‘Benvenuti alla Small Cluster Band!’ And about time, too. We had been sitting in the Castello in Castellabate for half an hour watching an empty stage, while members of La Small Cluster Band stood around eating slices of pizza from takeaway boxes. ‘They’re on Italian time,’ I told my mother, as she sat in her place wearing an expression communicating polite but profound dissatisfaction.
It had been my idea to spend an evening in the historic hilltop town of Castellabate listening to La Small Cluster Band playing ‘Concerto Swing’ after seeing a poster advertising the event on a wall. What could be more sophisticated, I thought, than an evening of live music in Castellabate, which boasts of being the most beautiful town in Italy.
I booked a table at the most idyllic restaurant there and told Luigi we would not be dining in the hotel that night. Luigi was not impressed. ‘But you have to see the Madonna,’ he protested.
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