"You are born alone, you die alone, and in between it's all

a great bustle," Conte once said of life, and it truly seems that in this latest work of his, too, there is a great bustle of thoughts in which nostalgia, boredom, wonders and, why not, even a little love intersect — love that is naturally nothing overwhelming, but manages timidly to surprise. The songs on this Nelson are delicate, light as the stories they tell; they have the consistency of a feather, capable of producing, at most, a pleasant tickle, or perhaps a slight irritation, without causing any upheaval — neither of thought nor of mood. There are no strong emotions in these 15 tracks, but anyone who knows Conte would never expect them: he has always preferred to graze his subjects, to observe them furtively, catching their awkwardness or intrigue without it much mattering to explore the why. But why Nelson? There are no references to the great admiral — rather, to his old dog, now gone. An affectionate memory wrapped in a little melancholy that, on closer inspection, already heralds the philosophy of the album's songs. Conte seems to entrust himself to memory in a disorderly way, ranging across time and space following his own personal geography, an instinct that leads him to his favourite places — down where they dance the mambo or the rumba, in the venues where small orchestras play and feelings are perpetuated in dance, in those places where minor stories are lived out. Every memory has its own language, and so there is no surprise in hearing him alternate Italian with French, English, Spanish and Neapolitan; each language has its own musicality that fits the context perfectly, which is why it is not strange that this Nelson should be an explosion of colours and rhythms. The musicians — seasoned and supremely talented — accentuate the cues and give us atmospheres ranging from burlesque to rumba, always with the feeling that one is listening to jazz, even if jazz in the strict sense is not really there. Conte has long since made his own the ability to render his music round: everything is present but everything is smoothed off, so one has the impression of complexity without really being able to tell what it is made of. It pleases, it surprises, and that is quite enough. These songs can accompany us as a perfect soundtrack both in those moments when we could do with a capable and attentive butler to solve our every problem (perhaps precisely the Jeeves of Wodehouse that the eponymous track speaks of), and when we feel on top form and perfectly capable of looking after ourselves (Bodyguard For Myself). We would always find pleasure in them.

Roberto Caselli