SUDDANCE

In 1977, after the negative experiences of Uno and Città Frontale, Osanna's founder members Lino Vairetti (vocals, guitar), Danilo Rustici (electric and acoustic guitars) and Massimo Guarino (drums, percussion, vibraphone) reformed the band with Enzo Petrone (bass) and Fabrizio D'Angelo Lancellotti (keyboards, synthesizers) and started to work on a new album. During the recording sessions they were helped by some guest musicians such as Benni Caiazzo (sax) and Antonio Spagnolo (electric violin) who contributed to enrich an overall sound going in a new musical direction by blending rock, soul and jazz with the traditions of Naples. Osanna's fifth studio album, "Suddance", closer to the style of Napoli Centrale than to the particular prog of the early albums of the band, was released on the CBS label in 1978, when the Halcyon Days of prog were coming to an end, and although it might be disappointing for old fans, in my opinion the result of the band's efforts is not bad at all. In fact, I think that the colourful art work by Guido Harari expresses all the vitality of its musical content...

The opener "Ce vulesse" (It would take) sets the atmosphere with its brilliant blend of rock and fusion. The lyrics are in the dialect of Naples like most of the pieces on this album and sound like an invocation and a complaint in the meantime. The piece deals with the feeling of eternal hope that's one of the characteristic of the people of Osanna's home town...

The following "'A zingara" (The gipsy woman) is my favourite piece on this work. It's a bitter-sweet, melancholic track featuring a mysterious mood... It tells in music and words of the desperate life of a gipsy woman with "music and hope in her heart" who is discriminated and rejected by our society... "She's a gipsy and she causes fear / That's why everybody avoids her in the street / She is so desperate to bang her head against the wall / But every time she asks for help people pretend they don't see her...".

The long, committed "'O napulitano" closes the first side of the album with a heartfelt, raging proclamation of Neapolitan pride. It's a kind of manifesto, a call to arms where the band invite their fellow citizen to fight hard against empty promises, corrupted politicians and decay, to rediscover their roots and traditions, to subvert the sense of cultural stagnation that suffocates their beloved city, to refuse the escape of emigration...

The instrumental title track, "Suddance", opens the second side of this work with its blows of fresh energy, tight rhythms and frenzied solos. According to a recent interview with Lino Vairetti (on Prog Italia magazine #38), it draws loosely inspiration from "New Country", a piece from Jean-Luc Ponty's album "New Voyage"...

Next comes the long, desperate "Chiuso qui" (Closed here), the only track sung in Italian. It starts by a melancholic sax solo passage and describes in music and words the feelings of an inmate, a patient of a mental hospital sentenced to life because of his madness. Out of reality freedom fades away on the border of a dream...

The short, dreamy instrumental "Saraceno" (Saracen) leads to "Naples In The World" that closes the album with another explosion of Neapolitan pride. It's a piece sung in English where the band express the feelings of the Neapolitan emigrants spread all around the world who are proud of their roots and bring with them the love for their city...

On the whole, although this might not be considered an essential album, at length I think it's a good work released by an excellent group of musicians who were trying to explore new musical paths to go further... It's a pity that soon after Suddance was released they had to stop for a long time!