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Rating: Pino Daniele's fifth studio album is perhaps the most mature work of the Neapolitan bluesman and certainly the most ambitious with a broader international scope. This album ideally represents the consecration of the musician's career, the peak of the most productive period of ideas, which in the subsequent "Musicante" gives way to less striking introspection, opening up to distinctly more Latin and melodic latitudes.
For this "Bella 'mbriana" - a tribute to the ancient tradition, present under various names throughout Southern Italy, of the household spirits - proudly stands in the collections of jazz-rock and blues aficionados with sophisticated tastes, bolstered by its world music and funk influences. Here, the Neapolitan essence is, so to speak, merely the frame that gives shape and color to new languages, within which it's best not to give the written text, already a blend of Italian and Neapolitan (but sometimes difficult in its own real meaning), more importance than Pino himself would have given it: "Nun fa niente parlà, l'importante è sapè sunà".
Thus, it is pointless to ask whether "Tarumbò" is really an anti-papal song when the melancholic and poignant "Maggio se ne va", where Pino's voice merges with Shorter's soprano sax, sings of a highly personal search for God.
The entire work is imbued with a crepuscular vein, darker though compared to the familiar and domestic accents of the previous "Vai mo'", aiming for sophisticated arrangements and the definitive critical leap in quality. Pino surrounds himself with the talent of top-tier musicians, from the faithful Tullio De Piscopo and Rosario Jermano's percussion (have you ever listened to the well-known "Nadir Dance"?) to the genius of the Italian Lyle Mays, Joe Amoruso, to the precious textures of international jazz stars like Wayne Shorter and Alphonso Johnson. The remarkable solos by Shorter in "Io vivo come te" and "Toledo", - with a Santana-like flavor, but in some phrasings echoing Metheny's "Phase Dance" (1979) - the only instrumental track in Pino's discography, don't go unnoticed, who is not coincidentally coming back from interesting forays into film music the previous year ("Ricomincio da tre", 1981).
Pino Daniele's "Tarumbò" - an invented term giving its title to one of the tracks and expressing the fusion of funky-tarantella and blues – emerges forcefully in its dual identity. In the eponymous track "Bella 'mbriana" it’s frantic funk, elsewhere it’s pure and introverted blues, in other tracks it's tarantella in blue: the idea of blending the Neapolitan and Arabic flavor of the Lydian scale (which is the one that inspired Gershwin and Bernstein) with the world of pentatonic is simply brilliant. What can I say? Once again, "Napule è..." the thousand colors of great music.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 Bella 'mbriana (03:28)
Dint' 'o scuro e chi me vede
si sapisse che può dà matina e sera
t'aggio visto crescere e cantà
t'aggio visto ridere e pazzià
dint' 'o scuro e nun se crede
si sapisse votta a passà sta jacuera
t'aggio visto chiagnere e jastemmà
t'aggio visto fottere e scannà
bonasera bella 'mbriana mia
ccà nisciuno te votta fora
bonasera bella 'mbriana mia
rieste appiso a 'nu filo d'oro
bonasera aspettanno 'o tiemppo asciutto
bonasera a chi avanza 'o pere c'ò core rutto
che paura a primmavera
nun saje cchiù che t'haje aspettà
e che succede
l'aggio visto 'a guerra vuò vedè
sò ati tiempe e tu che può sapè
'nfaccia 'o muro ce sta' 'o core
'e chi pava sempe e nun sente dulore
e aggio visto 'e notte 'o fuoco a mmare
chino 'e rrobba e cu' 'nu fierro mmano
bonasera bella 'mbriana mia
ccà nisciuno te votta fora
bonasera bella 'mbriana mia
rieste appiso a 'nu filo d'oro
bonasera aspettanno 'o tiempo asciutto
bonasera a chi torna 'a casa c'ò core rutto.
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Other reviews
By misterNo
"Bella 'Mbriana is the pinnacle of Pino Daniele’s compositional maturity."
"There is not a single track below par, everything is at the highest levels..."
By Karimbambeta
Bella 'Mbriana is an open window into the soul of a Neapolitan musician at his technical-compositional peak.
The album is the evolution of the raw cry for help in Terra Mia, a full awareness of what one has become.
