Dialogo HHV Records 15 Items

First time officially reissue, sourced from the original master tapes in a new edition, the Milan based imprint Dialogo, returns with this compilation published in Italy by RCA Victor in 1962 - a precious historical document of some important international jazz and pop artists who came to Italy and left their marks, influencing the generations of those golden years. The RCA artists on this LP record have only two things in common: “Inter-continental Airport Rome-Fiumicino” stamped on their passports and a great love for Italy. As a tribute to the country which gave them a friendly welcome and where they spent unforgettable vacations and reaped enthusiastic applause, all of them chose to sing songs in Italian or perform - in the case of Perez Prado - a number of outstanding Italian hits. The dazzling trumpets and electrifying rhythms of Perez Prado, the captivating voice of Helen Merrill, rightly considered the top-notch white jazz singer by critics over the world, the young, all-time best-sellers, Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka, the fantastic trumpet of Chet Baker and his mysterious swinging style of singing, and lastly Antonio Prieto, the Latin-American singer-songwriter who wrote “LA Novia”, are the guest stars of this “passport TO Italy”, which, more than a record, is a full-fledged musical show, with a vast assortment of voices, of musical styles and songs. The Italian pronunciation of these North and South American recording artists is virtually perfect and particularly praiseworthy, if for no other reason than for the effort they have made in getting around, in just a few days, the difficult twists and turns of the Italian language. Their accent is naturally somewhat exotic but it only adds to the charm and the originality of the interpretations. The “show” opens with the already classic “arrivederci Roma”, which, though turned into an overpowering “chunga” by Perez Prado, has kept all its original melody intact. Prado, the wizard of Latin-American dance music, is an extremely refined blender of sounds and rhythms, and without any difficulty can take even a Neapolitan song, change it into a mambo and adapt it to his orchestra. In “guaglione”, for example, the “corruption” comes off perfectly and testifies to the everfresh inventiveness and the unmistakable personality of the Cuban-born pianist arranger. Helen Merrill prefers quality over quantity and so has made very few records but they already occupy a place of their own in the annals of jazz. She consented to record two popular ballads only because Armando Trovajoli, the most qualified exponent of Italian jazz as well as a far-out modernist, was to conduct the orchestra. Furthermore, the two songs, “nessuno AL Mondo” and “estate” are particularly congenial to her musical temperament, for she is most of all concerned with creating subtle and seductive moods, making an intelligent use of her vocal resources in that she tries to “add” her voice to the orchestra as though it were another instrument. Canadian-born Paul Anka, by now a regular member of the exclusive club of top-selling vocal artists of America, presents one of his own songs, “ogni Giorno” originally entitled “love ME Warm AND Tender”, the most requested hit in his present-day repertoire. And the young singing star’s interpretation of “voglio Sapere” (“i’d Like TO Know”) once again makes clear why his name became a permanent fixture as all-time best-seller. Neil Sedaka is another representative of the younger generation of American singers. When he was still in high school in Brooklyn, Neil became a close friend of one of schoolmates: Howard Greenfield. The two of them wrote numerous songs together for school shows: Neil handled the music and Howard the words. Their collaboration proved extremely fruitful, and they were soon to make their debut as professional songwriters with two hits of the calibre of “stupid Cupid” and “falling”. The Sedaka-Greenfield team, which in only a few year time has become one of the best-known, presents, in Italian, two songs which in their original tongue have already climbed to the top: “esagerata” (“little Devil”), translated by Leo Chiosso, and “UN Giorno Inutile” (“I Must BE Dreaming”), translated by Gentile and De Simoni. After Sedaka comes one of the big names of cool jazz: Chet Baker. Trumpet-player and singer, he proves here for the nth time that the names “Golden Trumpet” and “Angel Voice”, given him not only by his fans but by the crites as well, are in no way exaggerated. With an at once restless, desperate and almost possessed musical style, Chet sings and plays two songs which he himself wrote: “IL MIO Domani” and “SO CHE TI Perdero”. His reserved, curiously, precarious and profoundly dramatic way of singing, virtually the mirror-image of his life, is the same in both songs and makes them seem almost unconsciously autobiographical. The “show” then closes with Antonio Prieto. Precisely because of his Latin origins (he was born in Chile, but is Argentine by adoption), it is perhaps easier for him than for the others to express himself in Italian. As is well-known, the name of Prieto soared to the Olympic heights of popular music with “LA Novia” which he wrote in collaboration with his brother, Joaquin. He is a typically Latin singer with a warm, melodious and romantic voice, tinged with melancholy, and on more than one occasion he has shown that he thoroughly understands the tastes of the public. Listen to his two most recent compositions: “papà”, written in collaboration with singer-songwriter Sergio Endrigo, the author of “aria DI Neve”, and “baciami” and... judge for yourselves.

A Brief History OF THE Drums Jazz Drums as we know them today are a complex group of percussive instruments that reveal the inventive genius of the first jazz-band players of New Orleans, on Mississippi show-boats and later, in Chicago. In their actual form (which is substantially the same as that used in the first New Orleans groups ) they are none other than the como ination into one single instrument of all the percussive units used by the Southern blacks. Let us examine the drums in their single parts: the bass drum is a percussion instrument without definite pitch, normally beaten by a stick that has a large, felt-covered knob on one end, while the other end is attached to a pedal played by the right foot. It is the same instrument used in parades with brass bands, when it is worn around the neck and can also be played with regular drumsticks if a drum roll is required. Also a descendant of the traditional New Orleans brass bands are the Charlestons, two superimposed metal plates which are also played by pedal. Drumsticks or brushes are used to play one or two cymbals, large, slightly cupped disks of brass which when struck together loudly, also produce a crashing, dramatic effect. Drumsticks are also used to play the snare drum, of military origin, and the tom tom, of African descent, which can also be played by beating the drum-head with the fingers and the heel of the hand to accompany dancing. Other supplementary instruments such as the castanets, cow-bells, etc., are also played with drumsticks. In early jazz formations and in all New Orleans jazz, drums were used to rhythmically sustain the group, in other words, to furnish the beat, particularly with the bass drum playing the strong beats; the Charlestons would follow on the weak beats and the other parts would more or less ‘fill in’ depending on the player’s ability, by playing syncopation and off-beats. Rarely were the drums used as a solo instrument in New Orleans or traditional jazz bands; at the most, the drums would perform during a break, that is, a brief solo that filled in a pause left by the other melodic instruments between two stanzas or refrains. In jazz history the most important representatives of this ‘archaic’ jazz style are considered to be Warren ‘Baby’ Dodds (brother of the famous clarinet player Johnny Dodds ) and Zutty Singleton; both can be heard on the historical recordings of the Hot Five and the Hot Seven where they played under Louis Armstrong. During the swing era the drums were somewhat modified and perfected (it was during the ’30s that they assumed their standard and present form), thus requiring players to develop a more refined, sophisticated playing technique. In fact, during the swing era the small groups that had made up the backbone of New Orleans and Chicago jazz moved momentarily into the background and attention was focused on the first big, commercial dance bands, then to small, experimental groups that consisted of trios and quartets. But while the New Orleans drummer had been accustomed to playing with musicians he knew personally and with them performed music with which he was completely familiar and could therefore easily provide rhythmic support to, during the ’30s the drummer found himself in the new situation of having to play with a large number of musicians who played written music that had been selected for commercial reasons and part of complicated, orchestral arrangements. In addition, because of continuous changes in orchestral personnel, he seldom had time to familiarize himself with his fellow musicians; he was forced, by necessity, to adapt himself to the needs of the group at a short time notice and it was not unusual for the band leader to expect an exceptionally long break during which the drummer had to demonstrate his particular virtuosity. Naturally the technical superiority of this generation of musicians found supremacy in small groups in which the drums sustained first place together with the melodic instruments. An example of two such outstanding drummers of the swing era were Chick Webb and Gene Krupa. Around and immediately following World War II there took place, gradually and not as suddenly as one is led to believe, a so-called ‘revolution’ that initiated what was the ‘modern jazz’ trend, to which the preceding jazz style was superimposed and defined as ‘traditional’ jazz. While it would be impossible to analyze here all the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and timbric innovations created by modern jazz musicians, two considerations can be made about the drums. The first is that in modern jazz there is no longer any distinction between ‘melodic’ and ‘accompanying’ instruments, thus leveling all instruments of the group to equal importance, all with solo possibilities (just think of what a classic accompanying instrument like the guitar becomes, in the hands of Charlie Christian!). The second is that while in traditional jazz the beat, i.e., the basic rhythmic scansion of a piece, offered the possibility of rhythmic balance, in swing, rhythm became explicitly an element of sound, while in modern jazz the beat is implicit and despite its prominence throughout an entire piece, whether solo or group playing, no instrument has the specific job of sustaining the others. It is clear therefore, that when the drums have been given equal value to the other instruments, they are freed from the obligation they once had to sustain rhythmically an orchestra or group and in modern jazz find enormous expressive possibilities. The musician most responsible in giving the drums their prominence in this era was Kenny Clarke, and among his many followers two of completely different styles but both with supreme technical skills, were Shelley Manne and Max Roach.

THE Drums AND POP Music The introduction of drums in European pop music occurred at the same time as the transformation of dance bands and was conditioned by the popularity of jazz. In the first dance orchestras that offered American dance music in Europe (the fox trot, one-step, and later the Charleston), the drummer often gave his name to the entire group, which was called a ‘jazz band’. The pop music drummer, in general, was not just a pale image of his jazz colleagues. If he performed any virtuoso passages they were certainly not the result of an expressive need, but rather, well-calculated effects created by an arranger for purely commercial reasons. The drums in pop music were also liberated from their secondary role, however, in another change similar to that brought on by the modern jazz revolution: it was with rock ‘n’ roll and the experiments of the new American groups that followed the Beatles and the Rolling Stones that re-evaluated the possibilities of the drums in new forms of instrumental ‘sounds’ and added to the wealth of technical capacity and the actual physical make-up of the instrument, adding other percussive instruments from both Afro-Cuban origin (bongos) and classical music (tympani), as well as oriental instruments like the gong, Chinese bells, Korean blocks, etc. For those who are fascinated by the virtuosity of some jazz or pop musician and have undertaken the study of the drums with the intention of imitating them, it is well to remember that it is no longer possible to do so with just a good sense of rhythm, musical sensitivity and the physical capacity to play. The modern drummer must also have a thorough theoretical background and a good teacher to guide him. Sightreading is of course indispensable particularly for playing the drums and a music school diploma certainly helps. This record, therefore, does not pretend to offer more than a series of modern rhythms that anyone with a good musical background can learn from and have fun with. The rest is up to you!

Piero Umiliani’s “L’Uomo e la Città” perfectly fits into the urban-themed section of Italian library music, an album where our Man is accompanied by jazz celebrities Bruno Tommaso, Oscar Valdambrini, Dino Piana and Nino Rapicavoli, all part of this Umiliani-led ensemble. “L’Uomo e la Città” takes less risks in favor of an extraordinary jazz tightness (“Rete Urbana”, “Quartieri Alti”, “Città Frenetica”), but amazes even more in the two excellent renditions of “Centrale Termica” and “Suoni della Città”, among the best tracks of the album.

Piero Umiliani’s Africa was released in January 1972, a years-ahead record that includes the prog-tingedblack rhythm of “Africa To-Day”, the ‘fourth world’ inspiration coming from Jon Hassell’s “Green Dawn”, the‘exotic’ references in Martin Denny’s style (“Lonely Village”, “Echos”), the electronic new wave (hearing is believing!) of “Sortilège”, the folk music (“Rite”, “Folk-Tune”). An incredible album summarizes sounds and styles that will make the fortune of much more celebrated and popular musicians and artists.

Africa (1972) In 1972 Piero Umiliani was above all the man of a thousand soundtracks and the first Italian jazz experiments; from his later career we’ll soon learn that wasn’t enough for him, showing just a tiny part of a more complex picture. Closed within the walls of his Sound Work Shop Studio, the Maestro was weaving much more complicated and satisfying plots, incorporating dozens of influences from a life spent experimenting and discovering new sounds. Among the most fascinating ones, those who came from a continent like Africa, as much fabled as actually little known, but enchanting to the point that Umiliani dedicated to it the entire Africa - which is paired with its twin-record Continente Nero - and released it as M. Zalla, pseudonym used when it came to tidying up uncompromising and avant-garde music textures, as will later happen with masterpieces such as Suspense, Problemi D’Oggi or Mondo Inquieto. Always keep in mind when this album had been released, in January 1972, before approaching its content: here the prog-tinged black rhythm of Africa To-Day, the ‘fourth world’ inspiration coming from Jon Hassell’s Green Dawn, the ‘exotic’ references in Martin Denny’s style (Lonely Village, Echos), the electronic new wave (hearing is believing!) of Sortilège, the folk music (Rite, Folk-Tune). Many years in advance, in Africa Piero Umiliani summarizes sounds and styles that will make the fortune of much more celebrated and popular musicians and artists.

Released in 1975, “Continente Nero” is the perfect flip side of “Africa” (1972), an album that significantly expanded Piero Umiliani’s music perspectives, incorporating partially explored rhythmic variations already used in “Percussioni ed Effetti Speciali” and “To-Day’s Sound”. It does so by taking inspiration from a tradition that starts from the divine Fela Kuti and reaches the amateur and field recordings by musicologists such as David Toop, but also from the Afro-American jazz history of Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Coltrane, Max Roach and hundreds of others.

Continente Nero (1975) Released via the Omicron label in 1975, three years after Africa, Continente Nero is the perfect flip side of an album that significantly expanded Piero Umiliani’s music perspectives, incorporating partially explored rhythmic variations already used in records such as Percussioni ed Effetti Speciali and To-Day’s Sound or experimenting new solutions that drew from a musical heritage little known at the time such as the African one. Without bothering with the usual alias M. Zalla, Umiliani reveal his birth name and surname for a second foray into a territory that pays homage to an entire continent. And it does so by taking inspiration not only from a tradition that starts from the divine Fela Kuti and reaches the amateur and field recordings by musicologists such as David Toop, invaluable documents of an artistic heritage still today almost impossible to map in its complexity, but also from the Afro-American jazz history by Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Coltrane, Max Roach and hundreds of others. It sounds clear in tracks such as Nuovi Fermenti, Rivoluzionari, Riscossa or Ultimo Stregone that show Umiliani’s extraordinary ability to grab a distant tradition essential traits and put them effortlessly into a personal imaginary world, as much exciting as the original one.

First Official LP Reissue Ever!

**Sourced from the original master tapes and housed in a deluxe gatefold cover. Edition of 500 copies**

The Milan based imprint, Dialogo, returns with the first ever vinyl reissue of Spirale’s lone 1974 self-titled LP. Resting at a fascinating juncture between progressive and free jazz, it was years ahead of its time when it first appeared, rendering it to the shadows for decades, before its ultimate ascent to becoming one of the great holy grails of Italian Jazz prog.

This is a release known mostly by Italian progressive rock lovers, since its sound can be easily associated to the jazz-rock delivered by the way more popular Napoli Centrale and Perigeo - but also to the ‘fundamentals’ Dedalus, Arti & Mestieri, Uno, if not Maad, Nadma or Aktuala, or even the lesser known Bauhaus for instance. But playing this kind of music and trying to release an album in the first half of the ’70s in Italy was also incredibly hard and courageous: Spirale, in fact, was one of the many bands that lived a very short life, before splitting up and disappear forever.

Spirale were an Italian quintet from Rome, consisting of Gaetano Delfini (wind instruments, vocals, percussion), Giancarlo Maurino (saxophone, flute, percussion), Corrado Nofri (piano, marimba, mbira, siren, Jew’s harp), Giuseppe Caporello (contrabass, guitar, percussion) and Giampaolo Ascolese (drums) who released a single eponymous album in 1974.

Spirale was originally released on the International King record label, thanks to Mario Schiano, a free-jazz saxophonist who discovered the band, and producer Toni Cosenza, who included the album in the ‘King Jazz-Line’ series. Consisting of just four tracks, most of which taken by the 13-minute long “Cabral, Anno 1” and the marvellous 17-minute “Peperoncino (Cose vecchie, cose nuove)”, Spirale is an incredibly balanced and flowing record that sounds still fresh and inspired even today, and it’s a shame that it has remained hidden and overlooked for such a long time. Moreover, it is characterized by that undescribable and particular Mediterranean flavour that only Italian musicians were able to obtain. This beautiful album is of course immensely rare in its original edition, and is now finally reissued on Dialogo record label in a faithful restored version that will satisfy any collectors who have waited for years for this beauty to see the light again!

First time officially reissue, sourced from the original master tapes in a new edition, the Milan based imprint Dialogo, returns with this compilation published in Italy by RCA Victor in 1962 - a precious historical document of some important international jazz and pop artists who came to Italy and left their marks, influencing the generations of those golden years. The RCA artists on this LP record have only two things in common: “Inter-continental Airport Rome-Fiumicino” stamped on their passports and a great love for Italy. As a tribute to the country which gave them a friendly welcome and where they spent unforgettable vacations and reaped enthusiastic applause, all of them chose to sing songs in Italian or perform - in the case of Perez Prado - a number of outstanding Italian hits. The dazzling trumpets and electrifying rhythms of Perez Prado, the captivating voice of Helen Merrill, rightly considered the top-notch white jazz singer by critics over the world, the young, all-time best-sellers, Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka, the fantastic trumpet of Chet Baker and his mysterious swinging style of singing, and lastly Antonio Prieto, the Latin-American singer-songwriter who wrote “LA Novia”, are the guest stars of this “passport TO Italy”, which, more than a record, is a full-fledged musical show, with a vast assortment of voices, of musical styles and songs. The Italian pronunciation of these North and South American recording artists is virtually perfect and particularly praiseworthy, if for no other reason than for the effort they have made in getting around, in just a few days, the difficult twists and turns of the Italian language. Their accent is naturally somewhat exotic but it only adds to the charm and the originality of the interpretations. The “show” opens with the already classic “arrivederci Roma”, which, though turned into an overpowering “chunga” by Perez Prado, has kept all its original melody intact. Prado, the wizard of Latin-American dance music, is an extremely refined blender of sounds and rhythms, and without any difficulty can take even a Neapolitan song, change it into a mambo and adapt it to his orchestra. In “guaglione”, for example, the “corruption” comes off perfectly and testifies to the everfresh inventiveness and the unmistakable personality of the Cuban-born pianist arranger. Helen Merrill prefers quality over quantity and so has made very few records but they already occupy a place of their own in the annals of jazz. She consented to record two popular ballads only because Armando Trovajoli, the most qualified exponent of Italian jazz as well as a far-out modernist, was to conduct the orchestra. Furthermore, the two songs, “nessuno AL Mondo” and “estate” are particularly congenial to her musical temperament, for she is most of all concerned with creating subtle and seductive moods, making an intelligent use of her vocal resources in that she tries to “add” her voice to the orchestra as though it were another instrument. Canadian-born Paul Anka, by now a regular member of the exclusive club of top-selling vocal artists of America, presents one of his own songs, “ogni Giorno” originally entitled “love ME Warm AND Tender”, the most requested hit in his present-day repertoire. And the young singing star’s interpretation of “voglio Sapere” (“i’d Like TO Know”) once again makes clear why his name became a permanent fixture as all-time best-seller. Neil Sedaka is another representative of the younger generation of American singers. When he was still in high school in Brooklyn, Neil became a close friend of one of schoolmates: Howard Greenfield. The two of them wrote numerous songs together for school shows: Neil handled the music and Howard the words. Their collaboration proved extremely fruitful, and they were soon to make their debut as professional songwriters with two hits of the calibre of “stupid Cupid” and “falling”. The Sedaka-Greenfield team, which in only a few year time has become one of the best-known, presents, in Italian, two songs which in their original tongue have already climbed to the top: “esagerata” (“little Devil”), translated by Leo Chiosso, and “UN Giorno Inutile” (“I Must BE Dreaming”), translated by Gentile and De Simoni. After Sedaka comes one of the big names of cool jazz: Chet Baker. Trumpet-player and singer, he proves here for the nth time that the names “Golden Trumpet” and “Angel Voice”, given him not only by his fans but by the crites as well, are in no way exaggerated. With an at once restless, desperate and almost possessed musical style, Chet sings and plays two songs which he himself wrote: “IL MIO Domani” and “SO CHE TI Perdero”. His reserved, curiously, precarious and profoundly dramatic way of singing, virtually the mirror-image of his life, is the same in both songs and makes them seem almost unconsciously autobiographical. The “show” then closes with Antonio Prieto. Precisely because of his Latin origins (he was born in Chile, but is Argentine by adoption), it is perhaps easier for him than for the others to express himself in Italian. As is well-known, the name of Prieto soared to the Olympic heights of popular music with “LA Novia” which he wrote in collaboration with his brother, Joaquin. He is a typically Latin singer with a warm, melodious and romantic voice, tinged with melancholy, and on more than one occasion he has shown that he thoroughly understands the tastes of the public. Listen to his two most recent compositions: “papà”, written in collaboration with singer-songwriter Sergio Endrigo, the author of “aria DI Neve”, and “baciami” and... judge for yourselves.

A Brief History OF THE Drums Jazz Drums as we know them today are a complex group of percussive instruments that reveal the inventive genius of the first jazz-band players of New Orleans, on Mississippi show-boats and later, in Chicago. In their actual form (which is substantially the same as that used in the first New Orleans groups ) they are none other than the como ination into one single instrument of all the percussive units used by the Southern blacks. Let us examine the drums in their single parts: the bass drum is a percussion instrument without definite pitch, normally beaten by a stick that has a large, felt-covered knob on one end, while the other end is attached to a pedal played by the right foot. It is the same instrument used in parades with brass bands, when it is worn around the neck and can also be played with regular drumsticks if a drum roll is required. Also a descendant of the traditional New Orleans brass bands are the Charlestons, two superimposed metal plates which are also played by pedal. Drumsticks or brushes are used to play one or two cymbals, large, slightly cupped disks of brass which when struck together loudly, also produce a crashing, dramatic effect. Drumsticks are also used to play the snare drum, of military origin, and the tom tom, of African descent, which can also be played by beating the drum-head with the fingers and the heel of the hand to accompany dancing. Other supplementary instruments such as the castanets, cow-bells, etc., are also played with drumsticks. In early jazz formations and in all New Orleans jazz, drums were used to rhythmically sustain the group, in other words, to furnish the beat, particularly with the bass drum playing the strong beats; the Charlestons would follow on the weak beats and the other parts would more or less ‘fill in’ depending on the player’s ability, by playing syncopation and off-beats. Rarely were the drums used as a solo instrument in New Orleans or traditional jazz bands; at the most, the drums would perform during a break, that is, a brief solo that filled in a pause left by the other melodic instruments between two stanzas or refrains. In jazz history the most important representatives of this ‘archaic’ jazz style are considered to be Warren ‘Baby’ Dodds (brother of the famous clarinet player Johnny Dodds ) and Zutty Singleton; both can be heard on the historical recordings of the Hot Five and the Hot Seven where they played under Louis Armstrong. During the swing era the drums were somewhat modified and perfected (it was during the ’30s that they assumed their standard and present form), thus requiring players to develop a more refined, sophisticated playing technique. In fact, during the swing era the small groups that had made up the backbone of New Orleans and Chicago jazz moved momentarily into the background and attention was focused on the first big, commercial dance bands, then to small, experimental groups that consisted of trios and quartets. But while the New Orleans drummer had been accustomed to playing with musicians he knew personally and with them performed music with which he was completely familiar and could therefore easily provide rhythmic support to, during the ’30s the drummer found himself in the new situation of having to play with a large number of musicians who played written music that had been selected for commercial reasons and part of complicated, orchestral arrangements. In addition, because of continuous changes in orchestral personnel, he seldom had time to familiarize himself with his fellow musicians; he was forced, by necessity, to adapt himself to the needs of the group at a short time notice and it was not unusual for the band leader to expect an exceptionally long break during which the drummer had to demonstrate his particular virtuosity. Naturally the technical superiority of this generation of musicians found supremacy in small groups in which the drums sustained first place together with the melodic instruments. An example of two such outstanding drummers of the swing era were Chick Webb and Gene Krupa. Around and immediately following World War II there took place, gradually and not as suddenly as one is led to believe, a so-called ‘revolution’ that initiated what was the ‘modern jazz’ trend, to which the preceding jazz style was superimposed and defined as ‘traditional’ jazz. While it would be impossible to analyze here all the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and timbric innovations created by modern jazz musicians, two considerations can be made about the drums. The first is that in modern jazz there is no longer any distinction between ‘melodic’ and ‘accompanying’ instruments, thus leveling all instruments of the group to equal importance, all with solo possibilities (just think of what a classic accompanying instrument like the guitar becomes, in the hands of Charlie Christian!). The second is that while in traditional jazz the beat, i.e., the basic rhythmic scansion of a piece, offered the possibility of rhythmic balance, in swing, rhythm became explicitly an element of sound, while in modern jazz the beat is implicit and despite its prominence throughout an entire piece, whether solo or group playing, no instrument has the specific job of sustaining the others. It is clear therefore, that when the drums have been given equal value to the other instruments, they are freed from the obligation they once had to sustain rhythmically an orchestra or group and in modern jazz find enormous expressive possibilities. The musician most responsible in giving the drums their prominence in this era was Kenny Clarke, and among his many followers two of completely different styles but both with supreme technical skills, were Shelley Manne and Max Roach.

THE Drums AND POP Music The introduction of drums in European pop music occurred at the same time as the transformation of dance bands and was conditioned by the popularity of jazz. In the first dance orchestras that offered American dance music in Europe (the fox trot, one-step, and later the Charleston), the drummer often gave his name to the entire group, which was called a ‘jazz band’. The pop music drummer, in general, was not just a pale image of his jazz colleagues. If he performed any virtuoso passages they were certainly not the result of an expressive need, but rather, well-calculated effects created by an arranger for purely commercial reasons. The drums in pop music were also liberated from their secondary role, however, in another change similar to that brought on by the modern jazz revolution: it was with rock ‘n’ roll and the experiments of the new American groups that followed the Beatles and the Rolling Stones that re-evaluated the possibilities of the drums in new forms of instrumental ‘sounds’ and added to the wealth of technical capacity and the actual physical make-up of the instrument, adding other percussive instruments from both Afro-Cuban origin (bongos) and classical music (tympani), as well as oriental instruments like the gong, Chinese bells, Korean blocks, etc. For those who are fascinated by the virtuosity of some jazz or pop musician and have undertaken the study of the drums with the intention of imitating them, it is well to remember that it is no longer possible to do so with just a good sense of rhythm, musical sensitivity and the physical capacity to play. The modern drummer must also have a thorough theoretical background and a good teacher to guide him. Sightreading is of course indispensable particularly for playing the drums and a music school diploma certainly helps. This record, therefore, does not pretend to offer more than a series of modern rhythms that anyone with a good musical background can learn from and have fun with. The rest is up to you!

A body of evocative recordings included in Pupa O Crisalide with three different line-ups for this fantastic album by Enrico Rava which, thanks to Dialogo Records, finally sees the light for jazz lovers. With the Italian Giovanni Tommaso, Bruno Biriaco, Franco D'Andrea, Michele Ascolese, Mandrake and Tommaso Vittorini in “Pupa O Crisalide” and “Giramondo”, the American David Horowitz, John Abercombie, Herb Bushler, Jack De Johnette, Warren Smith and Ray Armando in “C.T.’S Dance” and “Tsakwe” and the the Argentines Finito Ginbert, Matias Pizarro, Rodolfo Mederos, Riccardo Lew, El Negro Gonzales, Nestor Astarita and El Chino Rossi in “El Samba Graciele”, “Revisione Del Processo N.6” and “Lingua Franca” Enrico Rava was the first Italian jazz artist to represent the country internationally, born in Trieste in 1939. Rava's music at its best is a mix of Central European and Italian culture.

Enrico Rava was the first Italian jazz artist to represent the country internationally, born in Trieste in 1939. A border city with a long history as part of Austria, an important port on the Adriatic see, a places influenced by different cultures. Rava's music at its best is a product of this city - a mix of Central European and Italian culture. 'Pupa o Crisalide' is one of the most interesting works in Enrico's discography. It is a good summary of the first phase of his solo career, and contains tracks recorded with three different line-ups: an all-Italian line-up for the opener "Pupa O Crisalide" and the closer "Giromondo", recorded in Rome with Giovanni Tommaso, Bruno Biriaco, Franco D'Andrea, Michele Ascolese, Mandrake and Tommaso Vittorini - an Argentinian octet for the B-side of the LP, recorded in Buenos Aires, and finally an impressive American septet with Jack DeJohnette and John Abercrombie, to name a few for the A-side, recorded in New York. The musical style clearly reflects the composite nature of the album. The first half is funkier, edgier and more fiery, evidently influenced by the jazz-rock/fusion tendencies that were spreading at the time. The second is more placid, elegantly incorporating some Latin/samba elements into the alchemy. The two halves are held together by the similarity in timbre of the line-ups (which feature almost the same elements), and Enrico Rava's renowned trumpet style. Often compared to Miles Davis and Kenny Wheeler, his technique involves rarefied notes, full of atmosphere, and erratic melodic lines that surprisingly do not undermine the 'presence' of his trumpet sound. On the contrary, the charisma of Rava's trumpet seems to emerge precisely from this surprising balance of detachment and red blood.

This is a release known mostly by Italian progressive rock lovers, since its sound can be easily associated to the jazz-rock delivered by the way more popular Napoli Centrale and Perigeo - but also to the ‘fundamentals’ Dedalus, Arti & Mestieri, Uno, if not Maad, Nadma or Aktuala, or even the lesser known Bauhaus for instance. But playing this kind of music and trying to release an album in the first half of the ’70s in Italy was also incredibly hard and courageous: Spirale, in fact, was one of the many bands that lived a very short life, before splitting up and disappear forever.
Spirale were an Italian quintet from Rome, consisting of Gaetano Delfini (wind instruments, vocals, percussion), Giancarlo Maurino (saxophone, ute, percussion), Corrado Nofri (piano, marimba, mbira, siren, Jew’s harp), Giuseppe Caporello (contrabass, guitar, percussion) and Giampaolo Ascolese (drums) who released a single eponymous album in 1974.
Spirale was originally released on the International King record label, thanks to Mario Schiano, a free-jazz saxophonist who discovered the band, and producer Toni Cosenza, who included the album in the ‘King Jazz-Line’ series. Consisting of just four tracks, most of which taken by the 13-minute long “Cabral, Anno 1” and the marvellous 17-minute “Peperoncino (Cose vecchie, cose nuove)”, Spirale is an incredibly balanced and owing record that sounds still fresh and inspired even today, and it’s a shame that it has remained hidden and overlooked for such a long time. Moreover, it is characterized by that undescribable and particular Mediterranean avour that only Italian musicians were able to obtain.
This beautiful album is of course immensely rare in its original edition, and is now nally reissued on Dialogo record label in a faithful restored version that will finally satisfy any collectors who have waited for years for this beauty to see the light again!
Italy has proven to be a treasure trove of obscure, archival sounds. For decades, the products of its free-wheeling sonic countercultures - spanning numerous musical genres - remained as overlooked from within as without, until being uncovered by diggers searching for treasures in the shadows of time. Thankfully, those efforts have morphed into countless revelations via the reissue market. Leading the way is the Milan based imprint Dialogo, who have made their name by diving far from the predictable path. Their latest, the first ever vinyl reissued of the lone, self-titled LP produced by the Rome based quintet, Spirale, in 1974, stands among their most exciting offerings to date. A visionary hybrid at the juncture of rock and jazz, it was so ahead of its time that it remained almost entirely overlooked for decades, before ultimately ascending to holy grail status among lovers of Italian prog. Creatively thrilling - filled with emotive highs and lows - it’s a crucial piece in the puzzle of Italy’s wild and wonderful history of radical sound.
Founded in Rome by Gaetano Delfini (wind instruments, vocals, percussion), Giancarlo Maurino (saxophone, flute, percussion), Corrado Nofri (piano, marimba, mbira, siren, Jew’s harp), Giuseppe Caporello (contrabass, guitar, percussion) and Giampaolo Ascolese (drums), Spirale is among the most obscure projects to have emerged from Italy during the first half of the 1970s. Almost as soon as their lone, self-titled LP was issued by International King Record in 1974, the trial goes dark. Members turn up on recordings by Gaetano Liguori Collective Orchestra, Folk Magic Band, and numerous other projects over the years, but in this incarnation the music on Spirale seems to be all we have.
Spirale’s fate seems to have rested with the simple fact that they were too ahead of their time, producing a music that would subsequently come to find broad favour among audiences of popular music only a year or two down the road. Their lone, self-titled LP, carving out uncharted territory between Bitches Brew era Miles Davis and mid-70s Soft Machine, pushed progressive rock into a near undefinable realm; not rock enough to be called rock, not jazz enough to be called jazz.
Across the two sides of Spirale, comprising four works, a band of uncompromising talent stretches out, laying down cycling rhythms and bass lines that channel the modalism of John Coltrane, the funkiness of Donald Byrd, and hypnotic psychedelia, before embarking upon melodic excursions - peppered with Mediterranean sensibilities - into the outer realms.
Joyous, engrossing, and the product of exacting musicianship, how Spirale remained overlooked for all these years is one of the great mysteries of Italian music. An absolute revelation of the highest order brought to us by the capable hands of Dialogo, the first time ever reissue of this 1974, obscure masterstroke is an absolute must for any fan of prog, jazz, or Italian music at large. Beautifully pressed with fully restored and remastered audio and issued in a facsimile gatefold sleeve, reproducing the stunning original design, Spirale is just about as good as reissues get.

Alvin Lucier (born May 14, 1931) is an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. Much of his work is influenced by science and explores the physical properties of sound itself: resonance of spaces, phase interference between closely tuned pitches, and the transmission of sound through physical media. Bird and Person Dyning is his first solo recorded work; originally released on the Italian Cramps Records label as the 11th volume of the Nova Musicha series dedicated to contemporary avant-garde composers, Bird and Person Dyning is now made available again on Dialogo in a faithful reproduction of the original gatefold cover artwork, including also an inner sleeve with the English translation of the liner notes. From the original liner notes of “Bird and Person Dyning”: The Duke of York (1972) “A long time ago I wanted to build a grotesque jukebox. I thought of merging three or four old jukeboxes and then recording sounds on 45s, so that you could mix the sounds together. [...] The original idea of this work was about the power of singers and vedettes in our society and the hypothesis that their vocal personalities are present in our memory at different levels and, in addition, that all of us, living or dead, might somehow be part of a huge composite identity that is constantly changing with the birth and arrival of new people. The Duke of York is an attempt to elaborate these ideas. A single performer chooses and determines the order of an indefinite number of whole songs, speeches, arias, selected excerpts from books, letters, poems, films, plays, TV series or any other vocal sounds, including non-human ones. The actual duration of these sounds is altered by one or more people using synthesisers or other electronic tools, basing their choices on memories or similar experiences. Once altered, for example through a filter, the example can no longer be undone, and other changes must be made to the previous examples. The effect is that of a vocal identity made of layers of separate and partial iden tities. [...] The Duke of York was composed in 1971 and was performed in its current version on 19 February 1972 at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York. Bird and Person Dyning (1975) for performers with microphones, amplifiers, speakers and a sound object. One day I got an electronic bird in the mail. It was a silver ball with an electrical cord that, when connected, made a sound similar to that of a chirping bird [...]. A few months later I read an article in «Scientific American» about how certain birds that fly at night, particularly the bunting, cross long distances by partly orienting themselves looking at the position of the stars in relation to the rotation of Earth [...]. I owned a Sennheiser binaural microphone consisting of two mini microphones which, when introduced into the ears of a dummy or a person, faithfully reproduced the sounds as heard when they were bouncing inside the head and in the ear canals. I began experimenting by moving the sounds of the bird between two speakers, listening to them through the two mini microphones inserted in my ears, as I walked slowly through the space between the two speakers. The amplified chirps moved left and right according to my movements, creating small time delays and phase-shifts in relation to the position of the motionless bird. Sometimes the microphones would resonate with the loudspeakers, thus generating a Larsen feedback, and I could control the timbre and volume with small head movements [...]. A performance of Bird and Person Dyning is a live exploration of these phenomena. The title is meant as an exact description of the activity.

Martin Davorin Jagodić (1935 – 2020) was a Croatian contemporary music composer and educator. His work includes theatre music, graphic scores, instructions for performances, multimedia installation art, radio art, electroacoustic music on tape as well as experimental film soundtracks. Despite a very long series of performances during the years, only one single LP has officially been released under his name, named Tempo Furioso (Tolles Wetter), a collage of electronic and ‘found sounds’ divided in two long movements (one for each side of the LP). Originally released on the Italian Cramps Records label as the 8th volume of the Nova Musicha series dedicated to contemporary avant-garde composers, Tempo Furioso is now made available again on Dialogo in a faithful reproduction of the original gatefold cover artwork, including also an inner sleeve with the English translation of the liner notes. From the original liner notes of “Tempo Furioso”: My first thought was to state that ‘Tempo Furioso’ is a version of the song entitled ‘Tolles Wetter’. But things are not so straight-forward (after all, what is a version?), so I prefer to talk a bit about ‘Tolles Wetter’. This way, I am sure that I will be able to avoid illustrating the relationships existing between the ‘version’ of ‘Tempo Furioso’ and the ‘original’, namely the music of ‘Tolles Wetter’. Reading the diagram of ‘Tolles Wetter’ will help in listening to the record. It will also explain why I am forced to avoid the terms ‘version’ or ‘variation’. These expressions, for several years now, have become faithful counterparts to certain compositions featuring ‘multiple possible versions’; they make us almost automatically think of any ‘Third Sonata’, ‘Klavierstück XI’ or other open works of this kind. Because all of this is very far from my work, I do not want to use any of these terms. They would inevitably mislead the listener [...]. I’m saying all this in order to reassure the listener, who might otherwise think they are in front of a second-hand work (a minor version) and would therefore feel deprived, almost robbed, of the original. So, what is ‘Tolles Wetter’? The actualisation of a (musical) situation – a place, an action – in which we are at home, well warmed up, in our room, while outside there is a storm. The disturbing elements – atmospheric or otherwise – are already there and will eventually find their way into our space. (Have you ever noticed that there are places, whole cities, that are penetrated by frequencies that create a particular kind of sound – oscillations that are in the air?). They can be fire, or some annoying ‘Tafelmusik’ (“what’s going on under my table?”), wood creaking, wind blowing, as well as lines connecting us with the outside world, far away as it might be (radio stations, for instance). Now, little by little, our situation becomes more complex. It is no longer a question of one story but of several. Bad weather has definitively stabilised (this does not mean that the action always has to be actualised in a violent way; not all possible actualisations are like ‘Tempo Furioso’). Weather and time-duration are confused, we are invaded by memories, by projects... The different situations appear more and more like crystallised and superimposed objects/images, as if one wanted to be everywhere at the same time. Zigzagging through time, stumbling, enlarging the picture... reading makes its way into this picture. Of course, not all actions can be performed at the same time. The overall actualisation/hearing will depend on the organisation of the connections. In sight of a global actualisation/hearing, roles are distributed, and the scripts of the different versions of the same story are written. At this point, we can already better understand the sense in which - regarding the relationship between ‘Tolles Wetter’ and ‘Tempo Furioso’ - the term ‘version’ has little meaning. Let’s say, therefore, that ‘Tempo Furioso’ is a possible actualisation that came to be because of its recording. This also explains why – and perhaps helps instigate – different and diverse possibilities of overlapping sides and records are proposed.

At long last, after remaining out of print for decades, the Milan based imprint, Dialogo, dives into the legendary catalog of Cramps, bringing forth the first ever vinyl reissue of Horacio Vaggione’s LP, "La Maquina de Cantar", issued as the 18th instalment of the label’s Nova Musicha series in 1978 and among the most important examples of Latin American experimental music from the 1970s. Engrossing and creatively riveting, heard more than 40 years on its rippling electronic tones recast the terms of minimal music and shatter the historic perceptions of these sounds. Horacio Vaggione (born 21 January 1943) is an Argentinian composer of electro-acoustic and instrumental music who specializes in micromontage, granular synthesis, and microsound and whose pieces are often scored for performers and computers (mixed music). His music is regularly played worldwide in major centers and festivals of contemporary music. La Maquina de Cantar is his first solo recorded work; originally released on the Italian Cramps Records label as the 18th volume of the Nova Musicha series dedicated to contemporary avant-garde composers, La Maquina de Cantar is now made available again on Dialogo in a faithful reproduction of the original gatefold cover artwork, including also an inner sleeve with the English translation of the liner notes.

The first-ever LP box set gathering the entire 10 albums collection of Obscure Records produced by Brian Eno’s. Curated by Gavin Bryars Originally issued between 1975 and 1978, nearly 50 years on the output of Obscure remains radically forward-thinking - offering glimpses of a future yet to be fully seen - and amounts to one of the most important, influential, and creatively accomplished album series ever conceived. Co-curated by Eno and the composers Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman - issuing the recording debuts of Bryars, Nyman, John Adams, Christopher Hobbs, David Toop, Max Eastley, Jan Steele, Simon Jeffes / The Penguin Café Orchestra, and Harold Budd, in addition to important works by John Cage, Tom Phillips, and John White - Obscure’s collective output is a groundbreaking landmark in the histories of Minimalism, modern composition, and Experimental music, and laid much of the groundwork for the soon to emerge movement of Ambient music. Illuminating the remarkable, and largely otherwise undocumented, creative ferment within and between the British and American scenes of experimental music during the mid to late 1970s, this collection - made in full collaboration with all of the composers or their estates - contains the entire 10 album output of Obscure, the majority of which have been out of print for years, with a number having never received a CD reissue. Offering each of Obscure’s albums, completely remastered and housed in faithful replicas of their original covers and liner notes, as well as a 80-page book (LP dimension) for Lp-box SET, filled with rare photos, archival material and texts by - among others - Gavin Bryars, Bradford Bailey, David Toop, Max Eastley, Richard Bernas, and Tom Recchion, this historic collection marks the first time this seminal series has received a complete LP repress.