La Musica della Mafia: Il Canto di Malavita [Import]

La Musica Della Mafia | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 2, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• ASIN: B00004TG60
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #557,497 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Parlato

2. Ndrangheta Camurra E Mafia - El Domingo

3. Sangu Chimam Sangu - F Cimbalo

4. U Lupu DAsprumunti - Franco Caruso

5. I Cunfirenti - Salvatore Macheda

6. Parlato

7. U Ballu Da Famigghia Muntalbanu - Caserta Plutino

8. Parlato

9. Non Su Lupu (instrumental)

10. U Commissariu - Franco Caruso

11. Parlato

12. Omerta - El Domingo

13. Cu Sgarra Paga - F Cimbalo

14. Appartegnu All Onorata - El Domigo

15. Canto All Aspromonte - Tobia Latella

16. Tarantella Guappa - Fred Scotti

17. Ergastulanu - El Domingo

18. I Cacciaturi I Muntaltu - El Domingo

19. Parlato

20. A Mbasciata - Salvatore Macheda

See all 24 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

A controversial album of Mafia songs banned in Italy, La Musica Della Mafia, on the German-based Pias label, features 24 songs of 'blood, honor and discretion'. The record is not glorifying or romanticizing anything. The songs are part of history and the

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!!!, April 27, 2002

By 

Kurt Harding "bon vivant" (Boerne TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: La Musica della Mafia: Il Canto di Malavita (Audio CD)

I first read about this CD in a magazine supplement that chronicles the good life and unusual things to be found off the beaten path. Its description and recommendation was intriguing, so I found it here on Amazon and ordered it.
Wow!!! The CD is much better than I expected even with magazine's thumbs up! There are 18 good to great songs and an explanatory booklet with pictures and original lyrics plus German and English translations to go with it.
Not having heard these songs before, all I can do is make comparisons. One of my favorites is the first cut, "'Ndrangheta, Camurra, e Mafia", which recounts how these groups came to be and how the code of honor was set down. It is played in much the style of a Mexican corrido, but with better guitar work. Sangu Chiama Sangu is in the same vein, but with bloodthirsty lyrics.
The funny thing about some of these songs is that they sound like they could be songs of love lost, until you read the lyrics.
I Cunfirenti is a good example of this. With a plaintive voice, a soft guitar, and a mournful accordion, the singer sings how traitors are dogs who deserve to die.
I also like the nice mandolin work on various songs particularly on U Commissariu. Omerta has the musical feel of a western folk song. Excellent guitar work enhances Cu Sgarra Paga, at times you might think of Gordon Lightfoot.
Ergastulanu and I Cacciaturi I Muntaltu both remind me of something which might have been composed by Atahualpa Yupanqui.
The CD closes with two excellent melancholy songs, Addiu 'Ndrangheta and Canto di Carcerato.
Nine different artists are featured and this gives the listener a nice overview of the possibilities of the genre. Most songs are in the form of a ballad but there are also a couple tarantelle. My favorites are the ballads.
The basic dialect is Calabrian Italian though the last song appears to be in standard Italian. Your enjoyment is enhanced of course by knowledge of the language but even if you don't know a single word of Italian, the quality of the singing and the music are enough to make this CD a must-own item for anyone who is at all musically adventurous. One listen and you'll say "Wow!!!" too. Listen to this at the office or while kicking back with a nice glass of Calabrian Primitivo.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Verace cavalleria rusticana, July 31, 2002

By 

Michael S. Swisher (Stillwater, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: La Musica della Mafia: Il Canto di Malavita (Audio CD)

Glamorizing the criminal in art and literature is an ancient phenomenon. In English, we have the legend of Robin Hood, the "Beggar's Opera" with its highwayman hero Macheath,and Sir Walter Scott's novel "Rob Roy." More recently there are examples as diverse as the "Godfather" books and movies, or the hip-hop "music" of urban blacks (eagerly adopted by suburban white adolescents) with content replete in drug-related, sexual, or violent references.

The lyrics of "Il Canto di Malavita" remind me not of any of these, but of of François Villon, the great French poet of the middle ages. He was also a murderer and thief, and wrote much about his life of crime. Like Villon's, these forms are traditionally poetic, their language sometimes formal and exalted, at other times bloody rodomontade, or a gritty lament of prison life. All the songs are in Calabrian dialect except the last ("Canto di carcerato"), which is in ordinary Italian.

Musically the impression much of this music makes is more reminiscent of Spanish or Mexican songs than of the stereotypical Neapolitan ballad. Typical of this is the first song in the album, " 'Ndrangheta, camurra e mafia" follows a short dialogue that is reminiscent of a catechism, and which presumably reflects the ritual "work" of the societies, derived probably via the Carbonari from freemasonry. The song itself tells the historical legenda of these bodies, and interestingly traces them back to Spain. Southern Italy was of course long ruled by Spain, and later by Bourbon-Parma cousins of the Spanish royal house.

Said to be the oldest pieces on this disc, and certainly most antique in style, are two tarantelle, "U Ballu da famigghia Muntalbanu" and "Non su lupu." The history of the tarantella, Taranto, and tarantulas is extensive and fascinating. It goes back to at least the sixteenth century and is mentioned by writers like Pierre Gassendi and Athanase Kircher. The examples on this disc would be interesting to compare against the ones published by Kircher in the 1650s. Those on the disc have a compound metre, 12/8, and are played with great speed and dexterity on accordion and guitar. They are less melodic than the familiar examples of this dance by, say, Rossini - but listen closely and you'll surely be reminded of some of Domenico Scarlatti's riproaring little sonatas. The first is played as background to a spoken reading about the rise of the unsavory Muntalbanus, who call the tune to which everyone dances in their village. The second is preceded by a short spoken prologue that is unfortunately not transcribed in the liner notes.

A different sort of tarantella is the "Tarantella guappa" sung by Francesco Scarpelli, a.k.a. Fred Scotti. "Guappo" (the word from which the pejorative "wop" is derived) can mean bold or handsome, but also can mean a dandy or a bully. Here it is used in the latter somewhat disparaging sense - the best translation might be "wiseguy's tarantella." The lyrics begin by describing how elegantly the sons of Calabria dance, and how they are destined to kill; then boast of how the singer "fished" for his "mullet" (laid in wait for his victim) for a week before doing him in, then reflect that he will reap what he has sown, but nonetheless women fall for men like him; and conclude by singing how his Nannaredda has come to make his bed, and her flash is milk-white. Altogether it is a very ambivalent portrait of its brigand protagonist. The performer of this piece was murdered in 1971 for having fallen in love with the mistress of one of his "betters" - just like the aristocratic composer, con-man, and rakehell Alessandro Stradella was in 1682. Plus ça change...

"U lupu d'Asprumunti" illustrates the attitude of the ordinary folk who must steer a path between the authorities and the gangsters - "how beautiful are the words of the mute." Several other selections have more overtly criminal protagonists singing of the virtue of a silent tongue (omertá) and vowing vengeance and death upon those who neglect it. Rounding out the collection are songs lamenting the woes of the prisoner ("Ergastulanu," "Canto di carcerato") or the fugitive ("Canto all'Aspromonte").

Americans, who are surrounded by popular entertainments filled with extreme vulgarity as well as violence, may find it had to understand the furor this recording, with its sentimental portrayals of rustic chivalry, has stirred in Italy. The music on it circulated widely for years on cassettes sold at markets and festivals throughout the mezzogiorno before the appearance of this album. However, no major Italian recording company dared to publish this compilation, and the disc is marketed by a firm in Hamburg.

The reception of the recording is best understood as a consequence of its challenge to political order rather than to criminal law. Widespread criminality of the Mafia or 'Ndrangheta type is typically a consequence of governmental misrule. The south of Italy has known centuries of it. Latinists will remember Cicero's prosecution of Verres for his oppressive and self-serving conduct as a governor in Sicily. Most often the rulers of this part of the world have been foreigners concerned only with enriching themselves and enhancing their control. Organizations deemed criminal by these authorities were tolerated by ordinary people because they resisted the authority of the occupying power, and enforced a sort of harsh justice amongst common folk who had no other recourse. Things are different now, but of course the same could be said in comparing the I.R.A. of 1916, or the Ku Klux Klan of 1868, with their modern parallels. Imagine the stir that would be created by publishing a collection of IRA songs in Britain, or Ku Klux ballads in America, albeit performed with the level of musicianship and verve these have. Then you can envision the reaction this album has caused in Italy.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Worth buying...if only for the curiosity factor, July 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: La Musica della Mafia: Il Canto di Malavita (Audio CD)

I read about this eons ago in [URL] when the Italians were protesting -- but waited til it was offered here as an import to get it...Definitely interesting, especially for students of Italian like me but as the article pointed out you'd have to be from that region to even get the faintest idea of what they're talking about -- reading side by side with the translation it loses some of the emotional impact. I'm sure a lot of groups will be up in arms about this, but it was a record to be made...