From the 1950s into the early 1960s, canzone ruled the world. It’s interesting that this overlaps exactly with the peak of Italian cinema.
There were several wonderfully beautiful songs. At just that time, I was in the upper grades of elementary school and in junior high, and the songs of Gigliola Cinquetti, Bobby Solo, and Wilma Goich that came from the radio — I listened to them with pleasure. Between Presley and the Beatles and the Stones, those songs entertained me, like rare and beautiful trees that bloom for only a very short while. This is an album in which I had José Luis Cortés arrange that kind of song in a Cuban style, and had various singers sing them.
I think it’s best on a refreshing holiday, listening together with good pasta and salad and espresso.
Ryu Murakami