Pino Daniele
Live Sciò

It often happens that an Artist closes the best and truest part of their career with a beautiful “live” performance of symbolic and summarizing value at the same time.
Undoubtedly, Vasco did it with the beautiful “Va Bene Va Bene Così,” in some way (we could discuss for months… however…) it was also done by Conte with “Concerti,” even with some appreciable subsequent last hurrahs, Dalla with “Dallamericaruso,” and perhaps he a bit late, as well as Guccini with “Fra La Via Emilia E Il West” or Battiato with “Giubbe Rosse.”
Naturally, one can endlessly debate the quality of what came before or after the mentioned “live,” but an undeniable fact is this: after many “live” performances, and certainly after those I have indicated, the Artist turned the page, almost as if, consciously or not, they wanted to say “well, what I did, I did…: from here, for better or worse, we change.”
And that’s what the then-great Pino Daniele did, with an album taken from the tour of the never too praised and too often underestimated “Musicante”.
An incredible setlist, a splendid and highly effective band, moreover honored by the presence of great guests who undoubtedly didn’t show up for free, but whose notes revealed the pleasure of being there, and not just – as in too many other cases – the sad shadow of a record contract.
Here the first beautiful albums of Pino are summarized, up to that moment, at least in my opinion, all excellent in terms of both compositional and interpretative quality.
One can, of course, discuss the equalization of the sounds and the choice of them. But one must remember that we were in the midst of the eighties… and the sounds were those. Either you like them or you don’t, but at least they were sounds of personality and the result of conscious and sometimes very courageous choices (today don’t you have the impression that the new pseudo-rock bands, both here and across the sea, all have the exact same sound…? Or perhaps it’s just me that I’m now an old man…?).

But let's return to the album, which shines with its own light, and not a little. The opening is left to “Chillo E’ Nu Buono Guaglione”, taken from “Pino Daniele” of 1979, but completely transformed to make room for a nice horn section and the unmistakable rhythm of De Piscopo. Then electric and acoustic tracks alternate, in what was then an enviable sample of successes, even if today in a Pino concert the “survivors” from this setlist are no more than two or three…: time and the banality of the times have meant that these were followed by other polished, whispered successes, as background music for a thieving real estate and certainly built on (the worst) feminine tastes…. I’ll make some enemies, I know, but trust the Primiballi Theorem: “when two or more women together come out with phrases like ‘this song is beautiful,’ better be on alert, and recite the ‘de profundis’ for the artist, because either they are dead, or shortly will drop”. Artistically, I mean. It’s obvious.
The fact remains that the “too many solos” criterion, which often characterizes female criticism, dominated here. Over time a gritty and “hungry” voice would be replaced by a weak, feminine, and somewhat delicate little voice. The electric guitar would be definitively replaced by the classical one, solos are going to gradually disappear and saxophones, to give just an example, would be seen increasingly less in Pino’s albums. And then no more. And to think that here, to scream divinely on the masterpiece “Chi Tene O Mare”, there was a Gato Barbieri in great shape. But in some tracks, you also hear the ultra-technical and excellent Bob Berg. Also, on percussion, there is that Nanà Vasconcelos who would then play with Pino again, even in the hardly feasible “Iguana Cafè”.

An epitaph, then? A swan song? Undoubtedly yes, even if, here and there, and quite suddenly and unexpectedly, the Better Pino will peep out even in unacceptable and almost unlistenable discs, almost as if it were a little trick that his soul (undoubtedly very great) decided to play on us, deluding us in the hope of an album that will never come again, albeit with the beautiful and partial exception of “Medina”.