Giuseppe Urso, Valerio Rizzo, Stefano India - Nake (2020)

This work’s title, Nake, means “sheepskin or goatskin” in the archaic Greek language; it also originates the word “naca”, found in the dialects spoken throughout Southern Italy, but especially in Apulia and Sicily, and meaning “cradle”; as a matter of fact, in the past cradles were made of animal hides.

Cradle, then, as the cradle of past civilizations; in Sicily they were numerous and they left evident signs in the facial expressions and in the habits of its inhabitants, as well as in the majestic artworks left by the Phoenicians, the Normans, the Greeks, the Romans, the Spaniards and the French.

The music of Nake thus resounds with many stylistically influences, blended in a natural synthesis, whereby the ostentation of mannerisms and clichés is abandoned in favor of an intellectual honesty making it fluent and elegant at the same time. In particular, the variety of harmonies and meters employed with a careful use of dynamics does not betray the trio’s classical academic studies. They generate atmospheres which are rarefied and intense at the same time, while respecting a basic organicity throughout the leader’s various compositions – as happens to the very particular interpretations of Newman or of the Tears For Fears, without forgetting Glass.
The trio’s interplay and the various thematic improvisations lead back the album’s patterns to the environment of jazz , without ever sacrificing their scoring, which is central for the themes and developments of certain compositions. This is the case of 41th Championship (ironically titled) or in the final End Of The Summer, whose mood is evocative and conclusive, dedicated to the end of a season, as a metaphor for life.