Eduardo De Crescenzo was born in Naples on February 8, 1951. The encounter with music comes very early: at the age of three he receives his first accordion as a gift and immediately plays it “by ear”; at the age of five, enfant prodige, he made his debut at the Teatro Argentina in Rome and began studying classical music. They will be private studios because, at the time, the accordion was not recognized in conservatories. The first competitions arrive, then the complexes (this is how the musical groups were called between the 60s and 70s). These are the years in which soul, blues and jazz invade the Nights: Eduardo temporarily puts aside the accordion which does not suit the prevailing American sound and plays the piano or keyboards in the various groups he joins. He limits himself to capturing the music that goes around him, he hasn’t yet understood the whole musical world that is inside him or even the power of that voice that will make him famous. Meanwhile, school continues. After graduating in accounting he enrolled in the Faculty of Law, he took eight exams but it was music that filled his thoughts … In 1981 the official debut with Ancora on the stage of the Sanremo Festival where his voice broke like a hurricane! A prestigious jury, chaired by Sergio Leone, awards that young debutant with the Critics Award for Best Performer. “Ancora” – written by Claudio Mattone and Franco Migliacci – is one of those rare songs that immediately become an extraordinary event. In a few days it turns into an international success and gives him fame. With millions of copies sold it is still today an evergreen loved and played all over the world. Many great artists will try to re-propose it: Mina and Vanoni in Italy, Mireille Mathieu in France – with the French adaptation of the text by Charles Aznavour – but, as happens to the leaders of the race, the imprint of his interpretation will remain indelible.

Eduardo’s natural talent, however, is not exhaustive of his sound world: singer, composer, accordionist, arranger … the sound of that voice-instrument is the result of many talents and a more complex work. An esteemed admirer of his, Omar Calabrese, described him well in 1995, in an essay entitled La sapienza latina: “De Crescenzo is certainly endowed with an extension and a melodic capacity out of the ordinary, however he was able, in the course of a few years, to refine it, to the point of making it the emblem of a thousand musical memories. Beyond the recognition of various genres, in fact, in his songs the existence of a margin of risk and unexpectedness is perfectly perceived, as if the score were only a canvas from which variations and improvisations can emerge at will. Thus, almost instinctively, it happens that we let ourselves go – despite an indisputable sophistication of words and music – to the sentimental effects produced by the author. Emotions such as those of nostalgia, regret, elegy, flow direct, poetic, lyrical from these performances, also here in the most perfect Mediterranean tradition. Yet it can be sworn that nothing of De Crescenzo’s songs is spontaneous. The most astute critic will be able to recognize the study, the culture, the virtuosity of certain passages”.
A pregnant and visionary analysis by Omar Calabrese which alone would be enough to explain the entire artistic career of Eduardo De Crescenzo. He will return to the San Remo stage several times in the 1980s, including with international successes such as L’odore del mare in 1987 and until 1991 with E la musica va. He has returned to composing his own songs, he has taken up the accordion again – the instrument of his roots – but gradually he moves away from that way of representing himself in public, even his television appearances will become rare. It is the dimension of the concert that interests him and which allows him to express his exciting and virtuoso musicality.

In 2012, Eduardo De Crescenzo presents a new live project, Essenze jazz. “I’m looking for a sound that can represent me today” – he will say – but the goal he pursues is more complex, it is the format to which his expressive maturity reaches. The songs in his repertoire are already imbued with his highly concentrated blues singing and are not particularly distorted by the new dimension; all the intensity of his poetic interpretations of the classical school remains, but the jazz modules lend themselves better to “playing” his voice full of harmonics, to feed the extemporaneous composition that distinguishes his performances.

On June 12, 2021, the new project AVVENNE A NAPOLI passione per voce e piano will debut at the Campania Teatro Festival, in which Eduardo interprets the classic Neapolitan song of the widely indicated period between the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s. Accompany this magical journey the talented, international piano by Julian Oliver Mazzariello. A concert that wants to give us back the authentic spirit of that time in all its unsurpassed modernity.

THE PROJECT: AVVENNE A NAPOLI passione per voce e piano

VIDEO INTERVIEW
extracted from the docufilm “Essenze” broadcast exclusively on Sky Arte

DISCOGRAPHY:
ESSENZE JAZZ 2013 – LE MANI live cd e dvd 2006 – LA VITA È UN’ALTRA 2003 – LIVE 1995 – DANZA DANZA 1993 – CANTE JONDO 1991 – C’E’ IL SOLE 1989 – DOVE C’E’ IL MARE 1985 – NUDI 1987 – decrescenzo 1983 – AMICO CHE VOLI 1982 – ANCORA 1981.
www.eduardodecrescenzo.it