Bassolino is the project of Neapolitan pianist and producer Dario Bassolino, a new chapter that opens pathways between jazz and electronic music. With a long career and collaborations with artists such as Nu Genea, Nicola Conte, and Paolo Fresu, he now presents Città Futura, his debut album, released in March 2024 by Periodica Records and Yakarta Records. A work that starts in Naples and imagines new sonic landscapes.
Dario Bassolino: vocals and arrangements
Paolo Petrella: electric bass, acoustic guitar, and arrangements
Andrea De Fazio: drums
Alessio Pignorio: electric and acoustic guitar
Linda Feki: vocals
Chicca Iavarone: flute and vocals
Alice Villa: vocals
Pietro Santangelo: tenor saxophone
Riccardo Sala: tenor saxophone
Paolo Batà Bianconcini: percussion
Gennaro Apuzzo: vocals
Caterina Bianco: violins
Luigi Scialdone: mandolins
What does it mean to “sound Neapolitan”? Or to “sound Mediterranean”? At a time when many artists are digging into tradition to find a familiar sound that represents not just a style, but the vibration of a place, Dario Bassolino offers an alternative path to the roots. He builds the soundtrack to an Italian film that doesn’t exist and brings to life nu-jazz grooves that pass through the Neapolitan funk scene of the ’70s and ’80s — without dissolving it into any kind of fake cosmopolitanism. On the album Città Futura (Jakarta Records, 2024), Bassolino delivers to our ears a sound that is both nostalgic and fresh, and that reclaims the universal power of what is local — without leaning on folklore.
Albert Lloreta
Journalist