AZIMUT

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.