B i o g r a p h y
Daniele Sepe, Neapolitan, has been for over two decades one of the leading exponents of the meeting between author music, jazz, folk a continuous contamination where the vivacity and strength of the sounds is accompanied by a heartfelt social criticism that does notdisdain even the game of irony. The record works follow one anotherover the years, more than twenty-five albums for this extraordinary artistwho makes each disc a chapter in itself, both for genres crossed, and for the feelings it expresses from time to time, uncomfortable discs, orchestral suites, medieval music, jazz, rap, funk, blues, traditionalmusic. It is indefinable, elusive in spirit and substance to any label.
Daniele Sepe was born in the Posillipo district of Naples in 1960. At the age of sixteen, in 1976 he took part in the historic record "Tammurriata dell'Alfasud" by Zezi, a workers' group from Pomigliano d'Arco.
He graduated in flute at the "San Pietro a Majella" Conservatory in Naples. After a few years of experience first as a classical flutist of baroque and contemporary music, then as a session saxophonist, in 1990 he made his first self-produced album: Malamusica. In 1993 he collaborates with the Neapolitan band 99 Posse for the album Curre curre guaglió being mentioned in the song "Ripetuant".
His albums immediately met the favorable opinion of critics, but it was only with the fourth, Lives losses (1993), released by Polosud Records and distributed all over the world by the German label Piranha, that sales took off. Sepe also plays the sax in some tracks of the album Otto Quarantotto & Ventisette of Il Giardino dei Semplici, published in 1993.
In 1996 he published Viaggi fuori dal paraggi, his first anthology, with which he began a collaboration with the manifesto that lasted until 2007.
In 1998 the album Lavorare tired earned him the Tenco plaque as the best album in dialect.
In the same year he became concertmaster at the first edition of the "La Notte della Taranta" festival in Melpignano
In 1999 he participated in the project The night of the God who dances with - among others - Teresa De Sio and Vinicio Capossela.
In 2015 he founded the collective "Capitan Capitone and the brothers of the Costa" with which he released three albums, at the same time he began his live collaboration in Stefano Bollani's Naples Trip.
In 2019 he released an album dedicated to the Argentine saxophonist Leandro "Gato" Barbieri. In the same year he collaborated on the arrangements of Vinicio Capossela's album "Ballads for men and beasts" which won the Tenco plate as the best album ever.
There are numerous collaborations with other musicians (La Banda Improvvisa, Ensemble Micrologus), Stefano Bollani, Roberto Gatto and with film and theater directors (Mario Martone, Davide Ferrario, Gabriele Salvatores - Amnèsia -, Enzo D'Alò, Renato Chiocca, Terry Gilliam - "The Wholly Family"), Gianfranco Pannone, Antonietta De Lillo.
It is difficult to define his music, always poised between reggae, folk, world music, jazz, rock, fusion, blues, classical music ... a constant characteristic of him is the almost "zappiano" way of dealing with writing and arrangement. Daniele Sepe defines his style as follows: Music is made up of many very different things, just as a good director does when dealing with different genres, think of Kubrick, from horror to science fiction to a historical film, all done well, me I hope to do very different things from each other and all done well.