Italian DJ/producer Nicola Conte's loungey brand of acid jazz
relies extensively on bossa nova, but is also heavily influenced by the swinging
soundtracks of Italian films in the '60s and '70s, plus touches of ethnic music
and easy listening kitsch reminiscent of Japan's Pizzicato Five. Part of the
loose-knit Fez collective of artsy acid jazz revivalists centered in the Italian
town of Bari, Conte was a classically trained musician who instead moved into
production and DJing, working with artists like the Paolo Achenza Trio, the
Fez Combo, Balanco, Quintetto X, and the Intensive Jazz Sextet. Conte also masterminded the Schema label, which gave many of
those artists a home and cultivated a trademark, distinctly Italian approach
to acid jazz. As for his own recording career, Conte scored an underground hit
with his first single, "Bossa Per Due," which appeared on a variety of compilations
and was licensed in the U.S. for an Acura commercial. Conte's first album to
be released in America was also titled Bossa Per Due, a slightly reconfigured
version of the Italian Jet Sounds; it appeared on Thievery Corporation's ESL
(Eighteenth Street Lounge) label in the summer of 2001. The remix album Jet
Sounds Revisited followed in late 2002. Two years later, Conte bowed on Blue
Note's French subsidiary with an assured jazz date, Other Directions. 
Nicola Conte
~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
site: nicola
conte