Quella vecchia locanda, the first lp 1972

Today we are going to talk about “Quella Vecchia Locanda”, an Italian rock band formed in the Monteverde district of Rome, at the beginning of the 70s. At the initial stage, the members  of the group  were Giorgio Giorgi - voice and flute, Raimondo Cocco - guitar and  clarion, Romualdo Coletta - bass, Patrick Traina - drums, Donald Lax  - violin, Massimo Roselli  - keyboards and, for a short while,  Carlo Mariani  on  piano.

The creative name of the band (That Old Inn) seems to have originated  from where they initially met for rehearsals: a real decrepit inn which had been  abandoned many years before.  At the beginning, the band  dedicated itself to live performances in the Roman pop environment creating for itself a solid reputation.  The real consecration of the band came in 1972 with its performances at the Pop Concert Festival held at Villa Pamphili Park, after which it was engaged by the Help! Label.

The Villa Phampili Park Frstival (1972)

The Help! Label was an Italian record company established at the end of the 60s by record producer Gianni Dell’Orso who began to produce during his experience at Parade Records.  Help! was distributed by the Italian RCA and mainly released pop and progressive rock.  Besides Quella Vecchia Locanda, he had under contract the Procession band (from Turin)  and singer-songwriter   Folkaldo  also known as Franco Maria Giannini. Gianni Dell’Orso’s list of bands included the Germans  The Rattles  and The Sub and Austrian Musician  Eddy Korsche (known as Free Action Inc) who turned out to be one his of  closest  associate.

In 1972, the debut album of Quelli della Vecchia Locanda is released.  The record is structured as a concept album, with a constant melodic music thread crossed by frequent symphonic passages that underline magical and fable traces connected to the lyrics, but the most of classical hard progressive   sound is never missed on this album.

There is evidence of Vivaldi’s influence, particularly in the phrasing stage between voice and piano. It is the flute here that takes the stage, as a reminder of Jethro Tull. Also the electric violin played by virtuoso Donald Lax contributes to the building up of a sound that avoids clashes with violins and pianos  which could remind us of the acid sounds of Comus (as in First Utterance) and have a more solar and Italian range of sounds.

 “Prologo” opens up the concept album, where a classic violin excells over keyboards, guitars and flute. The track develops in different tempos  that leave space to a breezy quietness which is crashed by a flute solo Ian Anderson style.  We again find classic violin accompanied by flute in “Un Villagio, Un’Ilusione”  which turned out to be a classical example of progressive music played in Italy in those years.

Cocco’s  arpeggios of classic guitar accompanied by birds’ singing opens the dreamy “Reality”, takes  the listener in a dream state. Here the sound plots get more convincing and we can find a similarity with Premiata Forneria Marconi and  Banco del Mutuo Soccorso bands.  In  “immagini Sfuocate” , the atmosphere we can perceive is more rock-oriented, rythm  gets higher and the guitar of Raimondo Cocco  really dominates this performance. After this we find what I reckon to be  the best song in the album: “Il Cieco”.  Inside it, we find a flute solo that recalls My God which perfectly integrates within the track. We can consider it hard rock but it lacks the frequent tempo changes present on previous track.

The fusion between  the guys in “Dialogo” reaches perfection.  Keyboards  are highlighted and accompany us all the way to the pleasant solo of Giorgi’s ottavino flute. At the end we get “Verso La Locanda”  and “Sogno, Risveglio e....” winding up this outstanding work  and that confirm the excellent bond  between classic and progressive rock.

Well,  “Quella Vecchia Locanda” is certainly an awesome start for the band.  The genial solutions adopted are never repetitive, pleasant and interesting to hear  and very difficult to trace in other bands,  turning this album into one of the first classics of the first Progressive Italian Rock. A last note of merit goes to the art-work of cover which contributes  to the definition  of the dreamy story thread  of the record.

Encouraged by the warm welcome  received  by the album, the band intensified its concerts, also through the  participation to the “Festival di Musica d’Avanguardia e Nuove Tendenze”. Subsequently there was a change in the band  with the exit of virtuoso Donald Lux and the bass-guitarist Coletta, who were replaced respectively by Claudio Filice and Massimo Giorgi. In 1974  the band conceived a second and last lp, “Il tempo della gioia.....”  but this is another story of which we will talk about soonest.

Original Lp Tracks list

Prologo - 5:01

Un villaggio, un'illusione - 3:53

Realtà - 4:14

Immagini sfuocate - 2:57

Il cieco - 4:14

Dialogo - 3:43

Verso la locanda - 5:17

Sogno, risveglio e... - 5:13

Chetro & Co. and The Parade records

At  the beginning of the eighties there was  a great flourishing of small record companies in Italy, whose policy was often that of meeting the demands of the public that the majors could not reach.

In Rome were born different labels that often revolved around the RCA  and which exploited the same recording studios and distribution channels. Among others  we find  Help,  Apollo,  Picci,  Delta, Mimo,  Spaghetti, It and Parade.

Now I wish to spend  few  more words on this latter,  Parade. The quality of the small but valuable  label's repertoire is definitely due to  Vincenzo Micocci, art director of the Italian RCA who, left Rome to cover the same role at the Ricordi Records in Milan;  during the  spring of 1966 he returned  to work on a new recording project. The idea of Micocci was on the one hand to continue the research for new talents, on the other to propose to the blooming Italian cinema industry and ever-growing public, their most interesting  soundtracks as well.

So he founded Parade along with Ennio Morricone, Nico Fidenco and lyricist Carlo Rossi. And Micocci, who was constantly in search for young talents,  did not betray  expectations: one of the first 45 rpm was to be released by  a young Neapolitan singer and composer, Edoardo Bennato. The activity continued in the subsequent years, and among other  artists discovered and proposed to the public Alunni del Sole, Calipop and Chetro & Co. of  Ettore De Carolis, one of the few Italian psychedelic bands.

Ettore De Carolis - Marsia Solinas - Gianfranco Coletta

This Roman group composed by Ettore “Chetro” De Carolis (guitar) and Gianfranco Coletta (voice and guitar) followed by Gianni Ripani (bass guitar) and  Gegè Munari (drums). The group released for Parade a single: Danze della  sera (psychedelic suite) b/w Le pietre numerate, with a wholesome sleeve which could be opened in four parts.  While Le Stelle had in Mario Schifano their most important supporter, Chetro & Co. were assisted by Pier Paolo Pasolini, whose verses picked from a poem called Notturno  from the book L’usignolo della Chiesa Cattolica, were used as lyrics on  Danze della Sera.

Both tracks propose peculiar sonorities thanks to the aid of arch and wind instruments, which together give a unique hypnotic style, perhaps more onirical than psychedelic and of clear oriental influence. There is  careful care in each  aspect : worthy to notice that on Danze della Sera, De Carolis used “la violaccia”  an instrument created by him which had 6 to 10 drone strings and which resembles a hurdy-gurdy (a medieval instrument).

On flip you’ll find Le pietre numerate, an acid beat march which brushes sounds as if they were colors on canvas.  The song has the musical equivalence on sleeve, of clear Beatles’ influence, proposes on a sort of a psych trip:  Dylan together with Allen Ginsberg, Fellini, Totò and Pasolini who plays football, Mandrake and other heroes of comic strips.

Through a careful  listening, however, one can trace back the genesis of the track, which is a tribute to Milestones of Miles Davis (1958, the theme and harmony of the name-like track are traced with a happy hand by the Roman group. Emblematic is the presence of a photo of Miles Davis with trustworthy John Coltrane on the aforementioned collage. On the Milestones album both of them started to explore modal jazz which had an enormous impact on the 60s’ psychedelic sounds, just think about Byrds’ Eight Miles High.

Unfortunately the record did not have the recognition it deserved, too avant-guard for the time and evidently daring on lyrics.  It was censored by RAI Tv : “Danze della sera” was cancelled from the highly popular radio program “Bandiera Gialla” for the lyric “Ormai sono quasi nudo per venire a te” (I am almost naked ready to come to you).

A critical reviewer wrote these words: “With the complicity of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Chetro & Co. have made ​​an awful mess in their attempt to create a self-styled intellectual-psychedelic track. It is boring, anti-commercial and of little effect. Danze della sera  contains a lyric by Pasolini that would be  quite meaningful and deep, if not  put down into music ".  This was the  welcome resulting from backwardness and unpreparedness  of  critical reviewers of the time. 

The adventure of Chetro & Co. begun and ended with this 7-inch. Gianfranco Coletta then became part of the first formation of the Banco del Mutuo Soccorso. De Carolis devoted himself to a more straightforward folk and also arranging some of Francesco Guccini and Claudio Lolli’s records and composed radio and television themes.

In the suffocating Italian rock scene of the time a gem like this 45 has become over time a much sought after record by lovers of Italian progressive and psychedelic music.  True masterpieces such as the above were  Le Stelle of Mario Schifano, Senza orario senza bandiera of New Trolls or the first psychedelic lp  of Le Orme titled Ad Gloriam.

Gianfranco Coletta nel 1967

Il Cantadisco and The Italian Rca orchestras

Thanks to the discovery of an lp releasd in 1967, I seize this opportunity to talk about the great arrangers of the Italian RCA which were, in the sixties, people of the calibre of Ennio Morricone, Luis Enriquez Bacalov, Franco Pisano, Carlo Pes, Guido Relly.

The record in question is  Cantadisco, predecessor of the modern karaoke, basically a collection of 14 tracks performed by RCA orchestras which  delighted us with the hits of the time. According to the back sleeve notes, the basics are the same as those used for the original records with an overdubbed organ arrangement so as to facilitate the vocal performance of the songs.

The track-list is as follows:

La fisarmonica – Ennio Morricone e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni


Piangi con me – I Rokes (brano non orchestrale)

Quando dico che ti amo – Franco Pisano e la sua orchestra

Domani – Guido Relly e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni

Ti vedo uscire – Ennio Morricone e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni

Lui – Luis Enriquez e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni

Te lo leggo negli occhi – Ennio Morricone e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni

Bisogna saper perdere– I Rokes (altro brano non orchestrale)

Il mondo -  Ennio Morricone e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni

Fortissimo - Luis Enriquez e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni

Se telefonando - Guido Relly e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni

Vivrò - Guido Relly e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni

Pensandoci ogni sera – Carlo Pes e la sua orchestra e I Cantori Moderni di A. Alessandroni

Se perdo anche te - Ennio Morricone e la sua orchestra

For those who are used to consider Ennio Morricone as an author of movie scores and contemporary music, it might be strange to find out about his activity as arranger of pop music .

Ennio arrives at RCA  in 1959 taking over the place previously occupied by maestro Marcello De Martino. He was awarded  with a Diploma at the Music Academy (Conservatorio) and he was a student of the great Goffredo Petrassi.....The year before he was employed in RAI (Italian Broadcast Radio-TV)  but his experience lasted very briefly because he handed over his resignations the same day he was employed because he felt his work in RAI would have been a routine job, his compositions would never have been performed by the orchestras and soon after  he was deployed to other office duties.

One of his first arrangements was for Il Barattolo of Gianni Meccia for whom he managed, in the introductory part of the song, to synchronize the noise of some tin-cans with orchestral rythmics. The  modus operandi of Morricone is very rigid, he is undoubtly an insatiable worker, the change of sounds and modulations produced by him are very refined and  put the designated orchestra through a very tough challenge in playing them: through his choices and method one can unequivocally  perceive his solid and classical training.

The sixties were a very profitable decade, during which jewels such as Sapore di Mare, Il mondo, C’era un ragazzo che come me che amava i Beatles e i Rolling Stones and Il cielo in una stanza were released , but the working relationship with the Roman label was destined to end due to the movie industry’s demands . According to the Maestro, however, a strange situation came alight: following the music revolution of those years the requests by the RCA to follow the American tendencies also became more pressurizing.  He returned at RCA  in 1978 to arrange the record Bandierine by Renzo Zenobi, where he used a new experimental technique which consisted in three different arrangements of the same track which during the mix phase, were overdubbed and interexchanged. The time of orchestras, however, was coming to an end and also the RCA was compelled, during the eighties, to shut down.

Luis Enriquez Bacalov arrived in RCA together with Morricone in 1959; he already was a recognized  brilliant arranger who, as soon as arrived in Italy from Argentina, he had his own way with the Cetra label: he cooperated, among others, with Claudio Villa (of whom was pianist and supporting musician up to the end of fifties) as well as Milva. One of his first  arrangements was Il Capello which crowned Edoardo Vianello’s  long list of hits. He continued to get further noticed by taking care of arrangements of other RCA artists: Nico Fidenco (remarkable the one of “Legata ad un granello di sabbia”), Sergio Endrigo, Rita Pavone (memorable the work done on the song Cuore) , Umberto Bindi, Neil Sedaka (his arrangement for La terza luna contributed to the great success of the song). Then, following contrasts with the Director Ennio Melis, Bacalov also left the RCA and dedicated the following years almost exclusively to movie scores.

Statistically, Bacalov is in net contrast with respect to Ennio Morricone, his style can be defined  simple and direct , more colored and expressive, with a tendency to produce effect in its most positive sense.   

Franco Pisano began his career as musician with his younger brother Berto with whom, in the fifties, interchanged jazz with the Asternovas Band of Fred Buscaglione.  At the same time, while working at RCA he was cooperating with the Radio Orchestra of RAI and this allowed him to count on a  well close-knit group. His training was based on American music, thanks to the listening of composers and arrangers from overseas.

The partnership with Tony Renis allowed him to arrange songs such as Nessun’altra che te, Quando dico che ti amo and many more, as well as other songs written by the Milanese singer and other artists such as Gianni Morandi with Tenerezza.

Carlo Pes got noticed in the environment as the lead guitarist of the Armando Trovaioli Orchestra: the relationship was very strong that when he left the orchestra, Pes continued to cooperate with the maeestro together with the group Marc 4 (also known with the name I Solisti di Armando Trovajoli)  with Maurizio Maiorana on bass, Antonello Vannucchi on  keyboards and Roberto Podio on drums and percussions.

By the end of the ‘50s he became part of the Orchestra Rai, but his role at the time also included that of arranger of RCA, where had the chance  to work, among other famous artists,  with Patty Pravo  (Ragazzo Triste), Josè Feliciano (Que sera), Jimmy Fontana and Dalida.

Piero Umiliani - To-day's sound 1972

I would like to start by proposing a double LP by Piero Umiliani, a great italian musician and absolute geniuos composer, author of a great number of  osts and jazz lps. Born in Florence, he lived and worked in Rome for many years till his early departure. Arrived in Rome in 1954, at the age of 28,  he was immediately captured by the music scene of the Capital.
 

 

After many years at the RCA in Via Tiburtina, he opened his own recording studio, The Workshop Studio, in Via Tommaso D’Aquino  in the Trionfale  central suburb of  Rome. At the disposal of other musicians  were  instruments and best recording facilities available on the world scene.  Amongst others, you could have found an Hammond C-3 Organ, with its own speed variation and separated PR  40 Tone Cabinet and Leslie, the Fender Rhodes piano, a Petrof tail-piano, a tack-piano, a Harpsichord, the EMS Synthi A, a vibraphone, Ludwig’s drums, Marshall amplifiers and Fender Twin for guitar and bass.    
              

 

The double LP of which I want to talk to you about  is To-day’s Sound,  which was firstly conceived  as a library-ost for tv programmes and movies of various genres. However it would be reductive to define this record only under this viewpoint.  As a matter of fact, the album discloses, in all its tracks, an intense energy which gives a direct blow to the listener. The feeling one gets is that this LP does not want to be heard in a distracted manner, nor as background music, but thanks to the wholesome conception of the album, its intention is to fully immerse whomever is listening to it.  In order to better understand how  Piero Umiliani managed to succeed in his enterprise,  we should consider that in those times the music scene was characterized by a feverish research and by a continous will-power of experimenting, but for jazz composers it was almost impossible to find their own discography space, thus libraries became a fertile field where to propose their own music with only few  requirements: low cost, rapidity and versatility of tracks.   
                          

 

According to my point of view, To-day’s Sound is one of the best works by the Maestro and one of the libraries produced in Italy. If we want to make a daring comparison we could compare To-day’s Sound to Beatles’ White Album, i.e. a wide and enthusiastic panorama on the different music genres of the time (from here the title of the recording) performed with the aid of wholesome technical creativity  in cooperation with highly skilled musicians.

Recorded and released as far back as 1972 on Liuto records, the album is composed by two 33 r.p.m. vinyls with 11 and 10 instrumental tracks, respectively. The cover’s design is an absolute marvel featuring on front side which featuring the graphic reproduction of the recording studio itself with a stylish touch of 70s’ cartoons.   
                                     

 

Tracks space from psych funk, such is “Open Space” used nonetheless for Baba Yaga’s movie opening soundtrack (you can see the video below) , samba march  to progressive rock of To-day’s sound, from funky fusion with Lady Magnolia over all, to jazz blues and bossa nova The whole lot seasoned with electronics, jazz fusion and “south of the border” sound.

 

Performers:

 

Bass:  Maurizio Majorana

Double bass:  Giovanni Tommaso

Drums and percussions: Gegé Munari and Enzo Restuccia

Percussions: Ciro Cicco

Fender Rhodes, Hammond e Moog:  Piero Umiliani

Hammond:  Antonello Vannucchi

Lowrey Organ: Sergio Carnini

Piano and  Clavichord:  Franco D'Andrea

Flute: Marcello Boschi

Guitar:  Sergio Cappotelli

Marimba and Vibraphone: Carlo Zoffoli

Trombone: Biagio Marullo, Dino Piana e Mario Midana

Trumpet: Al Corvin, Marino Di Fulvio e Oscar Valdambrini

 

Recorded on 8-track Ampex

 

A1  Open Space  4:19

A2  Green Valley  3:06

A3 Caretera Panamericana  3:01

A4  Goodmorning Sun  4:44

A5 To-Day's Sound   2:29

A6  Free Dimension  2:22

 

B1  Truck Driver  4:38

B2  Blue Lagoon  3:42

B3  Wanderer    3:56

B4   Lady Magnolia   3:26

B5  Pretty  3:12

 

C1   Railroad  4:17

C2   Country Town  3:33

C3    Bus Stop   2:49

C4    Cotton Road   3:46

C5    Nocturne   3:29

 

D1 Exploration    2:10

D2  Tropical River  4:24

D3  Coast To Coast  3:27

D4   Safari Club   5:11

D5  Music On The Road   4:26