He’s all music, is Enzo Avitabile. ‘If music did not present itself to me, I am sure I would have presented it to myself,’ he laughs. ‘Music is my life and my true soulmate.’ It’s a good job he excels at it, then. Life wouldn’t have been much fun had he been a taxi driver.
He’s in the capital this month to appear on ADACH’s ever-popular World Stage. To the untrained eye he appears to be a gruff Italian jazz musician – Zuchero with a saxophone. So, what’s with all this ‘World Music’ business, we wonder? Why not call it European jazz fusion and be done with it? ‘First of all, we use the traditional Neapolitan instruments,’ he says with a scholarly air. True enough; the man is celebrated for his work with Bottari, a group from southern Italy that pounds wooden wine barrels by way of percussion. Can’t imagine Zuchero doing much with wine barrels other than emptying them. ‘The language that I sing is Neapolitan, not Italian,’ he continues, ‘but this time using the language not to sing love songs like everybody did since the 17th Century, but in a modern and urban way, talking about the suffering and the problems of the people around the world.’ He also points out a similarity between Neapolitan and Arabian musical scales. ‘I hope maybe to collaborate more with Arabic artists, maybe some here in the UAE,’ he adds. We suggest he drops by our buddies at House of Oud. They’re always gagging for a jam.
His relationship with Bottari, the barrel-pounding troubadours that he’ll perform with in Abu Dhabi, began when Enzo attended the feast of St Antonio in the Portico of Caserta. There, he encountered more than one hundred of them wending their way through the streets on wagons. ‘Their groove was so powerful,’ he recalls.
‘I was intoxicated.’ Gathering together a gang of willing participants, the musicians retreated for several years to work out the right combination of instruments and styles – not dissimilar to the way Bob Dylan and The Band set about working on The Basement Tapes in the late ’60s. Enzo is humbled by the comparison: ‘I hope we make history as the two of them have,’ he says, ‘but we don’t look at Enzo and Bottari as separate. No, they are my heart, soul and spirit.’
Intoxicating grooves, heart, soul and spirit – it all sounds like a night out to remember. Just in case we haven’t got the whole thing covered, we ask Enzo to sum up his event in a few short sentences. It’ll be, ‘a big, big party,’ he laughs; ‘a celebration of joy and a time to relax. We plan to take the audience to Southern Italy for the night.’ Stick with Enzo the musician, then. No Abu Dhabi taxi driver could ever get you that far.
Enzo Avitabile and Bottari play on the Corniche on March 4. Free
Old friends
We dipped about in Enzo’s photo albums, and here’s what we found:
James Brown
‘I was the only white artist in Italy that ever had the pleasure to be the special guest on James Brown’s full Italian tour, and at the end of the tour James gave me his shoes. For James, this was the most important and valuable thing he could give me. I played for several years on stage with his shoes.’
Tina Turner & Randy Crawford
‘Great working and meeting Tina Turner and Randy Crawford, two beautiful women – always pleasant for me, but to have the great fortune of them also having great voices…wow!’
Khaled
‘He has one of the best vibes on stage; so giving of himself. Such a great voice. He has rhythm, he’s easy to jam with and open to doing collaborations. I loved working with him on the album as well. I hope we can do more together.’
