L’ultima donna

Paolo Conte recorded L’ultima donna at a time when his music no longer sounded like anyone else’s. The track, from Paris milonga (1981), is a short but dense piece —3:43— where piano and double bass weave a jazz line with a milonga feel, as if tango and swing had met in a café in Turin. It’s neither a waltz nor a foxtrot: it’s something Conte had been cooking up for years, but here it sounds for the first time with that mix of melancholy and elegance that would make it unmistakable.The album was recorded between RCA’s studios in Rome and Format in Turin, a small venue where Happy Ruggiero —the place’s owner and a musician— played the *eminent* on two key tracks.

Conte reunited with Lilli Greco, his original producer, after a break with Nanni Ricordi on Un gelato al limon (1979). The result was an album that refined the jazz and swing already hinted at in his earlier work, but now with a stronger South American twist. L’ultima donna is not just a song: it’s the moment Conte found his definitive voice.