Nero A Metà

Pino Daniele is one of a handful of musicians (together with James Senese, Tullio De Piscopo, Tony Esposito, and Enzo Avitabile) who contributed to one of the most vibrant periods in Naples’ musical history, but he’s also one of those absolutely essential Italian artists of the 21st century: you can’t talk about Italian music without mentioning Pino Daniele. After starting out as a bass player with James Senese’s Napoli Centrale, he set out on his own with Terra Mia in 1977, Pino Daniele in 1979 and Nero a Metà in 1980, which at the time was hailed as a new standard for Neapolitan music for the way it combined Neapolitan melodies and dialect with jazz, funk, and blues — the sounds that had become part of the city through the comings and goings of American soldiers in the post war period. The title Nero a Metà (Half Black) in fact refers to the children born from Neapolitan mothers and Black American soldiers (the album is dedicated to one in particular, musician and friend of Daniele’s Mario Musella who died the year before the album was released), but is also a homage to the influence of Black music on the Neapolitan sound.