CINCINNATO

The opener "Colori di noi" (Colours of us) is a slow, reflective track where music and lyrics conjure up a wave of melancholy that hugs you, light and strong like a veil, coloured and transparent. Hidden, painful emotions and disquieting feelings are like mysterious colours that only our eyes can perceive...

The nervous "Espectadores Part 1" follows alternating almost obsessive rhythms, hypnotic passages and charming flamenco guitar patterns. It depicts in music and words dizzying, hammering images hitting heavily upon a passive audience. Between news, arguments, debates and many contradictions eventually what's left is a desperate need to switch off the devilish media machine...

"La peste" (The plague) is a sarcastic bluesy jazz ballad that deals with a kind of social plague provoking the degeneration of ideals and the regression of civilization. As social dynamics and political debates turn into wild animal fights, the memories of the past got lost leading to a present where optimism and sweet oblivion are the therapy that set a sleepy mankind free from the spectre of freedom and its responsibilities...

The rather weak "Dialogo" (Dialogue) is an ironic piece where male and female vocals play the role of a man and a woman whose marriage is falling apart, a dialogue that evokes an outrageous and bitter battle... Then it's the turn of the soft, dreamy "In bici nel parco" (Cycling in the park) that begins by a delicate classical guitar arpeggio and tells in music and words of a quiet, idyllic park ride of a man and a woman in a sunny day on their bicycles. It marks a strong contrast with the previous track...

The title of the following "Dasein" refers to a fundamental concept in the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger, a form of being that is aware of and must confront such issues as personhood, mortality and the dilemma or paradox of living in relationship with other humans while being ultimately alone with oneself. Here the music and lyrics invite you to search for time and a place where to stay in harmony with the human nature and the environment...

The melancholic, reflective "Tu" (You) tells of the difficulty to overcome the crisis of a relationship and hangs between nostalgia and time passing by while the sense of life escapes and the past becomes a border hard to cross... Then "Espectadores Part 2" conjures up the image of a person who seems losing his individuality getting lost in the crowd, like a sheep following the herd, looking at life like a spectator...

The last track, "Città Oceano" (City Ocean), begins by a dreamy instrumental section, then the sound of the waves in the background and a soft piano pattern lead to soaring vocals, calypso rhythms and exotic flavours depicting images of an imaginary city where the grey and noisy streets are dangerously crowded. It's a city that attracts and crumbles who fall under its wild, brutal charm. There are cars lined up like mannequins on the catwalk as groups of thirsty people look for the miraculous source of wondrous objects, fruits of a dreamy ocean. But as the images of this fantastic future world unfold before the eyes of the protagonist, he realizes that he does not want to change. For him it' better diving into the eyes of his sweetheart, in a lost desire that now touches his naked soul...

On the whole, a good album although very different from Cincinnato's eponymous debut work. Old fans could be a bit disappointed...

The opener is a long instrumental track, "Il ribelle ubriaco" (The drunken rebel) that starts with a burst of energy. Then a calmer, dreamy section follows before a new acceleration that brings a vague atmosphere of chaos and turns into a fiery tarantella rhythm that could recall PFM...

"Tramonto d'ottobre" (October sunset) is a delicate, dreamy track based on a slow piano pattern evoking autumnal atmospheres, falling leaves and beautiful colours... Then "Esperanto" ends the first side of the LP with strong jazz flavours and a pulsing rhythm, blending many musical languages into one...

The long, complex "L'ebete" (The fool) is the only sung piece of this work and stretches along the whole second side of the original vinyl. In my opinion it's an excellent piece with a visionary atmosphere and evocative lyrics that conjure up the image of a man who feels like a fool in front of the mystery of life and death. He can't understand what he really sees, he can hear confused voices around him, surprise and fear hit hard on his heart and he stands still, bewildered by the power of nature, overwhelmed by love and a sense of pity for his fragility... After a first part where vocals take the lead, a long instrumental journey follows driving you through many different emotional landscapes...

Unfortunately, the album was released only in 1974 when the band had already called it a day, it wasn't adequately promoted by the label and was soon forgotten, until its re-release on CD. The AMS new edition features three bonus tracks: a new version of "Tramonto d'ottobre" recorded in 2006 by Giacomo Urbanelli and Donato Scolese plus Piero Orsini on bass, a new piece entitled "Tangando", recorded in 2006 by the same trio, and a live recording dating back to 1972, "Eros natura", with a very poor sound quality...

On the whole, a good work from a band that would have deserved more credit.

Now don't let the jam band reference scare you off, but their prodigious skills in multi modal improvisation are inspiring. Album opener Il Ribelle Ubriacho (look up the translation to that for some guidance) has the band run through their paces-a blast of anarchic energy to start, leading to aforementioned rock jams that incorporate jazz, Italian melodies and furious interplay between instruments before a delicate piano theme takes over for a few minutes. This explodes into a jazz tinged tarantella infused dance of madness to the end. Second song Tramonto d'Ottobre starts with gentle piano, acoustic guitar and bass, leaves fall peacefully in the background-a watercolour reminiscent of laid back Pat Metheny. Some Canterbury guitar burbles beneath quietly. Side one closes with Esperanto-perhaps the jazziest piece on the album. More Caravan vibes flow through this lazy tempo that comes close to gentler Gilgamesh or Hatfield and the North, it slowly builds in energy and tempo that begins to swirl in a fashion as the musicians create eddies of angular jazz inflected piano driven delicacies underpinned by a darting guitar that Phish fans would follow far up the road to see again. Guitarist Gianni Fantuzzi has Phil Miller's sound down well. A nice stop and start theme gives the quartet a space to play in that shows a dexterity that is so subtle, some might miss what is going down.

Side two is their 21 minute sidelong opus L'Ebete. Fans of more traditional Italian prog will resonate with this side well. It starts slowly and features the first vocals of the album. It proceeds like a more energetic R.R.R. with nice doubling of the vocal with a different vocal line underneath. Synth is used to excellent effect in a short duel with lead guitar before the band goes into a more traditional mellotron Italian symphonic section that bears little resemblance to jazz. Some early Crimson/Genesis feel mixes with effective vibraphone in a section that moe fans would recognize easily as 'ya know, that weird part of Recreational Chemistry they played 9 years ago...'. It is here that their improvisational talents are on full display as magic just drops out of the air-this was certainly one magical session (they were reported to have banged this album out pretty quickly). One final jam gathers out of the improv that even I would believe came from a proggy instrumental unreleased track from Junta or Lawn Boy. It shifts with organ to a more Canterbury feel, with a bit of loose Trace piano driven jamming-this one song is a prog classic that will take you many places before it fades out (maddeningly as it was about to go yet another place).

Perfect Sunday morning music! I wouldn't call this jazz, but it is clear they have more dangerous chops in that field than most of their contemporaries as they are able to change tempos, keys and moods so easily you barely notice something quite different has come from nowhere. Some dismiss this as inconsequential second tier jazz rock, but I would be loathe to agree on that one. Deep things are going on here, and it will reward with multiple listenings.

Fans of loose Hatfield, Caravan and oddly, adventurous instrumental Phish should dip their toes in. Pretty unique stuff. Unlike many Italian bands of this era, it is hard to pin them down with a formula: "1/4 Tull + 1/3 ELP + 1/8 PFM" etc...just doesn't explain what is contained in the grooves. Fantastic album art as well in a glossy gatefold that is impossible to find as an original and getting harder to find in its reissue.

4 stars

Cincinnato is one of these bands.

According to the myth this album was recorded in 3 days only and it's deep rooted into Jazz Rock. The album is baiscally about Jazz Rock being played in the studio as a jam kind of thing, and I never liked that. Kinda hard to listen tracks like 'L'Ebete' and its 20 minutes. In just a few words: Boring to the bone.

Well, maybe you're a Jazz Rock kind of person, than yes.

"Il Ribelle Ubriaco" picks up before a minute with piano playing over top. It turns jazzier after 2 1/2 minutes. The guitar takes the lead 3 minutes in but it's brief. A calm with piano before 5 1/2 minutes. It kicks back in before 8 minutes. "Tramonto D'ottobre" is a short,mellow track with acoustic guitar and piano leading. "Esperanto" opens with piano as drums and bass join in. The song sort of meanders along aimlessly.

"L'ebete" is the side long suite. I really like the vocals here and the melancholic mood. It picks up 3 1/2 minutes in. A calm after 5 minutes with synths. Guitar before 6 1/2 minutes. It settles a minute later. A change before 11 minutes as piano and drums lead. Guitar before 12 1/2 minutes. Good sound here.Guitar stops after 14 minutes as bass, drums and piano play in a relaxed way. Guitar is back after 15 minutes. It picks up 16 1/2 minutes in with piano out front. A catchy way to end it.

Good album but not great.

That is how keyboardist Giacomo Urbanelli described his influences to an interviewer. Another in a long line of impressive Italian bands that made one heartfelt album and disappeared.

Cincinnato would rehearse in a friend's basement and always spent an hour or more on jamming improvisation to get warmed up, a practice they believed a necessity to the creative process. They did not see themselves as locked into the jazz-fusion pigeonhole and believed in total musical freedom as a way of expressing freedom in real life. They recorded this album in Milan in only 3 days and all in one take so it has a very "live" feel to it.

The music is quite lovely and interesting to my ears. My best description would be spacious, atmospheric, esoteric, a little spacey, warm, and with a decidedly unhurried, laid back feel to it. This is largely (though not completely) instrumental music whose goal seems to be the spirit of improvisation. I would recommend it very much to listeners who love a patient exploration of rock building and subsiding slowly with piano, acoustic and electric guitar, bass, and agile drumming. For those kinds of listeners this is probably 4 star material, but for the wider audience of this site we are in 3-star territory as this is not material that offers instant payback to fans of modern rock music used to high-gloss productions and "testosterock." The sound and production are decent but obviously dated compared to today.

With the recent high quality lp-sleeve reissue we can rediscover this little known group with better sound, gatefold sleeve, and booklet with photos and history. The CD version also features 3 bonus tracks, two of which are new performances and one live cut from 1972. A nice package, especially for Italian progressive fans: 3.5 stars.

Oh man, Italy is definitely one of my primordial loves talking about music and progressive rock of course, they have built so many bands with so many great albums, going from the traditional Italian sound (not truly folk) through symphonic music, to jazz and fusion. 1974, a memorable year in the history of prog rock, not only in Italy, but all aroun the world, principally in England, France and Europe, that was the year when a unknown Italian band, with unknown musicians (actually musicians with a few emperience) decided to create a band, and the name was Cincinnato, well the band was created before 1974, but this was the year when their only album was released.

They included only 4 songs in that album which as a name, has the name of the band, as usual so many bands decided to call their first albums as their own band`s name, the album despite having only 4 songs, has a lenght of 40 minutes, with two "mini epics" (track 3 - 7 minutes, track 1 - 10 minutes) with a short song (track 2 - 3 minutes) and a true epic (track 4 - 20 minutes), so now let me tell you what is it about.

And yes, this is not the classic symphonic band or album that comes from Italy, this record is different, i mean, it also has some symphonic and classic passages, but what predominates here is the jazzier side of prog, being a jazz fusion album.

"Il Ribellie Ubriaco" is the opener song which as i said before has a lenght of 10 minutes, since the first seconds you will notice a piano and those drums giving to it the special and beautiful sound of jazz, it`s a very promising beggining i think, but then as a classic prog band, the song turns slower and calmer, but finally it becomes again faster with a great bass sound and the keys, a song that i enjoy always when i listen to it.

"Tramontto D`Ottobre" is the shortest song of the album, it`s not the best song here obviously, but is not bad either, the song is very calmed with a delicate sound of piano, going thru the song with an acoustic guitar, a short but nice melody.

"Esperanto" is the third song here and it returns to the first impression of the album, it`s jazzier, longer and greater than the second one. Since the beggining we will find again the delicate sound of jazz, the song it`s calm and very catchy at the begginning, piano, bass , drums and electric guitar, nothing besides that can make a song full of armony with a clean sound above all.

"L`Ebete" it`s the main song here, if we buy or know an album which is previously unknown for us, and see that one song has a lenght of 20 minutes, it would probably be the one that catch our attention, at least it happens with me sometimes, i like epics, though not all the epics are great or of my taste, but this time i liked it so much. Again a soft pretty sound of piano, but for the first time on the album, we will hear a voice here, and you know, it`s the classic italian accent and tone that i love, so after have been an instrumental album that i enjoyed, now with the 4th song i have enjoyed more because of the vocals. In this time you can imagine that the jazz sound have dissapeared, and yes, this may sound as a classic Italian symphonic song, suddenly the song becomes yet better here we can notice the abilities of the musicians, some mini solos of acoustic guitar , the drumming and the keys giving us a great atmosphere during the song. Is until minute 12, when the song returns to it`s classical jazzy sound with some dissonat notes and the best bass lines of the album, the last minutes of the album are totally jazz, but that kind of jazz that makes you feel happy and move the soulders, a nice end.

Honestly i like this album so much, but im pretty sure this is not the best that Italy has offered to us, neither the best that the jazz fusion school has given to the world, i`d like to recommend it to all of you, but after all i think it`s a good album indeed, but non essential, so if you can check it, great, if not, nothing happens.