Dead James Senese, the 'black saxophone' between Napoli Centrale and Pino Daniele

In jazz, we all remember the masters of the solo, those who stand in the middle of the stage, the fearless leaders who improvise and single-handedly hold up a piece. And so we often end up forgetting the specialists of interplay, that innate ability to interact, to respond instrument to instrument to those playing around you, to add music to music. In Naples, we would say 'sta' mmiezz'', to stand in the middle. James Senese, monumental saxophonist and militant witness to Neapolitan cosmopolitanism who died at the age of 80, was above all this: a professor of the art of 'sta' mmiezz''.

He was a central figure in the music of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in this country, because he gave substance to the Showmen of Un ora sola ti vorrei, led the prog revolution of Napoli Centrale and discovered a certain Pino Daniele, after whom nothing, for the music of Naples but also for Italian music, would have been as it was before. Just as "Pinotto" would never have been Pino Daniele, without the sax solo of Quanno chiove.

Era un «figlio della guerra», nato a Miano, periferia Nord, il giorno della Befana del 1945 da madre italiana e padre afroamericano. Dietro le spalle aveva una di quelle potenti storie evocate dalla Tammurriata Nera che a Napoli, per più di una generazione di musicisti, equivalevano a grado di nobiltà. Assieme a Mario Musella, un altro nero a metà, a Terzigno nel 1961 fondò il complesso di Gigi e i suoi Aster. Pochi anni dopo, i due daranno vita con Vito Russo alla band Vito Russo e i 4 Conny, incidendo per l’etichetta King di Aurelio Fierro. Salto di qualità nel segno del beat nel 1965 con gli Showmen, la band che porta in Italia le sonorità soul di Otis Redding, James Brown e Marvin Gaye e nel 1968 vince il cantagiro con Un’ora sola ti vorrei. Non era più beat, era già qualcosa di diverso. Qualcosa che Renzo Arbore e Gianni Boncompagni, giocando a fare paragoni con il Black Power di oltre oceano, battezzeranno Neapolitan Power.

After the band's break-up, James and drummer Franco Del Prete launched Showmen 2, before the progressive breakthrough in 1974 with Napoli Centrale. Here Senese took centre stage and, singing politically, did not mince words: "Po' figlio do bracciante/ 'A campagna è n'ata cosa/ 'A campagna è sulamente/ Rine rutt' e niente cchiù". The band was an open project, as it was known at the time. And so James found himself auditioning a young guitarist from Santa Lucia, a great fan of his. He saw great talent in him, but to join Napoli Centrale he set him a condition: to leave the guitar for the electric bass. The boy's name was Pino Daniele.

It was a never-ending partnership between the two, which, with the balance of power reversed - Pino Daniele, after Terra mia, the eponymous and Nero a metà is the next big thing in quality Italian music - culminated in the legendary supergroup that made Piazza Plebiscito explode with the public in 1981, the closest thing to Woodstock that had ever been seen in Naples: with them on stage Tullio De Piscopo, Rino Zurzolo, Joe Amoruso and Tony Esposito, the general states of Neapolitan Power.