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Fabrizio De André - Fabrizio De André + PFM In concerto CD (album) cover

FABRIZIO DE ANDRÉ + PFM IN CONCERTO

Fabrizio De André

 

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3.79 | 31 ratings

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NotAProghead
Special Collaborator
Errors & Omissions Team
4 stars First of all, it is FABRIZIO DE ANDRE' album, but PFM made their best as arrangers and performers. FABRIZIO DE ANDRE' is one of the greatest Italian poets/songwriters, and it is useful for everyone interested in Italian culture to be familiar with his works. Unfortunately he died in 1999 in the age of only 59. The fact that 10 000 people came to his funeral says how big he is in Italy.

FABRIZIO DE ANDRE' always worked with first class musicians: PFM, Mauro Pagani, Ivano Fossati (ex-DELIRIUM), Giampiero Reverberi and many others. Usually after each two albums he changed the team of musicians, therefore albums sound so different. We can find on his albums elements of rock, folk, ethnic music, French chanson, but his deep warm bariton is always instantly recognizable.

PFM members (the band then called "I Quelli") were session musicians on recording FABRIZIO DE ANDRE' album "La buona novella" in 1970. It was one one of the first concept albums in Italy and told the story of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary as the story of human beings with their human feelings and human pain.

Both live albums with PFM ("In concerto Vol. 1 and Vol.2") are very good bridges to the world of FABRIZIO DE ANDRE', because they present some of his best songs beautifully arranged by PFM.

I can't describe the period of collaboration between PFM and FABRIZIO DE ANDRE' better than FRANZ DI CIOCCIO (taken from the band's official web-site www.pfmpfm.it):

"FRANZ - In my opinion among the Italian song writers and singers, Fabrizio De André is the one who was able to inspire his songs with poetry. We have been known Fabrizio for a long time, because we worked together some years before. When we met him during a concert in Sardinia, I suggested him the idea to work together on a project. In the USA authors and bands are used to work together and I was sure that we could have worked very well with Fabrizio. We could offer something totally new to the Italian audience, an artistic co-operation where the author and the band would have influenced each other. We explained our project to Fabrizio, but at the beginning he was not enthusiast: "Hey, you play too loud", he said " No, we can suit each other" I answered "You come here with all your watts and you kill me" " Listen", said Franco, picking up his guitar, "In my opinion Il Pescatore (The Fisherman) should be performed in this way, more joyful, more funky" and he started to play some chords. Fabrizio listened to Franco smiling: "And drums? He (Me.) plays loudly! I don't know....". Finally we convinced him, even if it took some time. Maybe we succeeded because he could feel that we were very close to each other, he could feel our unity. Fabrizio was quite scared about the tour, because normally he is shy and he does not like facing the audience every day, travelling with other people etc. But we told him he could trust us: we would have co-operated and, above all, we would have been sympathetic. We all agreed shaking our hands. We chose about 30 songs and we shared equally our work. This strategy was invented to keep the whole style of each song. For example Patrick had to work on those songs which sounded a little bit French, because he had lived in France and he was able to arrange them properly. Franco chose those songs that would have let him show his skill and familiarity with the guitar. Flavio, who was very learned, had to work on particularly difficult songs which, needed more complex arrangements. A month later we were ready. We created something new and strange, where Fabrizio's poetic lyrics and clean melodic songs were mixed with a dreaming musicality, something full with images, inventions and coup de theatre. Everything worked perfectly, every song sounded different, new and "completed". Lyrics and arrangements were in constant communication and in perfect balance. Fabrizio's warm and sensual voice seemed to be exalted instead of being covered. The show looked (and sounded) like a watercolour picture, because voice and music were softly mixed together. Anyway, sometimes PFM's musical energy could explode. Everybody was really satisfied, even our audience seemed to like that strange co-operation; I say strange because, at that time, PFM and Fabrizio De Andrč represented two musical realities which were completely different and maybe incompatible. Anyway the project worked and showed everybody that bands and song writers could work together and improve each other's musical experience.

The experience with Fabrizio taught us the importance of lyrics. In fact, each time he started singing the audience used to sing and clap because everybody could recognise each song. Lyrics tell stories, they are about personal or poetic subjects and for this reason they live longer. Let me tell you something: in my life I have performed more than 2000 drum solos, but nobody can remember them. My fans maybe can remember my energy, my strength and vigour, but none of them can sing one of my drum solos. If someone would like to live again one of my drum solos he would have to listen to a record. On the contrary, everybody can sing a song. This experience made us think about the leading singer role in our band. We needed a front man, someone who was able to establish a direct relationship with our audience. But, above all, we needed new songs which could have been remembered."

If this site was dedicated to singing poetry, I'd gave the album 5 stars, but keeping in mind that in general it is not a prog recording, my rating is 4 stars.

NotAProghead | 4/5 |

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