, a breathtaking piece, a stab to the heart. On sparse music, of tammorra and saxello, Avitabile lists the municipalities that have now become open-air dumps. It is a plea, a prayer (“Acerra burning land, have mercy on us”). “Lotto infinito” comes from a banner hung in the dormitory district of apartment buildings in Ponticelli, a neighborhood of Naples. A mass of council houses defined as “block 0.” But on the banner, the number 0 has been retouched and transformed into the symbol of infinity... The song of Giuseppe, an 18-year-old born in the block, with dreams and desires still to be cultivated. Beautiful. Like “Jastemma d’ammore” written with Pippo Delbono, which urges us to “learn to truly love each other if we then want to do good to others.” That the word love is not reduced, precisely, to a word, a blasphemy.

The album includes a tribute to Bianca D’Aponte, a singer-songwriter from Aversa with an extraordinary voice, who died very young from an aneurysm, to whom the musician dedicates some verses together with Renato Zero, who tackles Neapolitan; “Quando la felicità non la vedi cercala dentro” sung by Enzo alone where Marianella is described as “pitch and cement” but where once there was a green sea and the land of Alfonso Maria de Liguori, bishop and composer; the lively “Verità sarà” with the great rhythm of the Bottari, “contaminated” by “Bella ciao” and sung together with the young Moroccan Hyndi Zahra. Splendid the finale with Avitabile's verses recited by Lello Arena that close the circle and bring Enzo back to Naples (“where I was born, pain is as normal as the wind. Joy is as forbidden as drugs”).

Nobody wants to be poor or marginalized. Nobody marginalizes themselves, but someone keeps them poor or marginalized. There isn't anyone who doesn't want to live. This album is an anthem to life from any point on Earth. (Enzo Avitabile).

An album to own, I add... in the sense that you must buy it.

P.S.: Enchanted by Avitabile's groove is the unforgettable Jonathan Demme (yes, the one from “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Philadelphia”) who, by chance, heard “Salvamm’ o munno” in his car. So impressed that in 2012, he shot the documentary film “Enzo Avitabile music life.” That's all.