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The Tunes You Can't Refuse: From a secret place in southern Italy, where Old World mafia songs were born, comes a CD that celebrates the romance and violence of malavita.
Publication: Newsweek Publication Date: 26-AUG-02 Author: Ali, Lorraine
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COPYRIGHT 2002 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Any reuse, distribution or alteration without express written permission of Newsweek is prohibited. For permission: www.newsweek.com
Byline: Lorraine Ali
It's just past midnight, the mafia feast is in full swing and I'm playing a game in my head called Who's the Boss? It's not easy to focus while distracted by the smell of roast sausages, the taste of sweet white wine and the sight of a portly man in a tweed cap busting out the accordion. There are 35 guests to choose from at this gathering in the rugged Aspromonte range of southern Italy. They've come to celebrate one of three possible things: someone sprung from jail, a newly "made" man or the end of a longstanding vendetta. Then again, it could be a mock feast thrown for journalists in town to report on malavita music: mafia folk tunes written by jailed "family" members, played during traditional feasts--and taboo throughout the rest of Italy. My guide, Francesco Sbano--a native Calabrian, "family" friend and coproducer of a new malavita CD, "La Musica della Mafia"--never explains which joyous event we're celebrating, nor does he identify the other people seated at the long wood-plank tables.
A toothless man picks up a zampogna, a crude bagpipe made of billy-goat...
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