Perigeo: the most competent Italian prog-band

1. "Posto di non so dove" (6:12) Listening to the first song of Azimet, I'm immediately blown away by the Demetrio Stratos-like vocals (a year before anybody'd heard of Demetrio Stratos), the brilliant Don Pullen-like piano, as well as the truly distinctive saxophone. The transition near the beginning of the fourth minute reminds me of early Premiata Forneria Marconi and Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso. I wonder if they (or Tommaso) had ever heard of the Giuseppi Logan Quartet. Beautiful! And so refreshingly new! (9.25/10)

2. "Grandangolo" (8:22) The second song seems to convey a feeling and stylistic approach that Eumir Deodato would make popular a year later in America with crème de la crème American jazz players--though there are also Tony Williams Lifetime feelings to it as well (despite the excellent funky bass). I'm am loving this rhythm section! Drummer Bruno Biriaco is quite impressive! The Fender Rhodes soloing is okay and the raunchy electric guitar is great but it's this rhythm section! They are so tight! Great smooth saxophone soloing in the sixth minute. (I love the engineering effects used on it.) And I love the quick descent into frenzied chaos for the final minute before pulling it together for the final coda! It's so Tony Williams like! (18/20)

3. "Aspettando il nuovo giorno" (3:55) The spacious third song opens with the nice Fender Rhodes and electric bass interplay. As sax joins in and then drummer's cymbal play, the keyboard moves to a repeating chord progression while electric guitar and sax solo over the gentle jazz. This part reminds me of both The Soft Machine and Miles Davis. Quite a pleasant listen. (9/10)

4. "Azimut" (7:18) Side Two's title songs seems to continue the spacious forms from the previous song, though this one a little more free jazz-like. Piano, bowed bass and tuned percussion sounds. This sounds so much like the opening of Return to Forever's "The Romantic Warrior"! (Did Chick steal it from Tommaso?) As the song develops further, it reminds me more of the works of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders in the late 1960s. Then, halfway through, the band pauses to come together for a structured full band presentation--one in which the presentation of the main melody is traded off among the instrumentalists in a kind of call-and-response rondo! Cool! Then Franco goes off on a wild piano solo while guitar and bass keep the vehicle on the road (with drummer providing some very entertaining accents and embellishments). Once again I am reminded of the jazzier post-Third work of The Soft Machine (as well as Ian Carr's post-Nucleus albums). (13.5/15)

5. "Un respiro" (1:30) The second song on Side Two opens with gentle Fender Rhodes chords supporting the twin melody-making of saxophone and Tommaso's reverbed vocalise. Very cool little interlude! (4.6667/5)

6. "36° parallelo" (9:51) The final songs breaks out sounding very much like a song from The Soft Machine. The dirty electric guitar takes the first lead over the steady drummer, Fender Rhodes chord play, and machine gun note-delivery of the bass. The rhythm section is really moving! And the melody lines are awesome! I especially like saxophonist Claudio Fasoli's sound and style. Impressive drum solo in the fourth minute. These guys can all play but the drummer, keyboardist, saxophonist, and bass player are all of the very highest caliber! A little too oriented toward the individual solos throughout the second half, which kind of turns me off, but excellent jazz. (17.875/20)

A-/five stars; an excellent jazz-rock fusion album--one of the best j-r fuse debut albums ever! A minor masterpiece of Jazz-Rock Fusion.

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My review

In 1972, Italian progressive rock was still in its infancy. There are the remnants of the beat, there are the first prog albums by Le Orme, Banco and PFM, and there is jazz-rock, which arrives with the debut of Perigeo.

Perigeo thus opened a third Italian road to prog, the most original, the least epigonic of English prog-rock, the road of jazz-rock-fusion, which would express its best in Naples with Perigeo itself and the later Napoli centrale, and in Milan with Area.

As Italian prog expert J. J. John writes, Perigeo debuts with a band that includes in its ranks musicians who are already well-tested: double bass player Giovanni Tommaso from Tuscany, who emigrated to New York when he was just 18 years old; and in NY he befriended the likes of Charles Mingus; pianist Franco D'Andrea from Alto Adige, who already boasted collaborations with top stars such as Gato Barbieri and the Modern Art Trio; the Roman drummer Bruno Biriaco, who had come back from a long experience in the beat; the Venetian saxophonist Claudio Fasoli, who had played for a long time on the Bologna jazz circuit; and last but not least, the group's foreigner Anthony Sidney, who was already a highly-rated guitarist at the time.

We are talking about the most competent Italian rock band of the entire progressive era - without wishing to devalue the technical abilities of Area and PFM.

The disc consists of three tracks on each side.

1. "Posto di non sai dove" (6:12) Begins with a hiss, avant-garde sounds stand out above an impressionist piano (almost new age, but new age hadn't arrived yet) until Tommaso's stentorian voice arrives. Tommas is the author of all the music and lyrics, as well as a fantastic bass player. Together with his singing, we can hear the expressionist phrases of the saxophone (Fasoli). Around 4 minutes the suspended and twilight atmosphere fades and a cacophonous instrumental piece arrives: we can hear the virtuosity of the pianist D'Andrea emerges from a sarabande of sounds while Tommaso repeats in the background words that count above all as onomatopoeic sounds. Music of high level. Rating 8.5

2. "Grandangolo" (8:22) It's an instrumental piece. It has a beginning marked by Tommaso's bass, and then a syncopated jazz rhythm strumming Sidney's guitar slashing. The rhythm section, with Tommaso on bass and drummer Bruno Biriaco, plays an astonishing jazz-funk pace, and electric piano and electric guitar soar above it. We are witness of a slow progression that gives its best in the ending with the sax solo and the swirling cacophonic spiral that concludes the piece. From this passage we understand what the musicologist and jazz guitarist Enrico Merlin wrote when he claims that Perigeo has found his own very personal way to jazz-rock, less linked to Miles Davis than many other contemporary groups (Weather report). This piece is a masterpiece. Rating 9.

3. "Waiting for the new day" (3:55) D'Andrea's electric piano opens this suffused piece before a very determined electric guitar takes over. In the background, the rhythmic section continues to give us pearls of music . It's a minor piece, which does not reach the dramatic intensity of the previous ones, and remains on a descriptive level. Rating 7+.

End of side A.

Side B opens with 4. "Azimut" (7:18), an avant-garde free jazz piece. Atmosphere of great pathos with electronic noises. The beginning is wonderful. Then, as in the case of the first song of side A, in the middle of the piece the music changes becoming more rhythmic and structured. Here I would have gladly heard Tommaso's singing, but Perigeo opts for a more jazzy solution and in fact instead of singing comes D'Andrea's liquid piano solo. Soft Machine, especially in the end, are just around the corner. This is the second masterpiece. Rating 9.

5. The short intermezzo of "Un respiro" shows a crepuscular atmosphere where we can hear Tommaso's vocalizations in the distance. Very evocative song. (No vote)

The final piece, "36' Parallelo", perhaps the most jazzy, is a continuous surprise. Each musician contributes to his best in providing a truly particular fusion, difficult to connect to any other music, which leaves the listenere enraptured; in the second part of the piece there are exquisitely jazz solos, first Briaco offers us a delicious solo but all in all it's a quite conventional jazz solo, while the D'Andrea's bass solo is a piece that goes from jazz to avant- garde beautifully and concludes Fasoli with his sax that manages to play in a way that doesn't even sound like a sax. Third masterpiece of the album. Rating 9+.

Fantastic album, full of musical ideas that transcend all genres and create a very original universe. The music from beginning to end remains on a truly remarkable level, and the songs as a whole make more than the individual pieces. It's hard to find criticism: the main one is the fragmentary nature of the pieces; the sound material is so varied, sublime and of great impact that it would have benefited if it had been developed in a more extensive and compact way, for example by linking the pieces together and making greater use of Tommaso's vocals.

In any case, this is a great masterpiece. Rating 9.5. Five stars.