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Rating: GINO VANNELLI - Live In NAPLES
Archaeological Park of Cuma - Pozzuoli (NA)
GINO VANNELLI feat. Michiel Borstlap
Gino Vannelli: vocal Michiel Borstlap: piano and keyboards Boudewijn Lucas: bass Erik Kooger: drums
Gino Vannelli probably boasts one of the most qualified and, at the same time, enthusiastic audiences that one might see at a concert, so don't be surprised if you spot Vittorio De Scalzi and Nico Di Palo, of the legendary New Trolls, quietly huddled together, handing out ecstatic comments on this extraordinary crooner who, for one evening, colored the evocative vestiges of Cuma with his extraordinary voice.
The Neapolitan concert, the first of his life, reiterated the sophisticated sound that has characterized the last decade of the Canadian artist, increasingly attracted by "combo jazz" atmospheres, now kindly accepted even by some nostalgics of the 70s Vannellian jazz fusion. Vannelli's artistic rigor and integrity, to which he has sacrificed a much more lucrative career, are legendary and can also be found in the nuances of his performances. In fact, before the concert, he devotes himself to a long and meticulous soundcheck in search of precise sonorities that first strained the breathless sound engineers, then enhanced the show dominated by his powerful, malleable, and rich in nuances voice, which allows him to literally walk on the notes, climbing the most unexpected tensions and then resting in lush vocalisms.
Classic hits of his more pop past are revolutionized by bold arrangements, sometimes dry and edgy, and harmonizations that primarily showcase Michiel Borstlap, a Dutch pianist of great talent (already with Les Paul, Roy Hargrove, and Jimmy Haslip and the holder of personal projects including the beautiful "Body Acoustic," an acoustic reinterpretation of the Weather Report of the late Joe Zawinul), as well as the very young Erik Kooger who charmed the attentive spectators with his polyrhythms, the wise Boudewijn Lucas on bass; but perhaps what most distinguished the Cuma performance was the masterful use of dynamics, which delighted the audience with the alternation of lively bebop phrasing with deadly break stops, clusters of chromaticism and hypnotic electric piano voicings.
Gino Vannelli's concert modestly avoided lingering on past hits, instead delving into new songs contained in the upcoming CD realized by Vannelli with this formation, presenting himself more as the frontman of a group than as a true soloist, therefore leaving ample and deserved space for the instrumental talent of the musicians. And so, for example, the splendid ballad "Don't give up on me" or the pulsating "Knight of the road" manifested all his ability to be a composer, arranger, and chameleon-like interpreter, in his own way a "conductor" with Davis-like intuitions, where jazz, soul, and melody are transfigured without boundaries of genre or fashion: his live music is absolutely unpredictable moment after moment. The music unfolds naturally and charmingly until the closure, which naturally belongs to "I just wanna stop" in a slow version sung with the audience, the only true concession of the evening, one might say, to his pop past, as he sings in a new song, "I have buried my castles in Spain and my fifteen minutes of glory six feet under."
Only a small flaw in an efficient organization for the approximately six hundred who came to see him, an unusual brevity of the show (about an hour and a half) for an artist always very generous, but who then indulged in the ritual of photos and autographs from his always very enthusiastic Italian audience, who tries to echo a "where is Joe?" (the keyboardist brother symbol of the pop period) or to ask him for old pieces, but he smiles patiently and kindly and with a wave of goodbye disappears into the dressing room.
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