Prince
One Nite Alone Live!

When talking about the Prince, there's always a bit more difficulty...: first, because it's complex to talk about a musician who was madly loved in one's youth, second, because the inconsistency, and frankly the excess, of his production certainly doesn't allow for calm, cursory, and above all definitive judgments. Tomorrow, he could come out with a beautiful album, an awful one, or (as has too often happened in the recent past) a completely pointless one.
So let's talk about a neutral and absolutely indisputable field: live performances. That the little Genius from Minneapolis is a true stage animal is something that I believe cannot be doubted. Always (his first official live documentation, on VHS, dates back to the tour of “Purple Rain”), when he gets on a stage, what emanates is pure energy, absolute thrill. What he manages to do and, above all, what he makes his musicians do is absolutely astonishing.
His control over the band is perfect and absolute, perhaps comparable only to the great jazz orchestra conductors or those few years during which James Brown was at his peak.
But, as we know, Prince doesn't consist only of James Brown and Jazz, even though they're very present. In this devil who often seems to deserve an exorcism, you'll find Santana, the Beatles, Sly Stone, almost the entire disco school of the '70s (Chic above all), you'll find the rhetoric of certain Queen, the singer-songwriter thrill of Joni Mitchell, the guitar delusions of Hendrix, and so much, much funk.

So one might think of him as a professional copycat. Naturally not: the best Prince is a great chef, an excellent mixer of ingredients and condiments, and often this wonderful characteristic of his is almost imperceptible in studio products following “Lovesexy”, so baroque and crammed with unnecessary and redundant stuff, so self-indulgent. Often real musical wanking, with all the pros and cons of the best/worst masturbations, with very high moments alternating with tired ones, with some satisfaction and some sense of emptiness...
And then, after many video documents but no official album, in 2002 the first live album arrives (almost twenty-five years after his debut). And it comes at a not particularly happy time: studio albums now sell only to die-hard fans, and in particular, the last one, “One Nite Alone”, a beautiful and intimate album for voice and piano and little else, didn’t even reach stores but was available, legally or not, only online. Then, as we know, with a very modest album like “Musicology” but good marketing work, he would return to prominence (somewhat and temporarily). But in 2001, that was the situation.
But, speaking of Prince, even there the situation is “strange”: unsold albums and concerts always “sold out”. And why is that? Because evidently, the fans of a true stage animal are never lacking, and because the chance to hear some great classic “live” always appeals.

In this officially double album, but in its best edition, there's a third CD recorded at one of the classic “aftershows” that the Prince loves to do unexpectedly and often in super trendy venues in major cities, we find great classics alongside tracks unknown to most and some unpublished ones. In short, a distillation of Prince that cannot be missing in a home where funk and jazz are loved. In the band, everyone plays brilliantly, of course, but a special (and obvious) praise goes to the immense Maceo Parker, i.e., the Master Alto Sax of funk, who plays with unchanged thrill and also launches into rapping (or rather funkrapping… something he does often and splendidly even in his solo albums, which deserve some attention).
Prince plays everything (excellently), performs astonishing guitar solos, and accompanies himself on piano with truly enviable skill. Then he lets loose with his famous falsettos and his completely unique way of engaging the audience.
Those who (like me) saw this tour in Milan know that the sequins that characterized the shows of the '80s have been abandoned, there were practically no special effects but only beautiful lights, and all the musicians (him first) presented themselves on stage elegantly dressed in black.
For those who, like myself, consider “Parade” the best Prince work ever, the moment of pure emotion comes with “Sometimes It Snows In April”, a splendid ballad that crowned an almost unwatchable film like “Under The Cherry Moon.” “Splendid” next to “unwatchable”...? Sure, otherwise, it wouldn’t be Prince.
While here, in this live, you enjoy everything, from beginning to end, with extreme and growing thrill, as hadn't happened for a long time and as (so far) hasn't happened again.