Enzo Favata - Song Book No.1 (2019)

I have never written any songs. Of course, my music crosses boundaries, it travels, it narrates, but only through melodies, never through lyrics. The story told here has something to do with songs without words. Now the reader may say that I am wrong, and that songs must necessarily possess a meaning, like an oral tale with lyrics identifying places, people, emotions and stories.

Presently I wonder whether my reader, intrigued, will take the disk, listen to its tunes, and perhaps will join in singing or whistling the melody… Will some tunes make you remember landscapes, lived experiences, or, for a short moment, stories dreamed? Isn’t this the power of a song?

With these questions in mind, I entered a recording studio in April 2018. I was in Sardinia; I was encouraged by the mild spring of the Mediterranean Cagliari. With me there was a quartet of great musicians who frequently accompany my journeys around the world. I showed them the way in which I wanted the music to develop during the recording session; a mysterious understanding blossomed, piece after piece, and it defined the path of music.

When the recording session was over, I wanted to give a title to the album. The one which most naturally came to my mind was Song Book No. 1, since this is my first “book” with a collection of “songs” – sung my way, of course.