TARZAN

Here is an example of an album that i've seen the cover of floating around the internet for years but due to its relative obscurity and less than provocative subject matter, has sort of just gone under the radar, however curiosity has gotten the best of me and i've decided to track down some information regarding one of progressive rock's rarest and most expensive compilation albums to have come out in the tender year of 1972. It all started in 1970 when an Italian label called Bla Bla Records was founded by Pino Massara with the idea to release Italian artists' material sung in the English language but ultimately the label would become known as the dumping ground for all the rejects of the bigwig Italian labels such as Polygram and EMI.

One of the first releases of Bla Bla was this budget price sampler called the TARZAN COMPILATION which is somewhat an odd tribute of Italian prog artists paying homage to everyone's favorite jungle dweller. The album contained eleven tracks but only performed by four artists: Capsicum Red, Osage Tribe and the lesser known Well's Fargo and Black Sunday Flowers. The 2007 CD re-release contains an additional six bonus tracks with one extra from Osage Tribe as well as the bands Colonnello Musch, Ixo and Springfield. While Bla Bla itself would only function a few short years, it would ultimately become incorporated into Franco Battiato's label Scuderia where it would take a more serious note.

TARZAN COMPILATION is a strange beast beyond the cheesy cover art which is an immediate turn off for further exploration actually. Musically speaking, the bands involved are united behind a central theme, that is TARZAN, Lord Of The Jungle. The music, while somewhat progressive is actually tamed into more digestible slabs of 60s styled psychedelic rock with pop hooks, groovy beats and occasional heavy guitar outbursts. The tracks by Capsicum Red, Well's Fargo and Black Sunday Flowers were exclusive singles released by Bla Bla however when it came to Osage Tribe, "Hajenhanhowa" was an excerpt from their almost ten minute track on their one and only album "Arrow Head," as well as the only track to be sung in Italian.

The four bands remain fairly uniform in approach as they lay on thick tribal percussive drives with beatnik grooves more relevant in the 60s than the time of release. The tracks "Hot Rock" and "Madness" by Black Sunday Flowers are actually more akin to American rock 'n' roll than anything remotely Italian progressive. Likewise the two tracks by Well's Fargo are undecidedly poppy and contain zero elements of progressiveness. The main tracks of interest on this one are actually from both Osage Tribe and Capsicum Red but due to the fact that the tracks here can be obtained as bonus tracks on various rereleases of their respective single albums of their careers, it really makes this TARZAN COMPILATION a bit unnecessary even by hardcore collector's standards.

As it stands, TARZAN COMPILATION is more of a curiosity of history than a bona fide collector's dream come true despite the hefty prices that original vinyl editions can command. All the tracks can easily be tracked down as bonus tracks or as snippets on YouTube and when all is said and done, this is basically a unique novelty album that simmers in the good enough to check out range but hardly commands any serious plans of acquisition. If you however someone who must hunt down every possible artifact TARZAN related then you too will want to find this into your world for it has plenty of good old fashioned jungle references to keep you entertained. As for me, i'm happy to have finally made my acquaintance with this oddball but i don't believe it will be hitting my heavy rotation list anytime soon either.