Interview to James Taylor of the JTQ

James Taylor in the early eighties was the hammond-player of the English rock band The Prisoners and in 1987 after the band broke up, decided to lay the foundations for his own group  The James Taylor Quartet. The proposal was purely instrumental and was inspired by the blaxploitation films of the seventies but also to soul R & B of Booker T. & the MG’s. The passion for the movie themes is apparent in the first LP of the band, Mission Impossible, a collection of covers of acronyms  of movies made with hammond, electric guitar, bass and drums. The group's reputation was growing thanks to the countless concerts based on funky wah-wah sound, giving ample space to solos and active participation to the public.    

In the early nineties, the group changed its sound, including singers of the caliber of Rose Windross, Alison Limerick and Noel McKoy. The single Love The Life reaches a good level of sales. In The Hand Of The Inevitable, the wake of the movement Acid Jazz,  however,  remains their  best-selling record.

In the new millennium occurs a new change of direction towards a more funk and instrumental sound and a return to the original quartet, at least with regard to live concerts which remain the favorite form of exhibition of James Taylor et al. The British band has recently performed live in Rome Rising and Music Postcards from Rome was able, during the sound check in the afternoon  to ask  few questions whose answers have revealed the man who still believes in the strength of human kind notwithstanding his passed experiences and the JTQ’s future projects   to which  he is really looking forward to. It was a real pleasure talking to him. 

Interview to James Taylor of the James Taylor Quartet
by Marina Parigiani

MPFR: So, glad to finally meet you. I would like to start by asking you how your passion, your  career, the emotions that you inject with such enthusiasm at each concert, through your many albums have remained intact after more than a quarter of a century.  Where do you get your inspiration from?

JT: From  people, from human courage, from human hope. You know what I mean,  people in the face of despair  and  how people try to recreate their life in face of adversity.   Musicians usually reflect  what's going on around them really. Another source of inspiration was my father.....he was a great guy. He inspired me a lot to reach for beautiful things, beautiful relationship at the highest level with an audience for instance. If I  can create something beautiful is something fundamental for me.

MPFR:  We can say that the at the beginning of your career  together with the group "The Prisoners": you were mainly a band following beat and soul of the '60s are there any records of those years to which you are particularly attached?

JT: Yes, loads. I can say that. Particularly in those times, I was attached  to many records as a child such as Beatles and Rolling Stones. Many things are still valuable to me but  I don't listen to that music any more. So I can hardly say that I am attached to this or that record in particular. But as a part of my development  as a musician,   I mostly got saturated with records that had organ on it. It could be rock music of the Stones,  but if  it had  Hammond on it, I had to have it.

MPFR: Few days ago Ian Mc Lagan, keyboard player of the Small Faces passed the way.

Ian McLagan - 1967

JT: Ian,  oh he was an absolute huge hero for me.

MPFR: Oh great because we are great fans of Small Faces.

JT:  Me too. In fact when you asked me the question I thought you were going to ask me  if there was a seminal record for me and I was going to say "Odgens' Nut Gone Flake" but there were  many seminal records. Oh the way he used to play his instruments,  because you see it is such a complex and interesting sound that when I used to listen to him I'd ask myself how does he get that sound out of that  organ?  And also this goes for "Up the Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire" and all the music he performed. I think he was phenomenal. But never had the pleasure of  meeting him personally.

MPFR: How did he influence your music?

JT:  He had a massive, massive influence. When I'll play tonight you will hear some of Ian Mc Flagan too.

MPFR:  I have noticed  the way you merge jazz, R&B and funk doesn't make it easy to describe your music at all. However I have also noticed, as a female, that when you want, you give great space to romanticism. How do you combine rhythm with sentiment?

JT:  This sounds like an ultimate question! (releasing  a contagious laugh).

On my recordings you mean? 

MPFR:  Yes, you do, especially on your recordings.....

JT: This is an interesting idea to explore, but the fact is that you don't have to combine them together  you can just oppose them and see what happens when you push  them once they are beside each other.  I will start together  with a sort of  romantic mellow which has hardly any rhythmic quality at all. It is far more related to a  sentimental sound.  My biggest hero is Beethoven, he combines romanticism with sentiment.   And he does it by pushing something very sentimental into something very muscular, very powerful,   then into something gentle again, a pure bipolar genius.

MPFR: By listening to your many records, you seem to love making covers especially detective ones, can you tell us which are the elements that guide you towards a specific choice?

JT: When we were children we were literally overwhelmed by American detective stories and often those movies were quite revolting but the scores  were wholesome and who wrote them? Lalo Schifrin and we are still attracted by his music. With respect to covers, however, we use them as hooks for that part of the audience that does not know us yet. Some follow and know everything about us, others only know few things we've done. Covers are mainly used to make our audience interact with each other. We usually decide on the spot what should be played as we don't have a play-list and the audience telling us what they prefer to hear becomes a part of our interaction with them as well.

MPFR: You have also participated to a true OST, that of Austin Powers. Did you like that movie?  How was your experience with the movie industry? What is the difference at working at your own album such as let's say The Money Spider  instead of performing for a real movie?

James Taylor invites us to go on back stage away as sound-check has just started.

JT: The movie was not successful. They were wanting to take our ideas and make them theirs by often leaning on me.  They paid me well, but they did not give me enough space to  work on the whole thing. So I didn't enjoy that particular Hollywood experience although  I was invited to the movie's premiére  where I also  took my wife  along, but got an idea on how the movie world works, I suppose. To be honest with you, I did feel used by that environment.   Instead,   writing The Money Spider was very exciting because  I didn't have any obligation nor image to work on. When it is your imagination that counts  foremost it's another world altogether.  Without doubt. Indeed,  if your music is born from an inspiration or a circumstance, it will  sooner or later  encounter the favour of the audience, otherwise   someone may get that same image and get a successful connection with the listener. That's the skill of Lalo Schifrin.  He was able  to work and give colour and dramatize a story . There are very capable people working in this field.

The Spider Money Lp

MPFR: Your work in the past years progressively broadened with horns and vocalists. The James Taylor Quartet, however, has remained a Trade Mark of yours.

JT: It still remained my favourite form of exhibition because people love to hear the Hammond. I have been pulled in many directions,  I've flirted with many ideas. I've been called to different places. I worked with an orchestra, with a choir and the Quartet at the same time. We worked with up to 100 members on stage. But still JTQ remains my favourite.  Those people want to hear the Hammond, they want to hear that sound.  It's always the experience I enjoy the most. It's the purest thing and the least corruptible within this context,   It's really the music I enjoy the most , I feel.

MPRF:  So as your music has strongly evolved, how did manage to obtain the best out of your group after so many years? Because there must be some  kind of discipline.

JT: This is a very fragile collaboration, to work with other musicians on musical projects over a period of time, lot of travelling, lot of recordings and  the creative spark has to survive. So it's not only about talent, that's about serious people,  and these guys are not only profoundly talented but very serious and know who they are and what they want .  The guy who goes on stage is a bit of freak, he's mad. In a way what they are doing is exercising their demons on stage  and transform their madness  into something beautiful and positive with an audience by  producing sound is a way of connecting to God as it were. So that relationship permanently needs work in a very subtle way, it's very delicate,  it is like a dance. You are very sensitive to them and they to you and if you manage to stay on the same landmark you can do good work together.

MPFR: Sure you can tell. It's looks like as if you are embracing your guys as your family or considering it as such. Of course there might  have come times when one might have hurt each the other, but also others where  when  one  realizes that the one can't do without the other and by losing that  person just wouldn't be the same, then what happens?

JT: In fact doing without a musician you love, can get you broken hearted. It happens.  It is very painful. The idea is to create something and try to be as human as you can possibly be. To urge them to go on stage to  perform at their highest level  gets me very excited,  like a child, just like my father did for me.

MPFR: You know, I really appreciate the way you mention your father the way you do. He must have been a very positive figure for you. We had other artists talking about themselves but never opening on their personal background spontaneously. So I just wanted to say that your father would be proud of you for remembering him the way you always do.

 

JT: That is it. That is  what I am selling, selling my father's love

MPFR: Oh no, if you allow me James, you are not selling it, you are spreading your father's love.

JT:  Yes, you are right,  what am I doing is actually spreading his love.

MPFR: In the past century, Italy has given birth to great musicians namely Piero Umiliani, Ennio Morricone, Armando Trovaioli & Marc 4, Piero Piccioni but all these maestros, for various reasons, have received more recognition abroad than in their home country. Do you know their music and what do you think?

JT: Really, I didn't know that. I hate that. It sounds very sad.  I adore their music. That , that sounds very sad. I think they draw a lot from Verdi's opera tradition, they know how to dramatize  they know how to paint at their image. Verdi is the king.  Verdi still influences all kind of movie scores and is my numero uno for romanticism more than Beethoven. Because it took the emotional thing far more intimately than Beethoven did. He was a man who  knew true despair. He knew about true loss. He lost his children and wife, his composing made him be  always on the edge of falling.

MPFR: During the '90s you also approached soul and acid jazz, proposing female vocals and then with the new millennium you returned to a more direct and instrumental sound.  What memories do you have of that period?

JT: I was very young then

MPFR: You still are ...

JT: I meant in my head.....that period  was my loss of innocence .....It was like crossing the Rubicon then,  like Caesar, there was no going back then. I had addiction problems. I was going through my "hedonistic phase". I became successful  and became a drug addict.  I managed to stop all of  that and put things back into place. But there was a lot of shit being put around in those in years. Especially for musicians. In fact all the success and fame thing is a myth. For the happiest memories I have to go back years before then.

MPFR: Lately, you have included in your research some classical music such as Dark August and Pearl's Dance and you have performed your version of the Pathetic Sonata n.8 of Beethoven on Closer to the Moon, do you think that this could be a new direction to take or is it only a kind of experimental research break from funk soul?

JT: It is like recognizing extreme levels of beauty artistry that can be hardly perceived these days. As a musician I want to  find a way to continue to write great music, so I want to continue the tradition of greatest musicians and composers by sculpturing the sound of music as if it were eternal. And that is the direction I am working towards.

MPFR: In your last album you decided to sing "Closer to you", well, are you satisfied of the result and do you think you will sing again on your next recordings?

JT: No, I was not satisfied. 

MPFR: Do you think you'll ever sing again?

JT: It's just another instrument only that I am not very good at it. But yes, I will sing tonight.

MPFR:  Well, I think I have taken enough of your time and must thank you very much for having answered all our questions.

JT: I must say they were very good questions.

MPFR: Thank you James, I am happy you liked them!

The Prisoners, the first band of James Taylor

“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 ! 

An italian Opera by The Five Pennies

As I was having my usual Sunday Market Walk and stopped occasionally to  thumb  through old records I came across  an album,  that of  The Pennies, a rock band  I’d never heard of before  and decided to go root-deep and guess what? After some research I found out that notwithstanding  their English stage name they were a Roman Rock Group  active in the Capital scene from the end of the 60s  to the beginning of the 70s.  The rock- band was officially established in 1967  in the Monte Mario suburb of Rome where the five guys were all from. The original members were Stefano Damia, Enzo Giancaterina, Massimo Valentini, Alessandro Rocchetti, Alessandro Gramolini.

 

 

You can tell from the very start that they adopted a popsike sound (Beatles, Moody Blues, Bee Gees style) and they became so famous that the club where they performed in their suburb was soon renamed  “Pennies Club”.

Their ability to perform live  brought them to different clubs up  to the greatest of them all, the mythical Piper Club in Via Tagliamento where they were noticed by Francesco Micocci who in those years was about to establish the IT, the label that would have launched many of the very best artists on the Italian market.

 

 

 

The group released its first single on label Mark Tre of Giannni Marchetti – this was recorded at RCA Studios in Via Tiburtina. On side A we find “Un minuto di libertà” written by Ruisi-Bardotti, on flip instead we find “Lo sconfitto” , a cover of the Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel.

Following the release of the 45 r.p.m. ,  intensive live tours took place all over the country, including song contests such as the 1^st Pop Festival of Viareggio in 1971, the same Festival that launched Mia Martini, I Delirium of Ivano Fossati and Premiata Forneria Marconi.
 

 

 

 

In 1972, their first lp, The Five Pennies Opera, was released.  The lp was entirely in English (excellent I’d say!) strongly influenced by 60s’ psych music. The choice could be explained by the fact that the  Record Company wanted to introduce the Pennies  as an English rock-band,  as they did for The Flea on the Honey, a practice very much  in use in those years.

 

 

The lp recorded at Studio 38  owned by Edoardo Vianello and printed only in 5000 copies , features eight new songs composed by the band but signed by Gianni Marchetti (aka Joe Dinamo)  because the Pennies did not have the SIAE license (SIAE stands for Italian Authors and Editors Publishing Company). The Album also features Photograph, a track written for the guys by Amedeo Minghi who was at the time their friend, in cooperation with Lally Stott.

 

 

The Album, notwithstanding some radio promotion, passed almost unnoticed. Few years after some of the tracks were included in the movie score “Emanuellle e Francoise” directed by Joe D’Amato in 1975.  Nevertheless,  the tracks’ credits  remained in the name of Joe Dinamo.

 

 

 

 

The Pennies gave their last concert on 6^th January 1972 at Gattopardo Club, today known as Gilda. They continued to cooperate for a while with Gianni Marchetti  through the participation of the recording of “Storia di due amici” by Rosalino (today known as Ron), some tracks with Piero Ciampi and Marisa Sannia. They suddenly split up while they were preparing, with the help of Amedeo Minghi, the Italian version of The Five Pennies Opera.

Ultimately, I must say that the Album is quite rare and was never reprinted on vinyl nor CD. According from my point of view it deserves to be rediscovered for the quality of compositions and the fantastic technical, recording and interpretation levels.  

Hence, it is surely a record that’s worth more than few pennies!

 

My last question is where are you guys?

 

 

 

 

Members of the Original Group

Stefano Damia (vocals, guitar)

Enzo Giancaterina  (guitar, vocals)

Massimo Valentini (keyboards, vocals)

Alessandro Rossetti (bass guitar, vocals)

Alessandro Gramolini  (percussions)

Additional Member

Tonino Santi (drums, vocals)

 

Recordings:

Un minuto di libertà – Lo sconfitto Mark Tre label (ZK 50083) 1971

The Five Pennies Opera – Mark Tre label (ZSLK 55092) 1972

 

Interview to Daniele De Gemini of The Beat Records Company

In this interview I shall talk about a historical Roman record label still producing after half century.  Its main activity has been  that of releasing movie themes produced in Italy of the highest quality.

To better know the historical background of this independent record label  I met Daniele De Gemini,  son of the legend Franco De Gemini,  who is now the Arts Director of the Company. The meeting was a constructive one.  Daniele gave us plenty of his time, disclosing many passages of the Beat Records and which  are the rules that govern recording policies.

 

 

MPFR: The first question that  comes to  mind  is  when and how was the Beat Records Company established?

 De Gemini:  The Beat Records was established in 1966 upon the initiative of three Roman businessmen who  were publishers, chartered accountants, partly  connected  with the movie and music industries; they created this label as companies mainly do today: their aim was to have a label ready and then hit the mark as time went on.  However, after two years had gone by, the company did not move by an inch because each of the above-mentioned businessmen had to take care of their own personal binding activities. One of them, however, involved in the music industry in particular, proposed my father Franco De Gemini,  to launch the label and  sold him some shares of the company. As from that moment my father became the administrator  and then , with time, the majority stake holder and put up a very substantial catalogue of soundtracks.
 

 

 

 

MPFR:  In this respect I wanted to ask you... it seems that the Company, during the first years also introduced pop music  in their catalogue and was not totally bound to movie scores.

De Gemini:  Yes, this is true. The first years were allotted  to groups, singers, the so called crooners; in fact there is a collection of 45 r.p.m.  particularly dedicated to  these productions, the main part of them are pop songs that were actively promoted on radio and song contests. Let us say that this practice was stopped at the beginning of  the ‘70s.

 

 

 

MPFR:  I understand. So from that moment on, the Beat mainly dedicated itself to movie scores, even if from what I can see from the catalogue, there are instrumental titles  not explicitly composed for movies.  And I also remember the jazz experience.
 

De Gemini: That’s correct... My father, together with my mother who was his right-hand, managed various musical editions connected to movie productions, namely those of  Edmondo Amati or Italo Zingarelli, so here we talk about very important  productions.  This allowed them to create a sort of virtuosity ... on one side he performed on scores,  then he also helped producers organize the music, save on productions and on the other side helped them create an editorial catalogue  headed by the same producers who later involved him at different levels, especially at  editorial policy level.

The  demand for movies, tv and radio programmes scores  made him achieve a great number of musical libraries on a large scale effort, with real orchestras.  The result was music with an international character which was promoted and sold  in America and England, and other Anglophone countries. Then,  towards mid-80s he dedicated himself a lot to jazz ; he organized many Italian Jazz Festivals, together with my mother he put up since then a fantastic catalogue of jazz music  which counts about 70 albums , pressed  with the best Italian artists, still in full activity,  famous all over the world such as Dino and Franco Piana, Enrico Pieranunzi, Flavio Boltro, people of this calibre.

 

 

 

MPFR:  You are talking of the Pentaflower Series...
 

De Gemini: Yes, the Pentaflower Series, but many albums are present also on the Beat Label...
 

 

 

 

MPFR:  With respect to the various collections and labels that are part of the Beat Records Company, which do you consider being the most famous? 
 

De Gemini:  Those that I consider institutional are two: the so called “serie F” mainly dedicated to movie scores, even if at times we published some experimental albums or peculiar productions such as poetry in music performed by Peppino De Filippo  (we refer to “Peppino, poesie e musica” – e’s.n.). This collection stopped on vinyl  at n. 70 and continued on CD.  Then there is the CR Collection which is mostly dedicated to movie scores’ collectors which on vinyl stopped at n.15 while on CD we got to 120. The collections, in total, should be about 20 but the most known are these two, surely.
 

MPFR:  In this respect, is there a soundtrack kind that is usually more successful than another?
 

De Gemini: I must say that the  horror and the Italian “poliziottesco” movies have encountered great favour among the public.  In fact the events that we have organized in the past with respect to music concerts always favoured these two : poliziesco and horror...
 

 MPFR:  Hence,  specific genres...
 

De  Gemini:  Yes, then we have the “Spaghetti Western” genre which has smashed international and cultural boundaries, all categories and ages.  The  Italian western genre  has always a great number of followers with respect to scores.
 

MPFR:  With respect to authors, instead, are there any who sell more than another?
 

De Gemini:  I must say that the so called “Big” such as Maestro Composers Morricone, Trovaioli, Piccioni, De Masi and Cipriani, including Ortolani, are those who keep on having the most followers, due to their never ending celebrity. 

Nonetheless all composers of that period, in the long run, were able to cut for themselves a slice of public, of appreciation and interest which was really surprising.  Even for those who have composed not very many or an intermediate quantity of scores such as Pregadio, more than Walter Rizzati or Gianni Marchetti, I must reiterate for all of them, that when they are granted the limelight they always receive great acceptance and that is because they all have a common denominator which is a fantastic production behind them  that people recognize and appreciate.
 

 

 

MPFR: I would like to ask you  which are the characteristics that a record should have to become part of your catalogue?
 

De Gemini: The first shortlist or “guiding star” consists if the product is unreleased or obscure; the second shortlist consists in making sure that it contains unreleased tracks in respect to other publications that  should be preferably sold out, as we avoid market-overstocking.  The composer plays another very important aspect combined with the historical period, let us say that when we enter too deep into the 80s  the music becomes too electronic and our public does not appreciate it very much.  Furthermore, we consider if the movie was sensational, if it became a cult or not, if there were a director or actors involved in the cast that aroused interest. The reason motivating this is due to the fact that a product is not always bought for the music, but it is the movie that stimulates the purchase.  On the other hand we find that  some second rate movies , unfortunately, and I am talking about some movies we better forget,   are re-discovered for their large scale effort and depth of  scores.

Last but not least,  the choice can also happen for sentimental reasons. For example, we have reprinted last December “Le Ruffian” by Ennio Morricone only because my father played the harmonica on it.  There was not a single note more respect to the previous album which was sold out. We wanted to pay our homage to Franco with this repressing.

I can also give you the example of Fantozzi.  We made a box set with the 1st and 2nd Fantozzi music scores, for which I sweat blood for three years. When I was a child I used to watch Fantozzi  and I loved the idea to be part, even if marginally, of a thing that would contribute  to interpret those little social phenomena which were Fantozzi’s movies. All  was a honour for me. Although it was not commercial production, strictly speaking,  I think that we should also be striving not only to feed our stomach but also our soul.
 

 

MPFR:  A technical question: behind the publication of a work,  editing included, do you  have authors’ contributions as well , whenever possible?

 

 

De Gemini: There are some composers that are bound to a sort of approval  of the project, but these are only  few. Others, instead, trust us blindfolded  and they are truly the great majority. However, in both cases it is very difficult that an author puts a veto . Perhaps he may suggest a different track list  or a removal of a track  because according to his judgement it is too repetitive or not suitable. But it happens rarely. Lately however  it happened in “Lo Chiamavano Trinità”. Maestro Micalizzi  approved the reprinting  but requested that we remove three or four tracks  were present in former press, but for a very logic reason as they belonged to another score which he had recorded soon after “Lo Chiamavano Trinità”.  The problem arose because the tape was never removed from the moviola (the editing motion-picture and sound synchronizing device) and  all music ended up on the recordings labelled “Lo Chiamavano Trinità”. Those who reprinted the music on CD after 30 years never grasped the difference and put everything on same CD. Maestro Micalizzi was very  keen to correct the blunder.

 

 

 

 

MPFR:  Fair enough. Before you talked about the foreign market. Which is the difference between the Italian market and the foreign one?  Is it just a matter of numbers or is there a different way to relate to music?
 

De Gemini: I would say both things. In the music and movie industries we are very much appreciated in the Far East, in America and in the rest of Europe. In Italy we mostly find a restricted market that has the will and determination to follow the complete recordings of a particular movie genre or artist, giving satisfaction when these groups of people  become competent  and passionate over the issue.

Abroad, instead, we find curiosity: people happen to buy a record or are interested in an artist: this may be because the record sleeve has an ancestral appeal that almost creates an emblem, or because have they heard something about that particular composer and having each one of these composers an original style with respect to others, they are intrigued in discovering a new tile of his releases.

But surely it is also a question of numbers. America remains always a very important market. They are 300 million inhabitants  while in Italy we are only 50 million and if statistics is not an opinion it gives an estimate that is more or less inevitable.  In any case, the Americans, have such  a cultural musical back-ground that gives very important satisfaction and does go deeper than just these so-called specialized groups or restricted market phenomena.

 

MPFR: In these latter years, we have assisted to the rediscovery of the old vinyl support, the unforgotten 33 r.p.m. Lp; I have noticed that in the new proposals available on your catalogue, it is not present. Do you eventually have the intention to release some titles on vinyl?
 

De Gemini: Perhaps I shall say something that will ruin my reputation, if I have one:  I adore vinyl records,  because at the present state of the art, I find it to be the most capturing way of making a record that was ever created. It must be clear, however,  that I refer to the vinyl made on analog technology against today’s vinyl,   which is at first digitally recorded and then reversed on vinyl thus receiving a compression  during  process.  The vinyl of the past instead had a warmth, a dynamic sound which  I just can’t feel on today’s  perfect digital recordings.

After saying this, the vinyl is actually going through a last effort after it was sent ko by these new technologies. There is a sort of new discovery , but unfortunately I believe it could be more noise than substance. However, I must affirm that there are some markets that appreciate vinyl very much, especially those in Great Britain, where there are distributors chains that are specialized in vinyl distribution in shops and lately also in the American Continent where we are issuing interesting licences with respect to movie scores that are pressed on vinyl, this to say that the Beat Records could be interested in pressing vinyl again for many reasons: the first reason is merely sentimental, seen that that it  was the format on which the company was created on, furthermore the graphic result of vinyl sleeves is surely wholesome  compared to the inferior impact a CD graphic design might have, even if done very well.

The problem with vinyl is that it requires  important investments’ know-how and vast distribution connections that are not common.  This does not mean that because we have a certain back-ground and decide to release on vinyl, we’ll be absolutely certain that we are going to recoup on part of our investments. The record must be promoted and followed in a certain way and attention.

To quote a metaphor: “When it is obvious that some goals cannot be reached immediately do not adjust the goals, adjust the action steps”.

Therefore I do not exclude the fact that in the next few years the Beat will start reproducing on vinyl.

 

MPFR: With respect to the future, according to your opinion, which is the forthcoming future for the sector, considering new digital technologies on internet and seen the general downfall of  CDs?
 

De Gemini:  We are sure that we will continue to produce CDs for few years to come. The physical support is something that followers just can’t give up on. In the sense that  the CD produced with precise body of rules is a lounge object, an object that fills both physical and interior spaces. A thing that we love having around.

Thus, knowing that people love to surround themselves with such physical objects,  perhaps supplied with additional well-finished booklets which contain additional information material by a director or composer, knowing well that this is very much appreciated by collectors, I believe that CDs still have a lot to give.

Ultimately, when CDs will run short of breath, we will pass onto other means of support and digital music storage , we will try and give people  the possibility to have these artworks , because they should be considered masterpieces, with related gadgets, that will make the product a unique one, even if downloaded from internet or bought on other means of communication. We will always try to give a 360 degree dynamicity to the product and from this point of view, I think that CDs will have another 5 years to go, if not longer.

 

MPFR: Let us hope longer...


To know the Beat Records catalog: See here