It's been more than five years since I started this blog and, whatever the reason, I never posted any Christmas music. Well, I believe it's never too late for a change, so at this particular time of the year I decided to treat you with "Christmas A'Go-Go", a 7" EP by The Wandy Five.
The four instrumentals on this record are easily available on other blogs and on YouTube, but I guess that this is the first time they are presented in a clean remastered version. A small present for all the followers of Stereo Candies, if you want.
In 2017 I will keep on working to present more and more interesting releases. They won't be as many as I would like, but I'll do my best as usual in the few spare time that I am allowed.
If you enjoy the blog then let me know about it leaving some comments: the fuel that powers me is my own passion for music, but it's always nice to learn that somebody out there is downloading, listening and enjoying the music presented on these pages.
Now, on to The Wandy Five and... Merry Christmas!!!
The Candyman
Here's the track list for this 7" EP:
01. Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer (2:45)
02. White Christmas (2:58)
03. Mary's Boy Child (2:05)
04. Silent Night (3:09)
All tracks were remastered from the original vinyl release in December 2016 and are available in FLAC lossless format, along with scans of the complete original artwork.
As usual, please have a look at the comments for the download link.
"Christmas A'Go-Go" was released by Roxy Records sometimes in late 1966, probably - and aptly - just around Christmas time. Cleverly, the back cover could be customized by hand to include the names of both the donor and the recipient, making it a perfect gift for young people.
Given the relative ease with which the record can be obtained on the second-hand market, I understand that probably many copies were sold during those pre-Christmas days, exactly fifty years ago.
At that time, the A Go-Go craze had taken hold in Singapore and every band tried to incorporate elements of such style (...also known as Hala-hala, a Cha-Cha-descended style...) in their music. Moreover, plenty of records featured that magic word on the cover, usually in big fonts, cashing on the trend.
So, an A Go-Go Christmas record in Singapore in 1966? Good move, Roxy!
The four Christmas carols included on this release are so well-known that it wouldn't make much sense getting into them as usual. Let's spend a few words about The Wandy Five instead.
According to the information I found on the Internet, it looks like The Wandy Five were a group of Malay local musicians active during the '60s in Singapore. The group was founded by Hj Wandly Yazid as one of the many projects of a versatile mind.
Wandly Yazid (1925-2005), born in Sumatra, was a renowned musician, composer and arranger. He was educated in Dutch primary and high schools, and graduated from the Teachers Training Institute, West Sumatra.
At seventeen he began to study music. He learnt to play the violin and the clarinet, as well as water-colour and oil painting in Bukittinggi, Sumatra.
In 1947, passion for music and the arts brought him to Singapore, a vibrant city where the film industry was thriving. Here, he studied the piano and also learnt to play the saxophone.
Soon he formed his own orchestras, Wandy Yazid Orchestra and Megawati Orchestra, and composed music for films by the Nusantara Film Company and Malayan Film Unit. In 1956 he became member of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra as a violinist.
Wandly Yazid
Wandly founded the Fajar Record Company in 1959, where he composed and arranged songs, and accompanied singers like Julie Sudiro, Orchid Abdullah and Rosiah Chik. He also trained various young singers who later became very successful, including Ernie Djohan and Rafeah Buang.
In 1964, at the age of thirty-nine, he was appointed Music Director of Cathay-Keris Films. He composed and arranged songs and background music for many classic films, and is best remembered for "Gurindam Jiwa", the lovely theme song for a romantic film of the same name. Originally performed by R. Ismail and Rafeah Buang, with lyrics by Hamzah Hussein, the song is now an evergreen favourite.
During the late '60s, he left a few more traces of his work with The Wandy Five accompaning singers Rahim Ali and A. Amin on a couple of singles.
In the '70s, he joined the Singapore Broadcasting Orchestra as a violinist, performed with his own group, Café Vienna Trio, and also gave solo piano performances at major hotel establishments. Retired in 1992, he continued to perform and gave lessons to young music students.
The following clips offer a complete preview of the remastered EP, enjoy!
!
!
!
!
More information about Wandly Yazid and The Wandy Five is available here:
If you have any other useful information about this post or if you spot any dead links, please get in touch with me at stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!
Sheep Records was a Swiss underground label specialized in Garage-Rock, Surf, Lounge and other Rock'n'Roll oddities. Run by Christian Müller from Zürich, along with friends Andi Frick and Andreas Egi, it was active from 1996 to 2004 and published about 30 releases, mostly on 7" vinyl singles.
In october 2006, after about two years of hiatus, all the contents of the now defunct Sheep Records website were deleted from the Internet, and replaced with a blank page announcing that "Der Kebab ist gegessen" ("The kebab is eaten"), a last goodbye and a reference to the label's cataloguing system that included the prefix "kebab" for vinyl releases and "gigot" for CD releases.
The nineteenth Sheep Records release marked the return to the label of Swiss Garage-Rock stars Lombego Surfers, after about five years since their split 7" single with The Feebles that we have documented here long ago.
"Third Stage / Temptation" was released in April 2001 as a 7" single limited to 300 copies on blue vinyl and 700 copies on black vinyl, for a total of 1,000 copies.
On Side A we find "Third Stage", a short and fast instrumental whose simple structure doesn't allow more than a brief guitar solo which is repeated during the three sections that the song is made up.
Side B offers "Temptation", a much slower and evocative piece that suggests distorted images of a bar in Tijuana where hopes sink in rattlesnake Tequila as generous and conspiring señoritas invite customers upstairs... Sort of...
Here's the track list and credits for this 7" single:
01. Third Stage (2:11)
02. Temptation (3:41)
Recorded by T. Bruderer at TT-Recs, St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Both tracks were remastered from the original vinyl release in December 2016 and are available in FLAC lossless format, along with scans of the complete original artwork.
As usual, please have a look at the comments for the download link.
Here'a short bio of Lombego Surfers sourced from the Internet...
"The Lombego Surfers are not some tanned sunny boys from California but rather the hardest working Voodoo rock punkers with the coolest guitar riffs since the Stooges. The three rock’n’roll pagans from Boston and Basel don’t give a hoot about trends: the rock’n’roll road is straight on, the clubs on the way are old pals where a cold beer is always waiting and the last man standing puts the bones away. That’s the Lombego Surfers’s way. Right now they are on the road with their highly recommended new album Ticket Out of Town in their duffel bag."
The following clips offer a complete preview of the remastered single, enjoy "Third Stage" and "Temptation"!
More information about Sheep Records and Lombego Surfers is available here:
The Sheep Records story series will continue during the next months. Your input is more than welcome: if you want to get in touch please write to stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!
«I don't think that there is such a thing as the Don Sebesky sound. [...] I think the common denominator here is more an attitude towards music, a willingness to blend various influences without worrying about where they come from. The way I look at music is the way I look at life - I have no pre-conceived notion about either. If today I feel like doing a certain kind of music, that's what I'll do. And tomorrow, I might try a different kind. I think that if I had one sound, if I stumbled on one formula and I had to stay with that one sound and keep pushing it, I'd never be happy. That's why I said that I don't think I have a "sound". But an attitude, an approach to music, definitely, yes.»
[Don Sebesky, from an interview conducted in 1973 by Didier C. Deutsch]
Donald John Sebesky was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, USA, on 10 December 1937; his father worked in a steel-cable factory, his mother was a housewife. At the age of eight he started learning the accordion; he later came to realize that this instrument was the best possible choice he could have made because, as he says, «the accordion is a 'mini-orchestra' and teaches the principles of harmony from the very beginning».
Sebesky soon started learning piano too, and in high school he switched to the trombone to get into the marching band. Then he began commuting into New York from New Jersey to study with Warren Covington at the Manhattan School of Music. His earliest influences were the big bands of Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson.
During the mid '50s he began his professional career playing with Kai Winding, Claude Thornhill, and the Tommy Dorsey Band led by Covington. In 1958 he was hired to play the trombone in Maynard Ferguson's band appearing on their album "A Message From Newport"; on such occasion he signed two compositions: "Humbug" and "Fan It, Janet".
He also played briefly with Stan Kenton appearing on "Viva Kenton!" in 1959, but at the turning of the decade he decided to give up trombone playing and devote himself full time to writing and arranging, working out an individual style based on a combination of Jazz and Classical music.
In 1965 Don Sebesky joined Verve Records when Creed Taylor was still a producer for the label. One of his most distinctive and successful arrangements was for Wes Montgomery's album "Bumpin'" released the same year.
In 1967, when Taylor left the company to launch his own CTI, Sebesky joined the newborn label as staff arranger, giving his precious contribution in creating many hit records.
Sebesky's arrangements have usually been among the classiest in his field, reflecting a solid knowledge of the orchestra, drawing variously from Big Band Jazz, Rock, Ethnic music, Classical music of all eras and even the Avant-garde for ideas. He once cited Béla Bartók as his favorite composer, but one also hears lots of Stravinsky in his work.
In 1968 he debuted as a solo artist with "Don Sebesky & The Jazz-Rock Syndrome", an albums intended to merge - as per its title - Jazz and Rock music. This record was soon followed by "The Distant Galaxy", a weirder affair that is the subject of the current post.
In 1973 Sebesky released his opus "Giant Box", a double LP for which he employed musicians that makes the term 'all stars' sound like an understatement; this may have been Creed Taylor's most ambitious single project.
The album reached number 16 on the U.S. Billboard Jazz Albums Chart and was nominated for a Grammy. Later on, this step out into the spotlight was followed only by sporadic releases among which we remember "The Rape of El Morro" (1975), "Three Works For Jazz Soloists & Symphony Orchestra" (1979) and "Full Cycle" (1983).
Active as a teacher since the 70s, Sebesky is the author of "The Contemporary Arranger", an authoritative easy-to-understand text covering all aspects of arranging for Jazz bands and other Contemporary / Pop ensembles, which is used in colleges and music schools all over the world.
He has worked with such orchestras as the London Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Pops, The New York Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic of London, and the Toronto Symphony.
As a recording artist and in collaboration with other artists, he has won three Grammy Awards and has been nominated for 27 more, won a Tony and has been nominated for two more, won two Drama Desk Awards and four Clio Awards.
His Broadway theater credits include "Porgy and Bess" (London production by Trevor Nunn), "Sinatra at The Palladium", "Sweet Charity", "Kiss Me Kate", "Bells Are Ringing", "Flower Drum Song", "Parade", "The Life", "Cyrano", "The Goodbye Girl", "Will Rogers Follies", "Sinatra at Radio City", "Pal Joey", "Come Fly Away" and "Baby It's You".
One of the most highly regarded arrangers in the business, Sebesky's work is precise and elegant, yet bristles with ideas and always displays his sure grasp of instrumental potential and the abilities of the performers for whom he writes.
Don Sebesky, exact date unknown, probably mid/late '80s
"The Distant Galaxy" contains the following tracks:
01. The Distant Galaxy (0:16)
02. Dance the Night Away (3:10)
03. The Sound of Silence (4:51)
04. Martian Storm (0:15)
05. Soul Lady (2:56)
06. Reflectivity (0:14)
07. Mr. Tambourine Man (3:01)
08. Cosmic Force (0:21)
09. Water Brother (3:58)
10. Spiral Nebulae (0:23)
11. The Blue Scimitar (3:59)
12. Satellite (0:11)
13. Elvira Madigan Theme / Honey (3:02)
14. Solar Emissions (0:15)
15. Guru-Vin (4:34)
16. I Wish It Would Rain (2:47)
17. Lady Madonna (2:42)
All tracks were remastered from the original vinyl in November 2016 and are available in FLAC lossless format, along with complete artwork reconstruction and printable PDF files.
Before burning this album to CD-R using the provided CUE file, you must convert the original FLAC audio file to WAV format using an appropriate software. Please have a look here if you need some help.
As usual, please have a look at the comments for the download link.
Recorded between March and October 1968, and bearing catalogue number V6-5063, "The Distant Galaxy" was released on Verve Records in November during the same year. Just like the previous "Don Sebesky & The Jazz-Rock Syndrome", the record comes in a nice sleeve created by Joel Brodsky (photography) and Acy R. Lehman (art direction). The front cover aptly depicts the album concept, and on the back this is reinforced by the inclusion of a real picture of the Andromeda Galaxy.
As the 'V6' prefix in the catalogue number implies, the album is recorded in full stereo and the mixing offers clear separation of the various instruments. Despite being in near mint condition, my copy suffers from some serious crackling on the left channel and getting rid of it took ages...
Anyway, the album was bootlegged on vinyl sometimes in the late '90s / early '00s, but it never received a proper CD release. As far as I know, only the track "Guru-Vin" was released on a compilation entitled "Psychedelic Jazz", which is part of the "Jazzclub | Moods" series.
In June 1968 the LP was preceded by a single credited to The Distant Galaxy, which included "Elvira Madigan Theme / Honey" and "The Blue Scimitar". In December, shortly after the release of the album, another promotional single containing "The Sound of Silence" b/w "Lady Madonna" was issued. Once again, this was credited to The Distant Galaxy and not to Don Sebesky... It is unclear if this single was subsequently officially released and if it contains mono or stereo mixes of the track.
The following liner notes, included on the back of the album sleeve, were written by novelist David A. Kaufelt.
«The heavens open. The clouds part. And you thrust through. Past the fair moon and the envious sun. Past the red planet Mars and the foggy Venus and the titan Jupiter and the beringed Saturn and the unknown Pluto. Beyond the Big Dipper and Pegasus and Gemini and Taurus and Orion. Suddendly, quite irrevocably, the Milky Way - with its billions of stars blinking like pale yellow eyelids - is behind you and you're tripping 200,000 light years away, passing white dwarfs and mysterium and reptiles with wings and incendiary comets and irridescent meteors and signs of civilizations that reached their nadir one million eons before man's solar system had begun to evolve.
Orange flames and purple bolts and streaks colored from a different spectrum snake across the perpetual night. You've reached your destination, the ultimate synthesis of life, the opposite pole of the universe, THE DISTANT GALAXY.
Where time has never existed. Where stars orbit in a spiral abyss. Where you comprehend that man is not alone in the universe. Where others have conquered war, hunger and disease. Where sounds - both alien and familiar - engulf the at mosphere and tell you of another dimension, another place that exists beyond the farthest reaches of the-mind.
Sounds of violence. Sounds of electrical forces generated by an ultra-sensitive, macrocosmic transmitter. Sounds of Silence strained through instruments and voices you've never heard, you can never forget. Sounds of images that dance before your eye in unrelieved colors of the cosmic soul: Elvira Madigan walking a tightrope of pink gold stretched between twin hexagonal stars... Honey sinking into the organic-tinted waters of a one-dimensional moon... Lady Madonna caught in a koleidoscopic cob-web spun from the diamonds of her own dreams...
Sounds of limitless joys that enable you to Dance the Night Away... Sounds of external sadness that bring you face to face with the Soul Lady... Sounds of loneliness that leave you abandoned on an ebony desert, crying I Wish It Would Rain... Sounds of forgotten exotica (The Blue Scimitar, Guru-vin) transcribed into the fragile filigree of final understanding... Sounds that strike a sympathetic chord (Mr. Tambourine Man, Water Brother) reverberating across the endless reaches of space,
echoing in the endless reaches of your mind...
Sounds of fast, driving, pulsating crescendos that linger on in the inner ear long after the last possible electronic irnpulse. Sounds of jazz progressing deep into the azure blues of the twilight zone. Sounds from THE DISTANT GALAXY. Take the trip. Listen. Allow yourself to be transported, absorbed. And learn why you can't go home again.»
...and to finish this post, here's the complete credits as reconstructed from the original list included on the back cover and the information written on the center labels of "The Distant Galaxy". Additional information about most of the tunes is also included, along with six clips that offer a generous preview of the remastered album... Enjoy!
The Distant Galaxy (Rick Horton)
This is the very first in a series of electronic miniatures that are interspersed among the main tracks, whose purpose is to emphasize the out-of-this-world mood of the album...
Recording date: October 3, 1968
Dance the Night Away (Jack Bruce / Pete Brown)
This song was originally included on "Disraeli Gears", the second album by the British rock band Cream released in November 1967; you can listen to the original version here.
Musicians include: Chuck Rainey, bass - Donald MacDonald, drums - Hubert Laws, soprano saxophone
Recording date: April 14, 1968
The Sound of Silence (Paul Simon)
Mistitled "Sounds of Silence" on the original back cover of the album, this everlasting Simon & Garfunkel's tune was first released as part of the "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." LP in October 1964, and is for sure one of the most well-known songs ever recorded: do you really need a link to the original version? The arrangement created by Don Sebesky is one of the most elaborate and interesting on the album.
Musicians include: Chuck Rainey, bass - Donald MacDonald, drums - Hubert Laws, flute
Recording date: October 3, 1968
Martian Storm (Rick Horton)
The effect that can be heard on this interlude was probably achieved by operating a tape machine manually...
Recording date: October 3, 1968
Soul Lady (Don Sebesky)
Here comes the first of three tracks penned by Sebesky. His original compositions really stand the most stressful quality tests; this one in particular is so infused with Soul and offers a very solid groove that also leaves room for a cheesy Moog solo played by the man himself... Simply great!
Musicians include: Chuck Rainey, bass - Donald MacDonald, drums - Dick Hyman, piano - Don Sebesky, Moog synthesizer
Recording date: April 26, 1968
Reflectivity (Rick Horton)
As the title suggests, this is just a short portion of the next track spinned backwards...
Recording date: October 3, 1968
Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan)
The original version of this song appears on Bob Dylan's fifth album, which is entitled "Bringing It All Back Home" and was released in March 1965. A live version recorded at Newport Folk Festival in 1964 is available here... Well, I may be wrong, but in this track I happen to clearly hear Vincent Bell's trademark 'underwater guitar' sound as performed by him on many releases, including Dick Hyman's "Moon Gas", Ferrante & Teicher's "Midnight Cowboy" and his own "Airport Love Theme"... Bell in not credited anywhere on the liner notes, but a reference to his name most likely appears in the title of track 15, "Guru-Vin", uhm... Anyway, you can read more details below.
Musicians include: Chuck Rainey, bass - Donald MacDonald, drums - Hubert Laws, soprano saxophone
Recording date: April 14, 1968
Cosmic Force (Rick Horton)
This is another short and simple interlude performed on a synthesizer that, according to Wikipedia, hints at the force derivable from dark energy that is responsible for the accelerating universe...
Recording date: October 3, 1968
Water Brother (Don Sebesky)
The second of Don Sebesky's original instrumentals included on "The Distant Galaxy" is another winner, also due to the excellent clavinet and flute solos. Percussions and Moog synthesizer elements significantly add to the final result. I can't help to wonder how great a full album of original compositions in this vein would have been...
Musicians include: Chuck Rainey, bass - Donald MacDonald, drums - Hubert Laws, flute - Warren Bernhardt, clavinet - Don Sebesky, Moog synthesizer
Recording date: April 14, 1968
Spiral Nebulae (Rick Horton) Side Two opens with more modular synth extravaganza. This is by far the most interesting interlude on the album.
Recording date: October 3, 1968
The Blue Scimitar (Esmond Edwards)
This instrumental is credited to producer Esmond Edwards and was previously recorded by pianist Ray Bryant for his album "Lonesome Traveler" in 1966.
Musicians include: Chuck Rainey, bass - Donald MacDonald, drums - Marvin Stamm, trumpet - Richard Spencer, soprano saxophone
Recording date: April 26, 1968
Satellite (Rick Horton)
A simulation of an orbiting satellite passing by... Nothing more and nothing less.
Recording date: October 3, 1968
Elvira Madigan Theme / Honey (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
This medley includes a reworking of the second movement from Mozart's "Piano Concerto No. 21", that was included as part of the soundtrack to the 1967 Swedish movie "Elvira Madigan", and Bobby Russell's "Honey", a song brought to success by Bobby Goldsboro in 1968. You can watch him perform a playback of the original version here. By the way, the center label on the original album wrongly mention one *Bill* Russell as author instead of Bobby...
Musicians include: Chuck Rainey, bass - Donald MacDonald, drums - Richard Spencer, soprano saxophone - Dick Hyman, piano
Recording date: April 26, 1968
Solar Emissions (Rick Horton)
A last bit of tape manipulation with added reverb and effects.
Recording date: October 3, 1968
Guru-Vin (Don Sebesky)
Here we have, in all his glory, the third instrumental piece composed by Don Sebesky for this album. During the '60s the sitar started being featured in Western Pop Music, Wikipedia hosts a very nice article about it and you can find it here. Towards the end of the decade, the electric sitar was developed by Danelectro, with the essential contribution of guitarist Vincent Bell, (...his name pops up again in this release, please see also the note for track 7, "Mr. Tambourine Man"... - a few posts about him will be uploaded to the blog soon), and its gorgeous sound graces "Guru-Vin", courtesy of American jazz guitarist Larry Coryell. Vocal inputs by Lois Winter are also essential...By the way, I just realized that the song title may be in honour of Mr. Bell, what do you think? Anyway... What a masterpiece!
Musicians include: Chuck Rainey, bass - Ronald Zito, drums - Larry Coryell, electric sitar - Lois Winter, vocals
Recording date: March 28, 1968
I Wish It Would Rain (Norman Whitfield / Barrett Strong / Roger Penzabene) This song is one of the most melancholy in the Temptations repertoire. The single was released in December 1967; it reached #1 in the R&B Charts and #4 in the Pop Charts in th U.S. You can listen to the original version here.
Musicians include: Chuck Rainey, bass - Donald MacDonald, drums - Dick Hyman, piano
Recording date: April 26, 1968
Lady Madonna (John Lennon / Paul McCartney)
The album ends with a Beatles cover. The original version was released as a single in March 1968 and you can listen to it here.
Musicians include: Chuck Rainey, bass - Ronald Zito, drums - Larry Coryell, electric guitar - Marvin Stamm, trumpet and piccolo trumpet
Recording date: March 28, 1968
More information about Don Sebesky and "The Distant Galaxy"is available here:
If you have any other useful information about this post, or if you spot any dead links, just get in touch with me at stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!
Well, I am afraid this post is going to be quite short: sadly I wasn't able to discover any information about the elusive Rosa Fang (羅莎), except that this was probably her only release.
By the way, bootleg label Glycos from Singapore released an EP that combines the title track from this release with three tracks taken from the debut Rita Chao EP, which I remastered some time ago... Quite odd, isn't it?
Could it be that Rosa Fang released other records under a different name? She has a mature voice and I doubt that these are her only recordings... Maybe someone out there can shed some light on her? Thanks in advance!
Rosa Fang as she appears on the front cover of her one and only EP, 1966
Here's the track list for this 7" EP:
01. 穿着鞋子走路 (These Boots Are Made For Walking) (2:43)
02. 夢裡會情郎 (Far Away) (2:23)
03. 情竇初開 (My Love) (2:26)
04. 海上良宵 (Hawaiian Song) (2:58)
All tracks were remastered from the original vinyl in October 2016 and are available in FLAC lossless format, along with scans of the complete original artwork.
As usual, please have a look at the comments for the download link.
Althought manufactured in India, this EP was released in Singapore on the Columbia label with catalogue number ECHK 555, sometimes in early/mid 1966, around the same time that the debut EPs by Rita Chao and Sakura were also released.
The song is followed by "夢裡會情郎" (Far Away), a quieter number which I can't clearly recognize, but I'm almost sure that it is a cover of some other famous tune released sometimes during the mid-60s. Can anybody help me on this matter?
On Side B we find "情竇初開", a nice version of Petula Clark's international hit "My Love", a song written by Tony Hatch in late 1965; here's a playback of the original version.
The EP ends with "海上良宵" (Hawaiian Song) which, once again, sounds familiar but I can't seem to focus on the original; the title is here on the tip of my tongue but... Once again I need help, thank you!
The following clips offer a complete preview of the remastered EP, enjoy!
At this point I am supposed to provide you with some links about the release featured in this entry, but this time there are not many useful resources that I can direct you to...
As a last note, I'm still struggling to find somebody who can help me with translations: if you can translate from Chinese to English please get in touch with me at stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you so much!
«One day, coming back from school in Castelfranco when I was about eight or nine, I met a person who was playing violin under the arcades, in front of a small shop: that frail sound came over me, it made me vibrate and echoed inside of me for many days.»
Giusto Pio was born in Castelfranco Veneto, Italy, in 1926. He inherited a passion for music from his father, who played several instruments without ever having attended regular schools.
At 13 he began to study violin in Marghera and three years later he was accepted at the Liceo Musicale Cesare Pollini of Padua. In 1941 he moved to Venice, where he studied composition and violin under Luigi Enrico Ferro, the last great violinist of the "Venetian School", at the Benedetto Marcelli Conservatory.
Pio graduated in violin in 1947, a few years later he got married and moved to Milan. During the '50s he received important national and international awards and entered the RAIorchestra of Milan (Italian television orchestra) as Concertino violin, a role that enabled him to acquire, in about thirty years of activity in close contact with the best directors and performers of the world, a wide experience in the field of orchestral-symphonic and operatic music.
During the '60s and the '70s, he also carried out an intense didactic activity with the best Milanese and Italian chamber music ensembles, contemplating a vast repertoire of music that, starting from the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Letitiae Musicae, the pioneer group in Italy for Medieval and Renaissance music), went through the Italian Baroque (Complesso Strumentale Italiano, Symposium Musicum Milano, Giovane Quartetto di Milano, Complesso Barocco di Milano, etc.), and then reached the contemporary music of today with many premières of the greatest Italian living composers.
Over the years Giusto Pio has participated in several recordings for the major record companies of the time (Ricordi, Angelicum, Vox, Decca). These musical performances were always philologically attentive, thanks to the help of musicologists such as Francesco Degrada and Raffaello Monterosso of the Musical Paleography School of Cremona.
In the late '70s Pio was hired by Franco Battiato as violin teacher and they soon became friends. Later on, almost for amusement and curiosity, Pio began to play improvised concerts with him and vocalist Juri Camisasca.
In 1978 he worked as musician on "Juke Box" by Battiato and during the same year he released his first album of experimental music entitled "Motore immobile" (...you can listen to the whole album here...) on Cramps Records.
The long collaboration with Battiato was one of the most prolific and interesting during the '80s and '90s in Italy; this partnership took Pio to new heights in the fields of commercial and avantgarde music, with a great success in terms of popularity and discography.
Most of the albums by Franco Battiato, from "L'era del cinghiale bianco" (1979) to "Unprotected" (1994), depending on the case, included Giusto Pio as co-author of the music or of the arrangements, as violinist or as conductor. All the tours performed by Battiato during those years always included Giusto Pio among the essential lineup of musicians.
In those years, always with Battiato, he wrote the music and arrangements of many hit songs for Italian singers Alice, Giuni Russo and Sibilla ("Per Elisa" by Alice won the Sanremo Festival in 1981, you can watch the original performance here), produced two albums for Milva and various songs for other artists.
In 1984 Pio, Battiato and lyricist Rosario 'Saro' Cosentino penned the Eurovision Song Contest entry "I treni di Tozeur", performed by Alice and Battiato, which finished 5th in the contest and became a considerable commercial success in Continental Europe and Scandinavia. A video of the original performance, which briefly shows Giusto Pio as orchestra conductor, is available here.
Between 1982 and 1987 he released three lovely albums of Pop music: "Legione straniera", "Restoration" - I already remastered both of them some time ago along with the "Auto-Motion (Otomoscion)" single - and "Note", the subject of this post. In particular, "Legione straniera" and "Restoration", both written along with Battiato, sold very well and Pio became a well-known name among the younger audiences, as evidenced by the musical chronicles of those years on many magazines and newspapers.
In 1988 he published "Alla corte di Nefertiti", an album that marked the passage to a music style which was very different from his previous output and had far less commercial appeal. His association with Pop music definively waned after the end of his artistic fellowship with Battiato.
Over the past decade, Pio increasingly approached acoustic and electronic research, and produced music for theater (for example the play "Medea", for the Florentine group Krypton, which won first prize for music at the Massa Carrara Festival, or his collaboration on Battiato's operas performed in the major Italian theaters), music for movies and interactive musical comments with other art forms such as painting, sculpture and poetry.
Among his most recent music releases we remember "Utopie" (1990), "Missa Populi" (dedicated to His Holiness John Paul II, 1995), and "Le vie dell'oro" (2000).
The book "Dedicato a Giusto Pio", which includes a companion CD entitled "Dolomiti Suite", was published in 2010 to celebrate Pio's 85th birthday.
Although the artwork was scanned and restored from the vinyl album in my possession, the music was sourced and remastered from an original copy of the rare CD version which was kindly supplied by Stefano AbulQasim, thank you so much Stefano!
All tracks were remastered in September 2016 and are available in FLAC lossless format, along with complete artwork reconstruction and printable PDF files.
Please have a look at the comments for the download link.
«After the moderate success of "Legione straniera" and "Restoration" I had decided to be the Cincinnatus of the day, cultivating a small piece of land in my neck of the woods. However, the lure of music was too strong. After all, I still used to perform each now and then with some 'ensemble' of acoustic music, be it Baroque or other styles, so I hadn't completely quit the stage. Then, some old friends (starting from producer Angelo Carrara and the CBS press office) convinced me to work on a new record. The album, informal in style and presentation, was born almost like a 'divertissement'. I bought a mixer and a twelve-track tape recorder, and I brought them to my country house. There, from February onwards, I focused on the compositions. I also resumed old ideas that I had never developed; some of them date back to the days when I used to work with Battiato.» [1]
«"Note" is my latest album of Pop music; it includes instrumental compositions for violin and strings. Two tracks, namely "Halley" and "Capitano Nemo", were retrieved from some improvisations related to "Cigarettes", an unreleased work made in 1978-79. Other compositions are more recent, for example the lullaby that I composed for my nephew Andrea.» [2]
"Note" (Notes) was released by CBS with catalogue number 460063.1 sometimes in late 1987, probably in October or early November, both on LP and cassette tape. The album was also issued on CD format in a limited run, hence its rareness today.
Just like the two previous Pio's Instrumental Pop efforts, the album was produced by Angelo Carrara. However, the album doesn't feature the same team of musicians that enriched those records; guitar and bass are completely absent in favour of a more electronic / programmed / midi sound that unfortunately, in certain passages, appears a little bit dated today.
Franco Battiato, who had co-written all the tracks on "Legione straniera" and "Restoration" - the touchstones with whom "Note" should be compared - was not involved in the making of this album and his contribution is limited to the short endorsement that those of you who are lucky enough to read Italian can enjoy here below.
All tracks are therefore signed by Pio alone and, as a matter of fact, the usual extra-European suggestions which are ascribable to Battiato are not part of this work. Unlike in the two previous albums, quotes from famous pieces of Classical Music are nowhere to be found on "Note".
I may be wrong, but I guess that on this album Pio received some help by young pianist Roberto Rossi: he is credited for playing various sinthesizers and samplers, but also for some kind of 'artistic collaboration'. In the meantime, after years spent playing keyboards for many Italian artists, Rossi is now Head of the A&R department of Sony Music Italy...
An endorsement about "Note" written by Franco Battiato
The album opens with "Capriccio", an uptempo number which probably would have been the perfect choice for a single or for radio promotion, but as far as I know no single was released, not even a promo.
"Halley" is a superb composition, probably the best on the record, and deserves a special mention; it brings up images of deep space and oceans. How this piece can be born from an improvisation completely eludes me...
The piano + midi keyboards introduction of "Concerto" doesn't sit among my favourite moments of this record; luckily enough the track evolves with a sax + violin refrain that elevate the mood. I can't help to think about how this piece would have benefited from a real bass instead of the thin sequenced line that we are offered.
Side One ends with "Capitano Nemo" (Captain Nemo), another of those tracks whose origin Pio traces back to the late 70s. Once again, this is a strong piece that offers a well-balanced fusion of sequenced elements and violin, with an apt organ outburst in the closing section.
Side Two starts with the sweet "Ninna nanna per Andrea" (Lullaby for Andrea). In his short review of the album, Battiato describes it as «a kind of symphonic poem chamber, a "program music" intimate story».
"Inno" (Hymn) may not be as effective as Vangelis' "Hymne" but its progressions highlight the more playful side of the Maestro, while "Angeli?" (Angels?) offers a serene reflection on faith, a theme which is very close to his heart.
With "Sagra" (Festival / Celebration) the album returns to a lively mixture of synthesizers, with different melodies chasing each other until the violin bursts onto the scene.
"Note" closes with "Ultimo Lied" (The Last Lied), a romantic «twilight poem», where violin and piano have prominent roles.
If you have any other useful information about this post or if you spot any dead links, please get in touch with me at stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!
