Enrico Rava: Pupa o crisalide (Vista, 1975)

Enrico Rava's the one musician who's almost unanimously credited abroad to have invented Italian Jazz. As a matter of fact, he was the one who first got some important international recognization back in the early Seventies, and brought the attention of foreign jazz listeners to our rising Italian scene.

"Pupa o crisalide" isn't his most acclaimed record, but it's my favourite one. It's a good summary of the first phase of his solo career, and it contains tracks recorded with three different ensembles: an all-Italian line-up for the opener and closer - recorded in Rome, an Argentinian octet for the B-side of the lp - recorded in Buenos Aires, and finally an impressive American septet (just two names: Jack DeJohnette, John Abercrombie) for the A-side, recorded in New York.
The musical style clearly reflects the composite nature of the album. The first half is funkier, edgier and more fiery, evidently influenced by the jazz-rock/fusion tendencies that were spreading during those years. The second one is more placid and skippy, and elegantly incorporates some latin/samba elements in the alchemy.
The two halves are held together by the timbric similarity of the line-ups (which feature almost the same elements), and by Enrico Rava's renown trumpet style. Often compared to Miles Davis and Kenny Wheeler, his technique envisages rarefied notes, full of ambience, and erratic melodic lines which surprisingly do not undermine the "presence" of his trumpet sound. On the contrary, Rava's trumpet charisma seems to emerge right from this amazing equilibrium of detachedness and red-bloodedness.

Check out "Quotation Marks" too if you like this record.

Tracklist:

1. Pupa o crisalide
2. C.T.'s Dance
   
3. Tsakwe
   
4. El Samba Graciela
5. Revisione del processo n. 6
6. Lingua franca
7. Giromondo (per piccoli feddayn, terzi bimbi e altri mutanti)

Credits:
Tracks 1, 7:

• Giovanni Tommaso (bass)
• Bruno Biriaco (drums)
• Michele Ascolese (guitar)
• Mandrake (percussion)
• Franco D'Andrea (piano)
• Tommaso Vittorini (tenor saxophone)

Tracks 2, 3:

• Herb Bushler (bass)
• Jack DeJohnette (drums)
• John Abercrombie (electric guitar)
• Ray Armando, Warren Smith (percussion)
• David Horowitz (piano, electric piano, synthesizer)

Tracks 4, 5, 6:

• Rodolfo Mederos (bandeon)
• "El Negro" Gonzales (double bass)
• Nestor Astarita (drums)
• Ricardo Lew (electric guitar)
• "El Chino" Rossi (percussion)
• Finito Ginbert (tenor saxophone, flute)
• Matias Pizzarro (piano)

All tracks:

• Enrico Rava (composer,  trumpet)

Download (192 kbps)


Similar music on the blog:
Tanit: omonimo (Classico, 1992)
Spirale: omonimo (King, 1974)

Toni Esposito: Rosso napoletano (Numero uno, 1975)

Jazz and the Mediterranean: two worlds merging into one with the suspended atmospheres of "Rosso napoletano". A magical record, capturing the most alluring aspects of Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis and elevating them to an almost mystical lightness. Hypnotic funky grooves and a miniaturistic work on percussions are the key element - and the most discreet one - of the sound, equally tipified by charming keyboard brushstrokes (piano, e-piano, synthetizers, all unfolded with calm, equilibrium and an elegant sense of obliqueness) and wavering saxophone themes, metamorphosing Southern-Italian folklore into a new melodic language.
The album succeeds in being both relaxing and thrilling at the same time: its delicate stream cradles and bewitches, but the everchaning breeze of its details won't ever let you yawn.

"Rosso napoletano" is the first solo album by legendary Neapolitan session-drummer Toni Esposito, and features Robert Fix on saxophone,  Paul Buckmaster on keyboards, and Gigi De Rienzo on bass and guitars, plus many guest appearences.

Tracklist:

1. Rosso napoletano
2. Danza dei bottoni
3. Il venditore di elastici
4. Breakfast
5. L'eroe di plastica

Download (192 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Spirale: omonimo (King, 1974)

Daniele Sepe: Malamusica (1987)

Yu Kung: Pietre della mia gente (I dischi dello zodiaco, 1976)

Milanese band Yu Kung didn't go down in the history of Italian folk-rock, but their music is surely one of the most mature and representative exemples of the left-wing branch of 70s folk revival.
Relying strongly on acoustic instrumentation (double acoustic guitar, flute, percussions) and bringing in the discreet energy of the electric bass, their style couples country dance motifs from all the Italian peninsula and hieratic vocals singing about the themes of emigration, protest, antifascism, rediscovery of traditions and the discomfort of the weaker classes.
The songs are often lively and choral, with "Piazza Fontana" strongly condemning both the terrorist attack of 1969 and the state reaction to it. Most of them sound perfect for arousing people during strikes and many a passage distinctly remind of Stalingrado-era Stormy Six. As a matter of fact, the album was first published by Stormy Six's own label "L'orchestra", and reprinted one year later by I dischi dello zodiaco.


Tracklist:

1. Povera gente/Piccolo paese
2. La mia gente
3. Valigie di cartone
4. Il popolo è forte
5. Mineros
6. Festa in paese
7. L'emigrato
8. Zip e zip
9. Piazza Fontana

Download (224 kbps)

Lucio Battisti: Anima latina (Numero Uno, 1975)

This is the sixth album by Italian pop colossus Lucio Battisti. It is much probably the most experimental one Battisti released while still collaborating with lyricist Mogol, who had written for him in the late Sixties some of the most successful Italian pop songs ever.
The recording of "Anima latina" (the title means "latin soul") follows a trip to South America Battisti and Mogol undertook in the beginning of 1974. Many of the sounds and lyrical themes, indeed, reflect a fascination with the music and the social contrasts of Brazil.

The final sound of the album is something unique: metamorphic pop hooks dissolved into an extremely dilated jazz-rock stream, often blessed by surprisingly lucid, anti-psychedelic world music premonitions and heavenly synthetizer suspensions. It might be called "progressive rock" perhaps, but in fact this fusion originated from a completely different route than any English or European progressive: the sound of "Anima latina" is a figment of the work of an astounding number of collabortors, the arrangements feature the most different instruments and the whole album fluctuates in an otherwordly funky groove which is very far from the prog-rock standards. The opening "Abbracciala, abbracciali, abbracciati" may even remind of later Talk Talk and their soulful, emptied-out approach!


Tracklist:

1. Abbracciala, abbracciali, abbracciati
2. Due mondi
3. Anonimo
4. Gli uomini celesti
5. Gli uomini celesti - ripresa
6. Due mondi - ripresa
7. Anima latina
8. Il salame
   
9. La nuova America
   
10. Macchina del tempo
11. Separazione naturale

Download (192 kbps) [re-up]

Luciano Basso: Voci (1975)

Luciano Basso's a Venetian keyboardist/composer and "Voci" is his first LP. It's quite original in its attempt to couple symph-prog magnitude and lyricism (think of Genesis) with a more academic approach. Though the sound has definitely aged and many Bach-inspired passages seem a bit cheesy nowadays, the result is very accomplished and it stands out as a unique fusion of the suggestive "Spaghetti prog" aesthetic and a more cosmic-rock attitude.

Tracklist:

1. Preludio
2. Prominade I
3. Prominade II
4. Voci
5. Echo

Download