Tuesday 1 April 2014

“Colpo Rovente” Ost By Piero Piccioni 1970


Piero Piccioni, aka Piero Morgan, was an Italian pianist, composer and orchestra director. He is remembered, together with Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone, as being  the most famous movies’ soundtracks composers, especially with respect to comedies Italian-style.
As  musician and composer he also credits works for more than 300 soundtracks and compositions for films, radio, television, ballets and orchestra. Piccioni begun writing movies’ soundtracks in the 50s.

 
 
 
 

Among the many music scores he had composed, we wish to highlight that  “Colpo Rovente”, created for a poliziesco/thriller movie in 1969 which was markedly quite innovative for its time in terms of  determination and psych-noir developments.  The movie written and directed by Piero Zuffi who, for his  only movie direction chose Ennio Flaiano as his collaborator,  Carmelo Bene (dubbed excellently by Ferruccio Amendola) as the leading actor and actress Barbara Bouchet  who was then only a debutant to show one of the very  first front nudes ever uncensored in Italy.

 
 






The movie starts with the finding of a rich businessman’s dead body in the streets of New York.  The man was involved in drug-smuggling.   The investigation is handed over to Police Captain Frank Barin who goes under-cover as a violent biker to detect  who’s leading the pusher.  Notwithstanding his true identity is later discovered,  Barin manages to disclose the identity of the people running the organization with exception of the  murderer.  The truth is that the assassin is Barin himself ; he killed the businessman to retrieve some of the cold cases that his  superiors  had taken away from him time before.
 


 
 The movie score was released in 1970  by the Italian Rca on the prestigious sp 8000 collection which envisaged a 1000 copies limited edition release.
 



 Side A of Record opens with “Colpo Rovente”, the movie soundtrack supported by  powerful brass instruments that confer to the track a jazz-poliziesco character.  The different pronounced changes in the rhythms are due to the bass breaks and the percussions contribute to the development of the track in crescendo.

The trombone of Dino Piana is remarkable.  The track ends with a gunshot.  “Kitandù”, a brief track, follows. Piano, bass and percussions play master.  The electric bass  with its heavy sound mixes up  with percussions  holding a rhythm Dusty Fingers style, while piano sets against  the obsessive line of bass. On final, there are hints of percussions.

“Identikit” is developed as the previous track, here we find a xylophone that moves along percussions and various effects and gives it all an exotic effect.

“Lsd” is the fourth track which is quite experimental on first phase where the orchestra, directed by Piero Piccioni himself, seems concentrated on the tuning up . Furthermore, the psycho-guitar and the various sinister noises give the track an anxious sound which after few minutes go back to main theme.

“Eros” is a descriptive track which creates a dreamy and relaxed state , the addition of vibratos turn the track into a quite restless one.  “Fuoco” is tense and disarticulated,  and after few seconds female vocals and excellent trombone solo are reproduced.
 


 
 

On flip,   as first track we find “Easy dreams” , one of the best of the whole score. The Hammond, played by Antonello Vannucchi, guides the track with recurrent  breaks and gives it a strong funk character reinforced by the strong wind section as well. The female vocals, in the last part, highlight the brass counterpoints.      

 The track “China Town Drugs is in contraposition between celesta and marimba which confers to its first phase an oriental connotation and leaves space to a jazz blues  theme played on piano.

“Red Hot” is a suspense thriller tune resembling the main theme.  “Mexican Dream” is a great melodic theme with string-orchestra directed by Gianfranco Plenizio , including a various number of percussions and piano.  Within the melody, which  develops into Brazilian reminiscences, it is easy to recognize the classical Piccioni's styles. 

An excellent lounge motif  is “Acapulco”  where the strings accompany a melody  to the piano that seems to be inspired by a bossanova and which at times is dubbed by a Hammond.  The last track is for nth time, a much shorter upswing version of the main movie theme.

 





The movie is, on the whole, quite confused and with an unexpected and dubious finale. If the movie has passed to history it is mainly due to the movie soundtrack which has become, for its rarity and beauty, a very sought-after  record by collectors of sound tracks.

We can very well affirm that the only real big shot was made by Maestro Piero Piccioni ! 

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