Tony Esposito
Rosso napoletano

I am surprised to find that there is no review of this album on the site, the debut from 1974 by Toni Esposito, one of the most important Italian percussionists of all time.

Naples in the '70s was a melting pot of sounds and trends. Within a short span of years, artists like the Showmen, Osanna, Napoli Centrale, Balletto di Bronzo, Edoardo Bennato, Pino Daniele, Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare, Alan Sorrenti, Tullio De Piscopo, and indeed Toni Esposito, exploded onto the scene. Practically the best of new Italian music resided in the shadow of Vesuvius. Esposito had a similar fate, at least initially, to Alan Sorrenti (beautiful records but poor commercial success, a breakout hit single, and audiences laying low), although he did not get sucked into the whirlpool of the most dismal easy-listening like the aforementioned Alan. After the astronomical success of "Kalimba de Luna" (1984) and a modest repeat the following year ("As Tu As"), his return to a less immediate music was abrupt, despite a long, forced artistic break in the '90s.

The debut, produced by Battisti and Mogol (Numero Uno), is striking. Surrounding himself with legendary figures and soon-to-explode talents (with Robert Fix on saxophone, Mark Harris on keyboards, occasional input from Edoardo Bennato, and none other than Paul Buckmaster as artistic producer, who had arranged Bowie's "Space Oddity" and was a great cellist with Kevin Ayers, just to name a few), he put together an astonishing album.

"Rosso napoletano," also released under the title "Toni Esposito," is a long 35-minute instrumental with its title track (a suite of just over 18 minutes) as its strength. Esposito, with his vitality and an incessant rhythm from start to finish, overwhelms the listener with beats imbued with contagious joy, where everything that can be struck is struck, and so on, with a concert made of classical instruments alongside spoons, pots, metal sheets, timpani, cymbals, sticks, castanets, tambourines, and even frying pans. All to recreate a Mediterranean and sunny sound (as well as, subtly, a popular one) that can tell the story, through music and without words (except for a mini-dialogue of a few seconds in the interlude "Breakfast"), of the realistic and dreamy soul of Naples, that Naples of the early '70s.

The fact that Naples is portrayed through its most representative types is evident when reading the track titles: "Il venditore di elastici" (The Elastic Seller); "L’uomo di plastica" (The Plastic Man). Or the wild "Danza dei bottoni" (Button Dance).

"[...] Toni's debut album ferried the best of Bitches Brew by Miles Davis and Neapolitan folklore into a new language that was as mystical and minimalist as it was melodic and flavorful: no progressive heritage baroque elements or jazz solos, no concessions to the hardness of rock" (John N. Martin)