Atlantico
Sale Apollinee
Enzo Favata: soprano sax, bass clarinet, andino flute
Daniele di Bonaventura: bandoneon
Marcello Peghin: 10-strings guitar
Salvatore Maltana: double bass
Alessandro Cau: drums
Atlantico, one of the most beloved bands in Italian jazz, presents Ritornare, their album released on ECM Records, live for the first time. Recorded in January 2026 under the guidance of Manfred Eicher, the album explores the space where jazz, chamber-music dynamics and improvisation meet. The music is never predictable, yet it has a strong sense of direction, rooted in a vast musical heritage that includes the many traditional musical dialects of Southern Italy and the Mediterranean. The quintet creates a richly coloured acoustic world, shaped by travel, memory and imagination, with everything Atlantico carries with it: the mistral wind, the Mediterranean, jazz, silences, and a South America both imagined and real.
DESCRIZIONE
The story of Atlantico is that of a small cultural phenomenon. The quintet came together around the concept album of the same name, released in 1999 by Manifesto Editions and inspired by the great South American literature of Borges, Sepúlveda, García Márquez and Soriano. It was an immediate success: numerous reissues, over 50,000 copies sold and more than 400 concerts worldwide between 1999 and 2004, including four tours of Latin America. With its unique instrumentation and its lyrical, dreamlike melodies, Atlantico became a cult band for an entire generation, and its music is still being discovered by younger listeners on digital platforms today.
In 2024, eighteen years after their last performance together, Favata decided to bring the quintet back together, filling concert halls across Italy. That reunion gave birth to Ritornare, a title that today also carries a memory. Umberto Trombetta “U.T.” Gandhi, the band’s longtime drummer, who plays on the album, passed away before he could see it released. On stage, the task of completing the quintet falls to Alessandro Cau, a Sardinian drummer who is at once poetic and powerful.
