A diamond in the rough.... from my vinyl vault: Bill Costa's, "La Bella Italia"

Bill Costa's, "La Bella Italia".

I picked up this little gem off of Ebay. It's definitely a straight forward album and what you see is what you get: classic Italian folk tunes arranged for tradtional accordion instrumental versions. This is a highly affordable record-- you can usually find a perfectly well functioning copy of it for $3 or $4 online-- and the material itself is a steal for that price. It's a cheap one, but a good one!

The record kicks off properly upbeat with one of  the most famous Italian tunes ever, "Tarantella Napolitana" and then into the lovely, "O Sole Mio"-- a beautiful song that has been reinterpreted countless times by so many artists (Rachid Taha's is perhaps my favorite-- his style mixes Raï and world combined with elements of rock, and he covered it and gave it a very middle eastern feel that is really unique and definitely worth checking out!)-- but when it comes to an accordion instrumental take on it, this one takes the cake.

The backing band consists of gentle acoustic guitar, light bass, light percussion, and vibraphone-- some tracks boast an occasional pinch of jazz, but overall this record keeps it in a traditional pocket for these italian standards. Additional highlights of the album take place on side B with the gorgeous soaring of, "Sorrento" and the fun bouncy folk of, "Funiculi Funicula", and the wonderful version of, "Arrivederci Roma".

Back of, "La Bella Italia".

As for Bill Costa himself he has a few other similar records available, such as, "Holiday And Rome", "Bill Costa and His Accordion", and one or two others I've seen online out there. Surprisingly, other than the records themselves on Ebay and Amazon-- I can't really find any other information on him. Luckily the back of this record alone clues us in a bit: he went to Julliard, worked and appeared on both NBC and ABC television, appeared in a decent list of jazz quartets, recorded with: Sammy Kaye, Dorothy Collins, Ben Selvin, and Jerry Jerome-- that sums up a decent chunk of the bio on the back of the album.

All in all, this is a great affordable fun album of authentic Italian folk tunes as accordion instrumentals-- it'd be an excellent addition to the collection of anyone interested in collecting specifically Italian, world music in general, could slightly interest some jazz fans perhaps, accordion enthusiasts, or even just if your looking to branch out your collection with something new of this caliber that you didn't dabble in before; in which case, this would be a perfect starting point.