Veroodstock 11th edition or The black star on Veruno 2Days Prog+1 had to give up

All Photo by Vincenzo Nicolello except where indicated

Hi to those who read me!

Even if there's low activity on this blog, I can see always a good number of contacts who stop on the silly things I use to write! I'm proud of it! Thank you!

So here we are once more to talk about the most famous Italian Prog Festival, which takes  place in the little town named Veruno.

The Festival, now is at its 11th edition, is growing year by year, faster than some years ago!

I realized that on the very first day, on Friday 6/9/19, the audience was about 2000 people, and this hardly happened in the preceding editions! Great!

There are many reasons why this happens:

1.  Veruno Prog (as we use to call it in short) is totally free of charge. You have only to buy some soap to remove the stamp printed on you hand when you come in Piazzetta della Musica (Music Square), where it takes place!

2. Veruno Prog is greatly managed and everyone, from the musicians to the audience, feels free, happy and fully satisfied. It's not a mystery that several musicians would like to come back and sometimes they do it with another band or as audience!

Veruno is Magic!

This year also the food (apart pizza, but I'm from Naples... try to understand me!) was better than in the past!

3. Friendship. The Festival management and crew, the audience and the musicians are happy to talk one to each other without being bored by useless and stupid fanaticisms like banners or posters or silly choirs.
Surely there are musicians we face with more admiration than others , but we all love music and it's great to talk with them about it!

Particularly, there's always a festive atmosphere which leads to smiles, jokes and enthusiasm.

In those three days all of us have the chance to meet people who are difficult to reach during the rest of the year, and there are enthusiastic hugs and kisses everywhere!
They come from different places on Earth: Italy (obviously), England, Japan, France, Austria, Germany, Greece, Peru, United States, Northern Europe and so on!

Surely in those three days everyone leaves behind his everyday problems and lives music and friends like never in the rest of the year. That's why I use to call it Veroodstock! 

4. The bands which take turns on the Main Stage (but also in the Auditorium) are always fine and quite good, regardless of  everyone's taste. This means, you may like them or not, but the level is always quite high.

5. The Neighbourhood is beautiful, since Veruno is a country land between two astonishing lakes: Lago Maggiore and Lago D'Orta. So in the morning you can go and enjoy breathless landscapes and typical northern Italy towns.

6. The Weather is generally fine, even if this year was a bit too cold for the very beginning of September and it rained more than usual.
Alberto Temporelli's motto is "In Veruno always shines the sun... of good music"!

Unfortunately this edition was born under a black star.

Caused by familiar unpleasant events the two headliners which should have played on saturday (Bjorn Rijs and King's X) have given forfait just few days before the opening of the Festival!

I can only vaguely imagine what passed in Alberto Temporelli's head in that moments!

But our hero immediately raised up a task force and quickly replaced the bands with others of high (in one case higher...) level!

The following lineup shows the ultimate version, with the "substitutes" Lazuli and Alan Simon's Excalibur. 

WHAAAAAT? LAZULI?

We always use to say that Veruno Prog is ONESHOT and Lazuli came in 2012!

Ok. "If rules are to be broken, better to do it in the best way" said Octavia Brown, our dear Fairy presenter  in a Facebook note!

However Lazuli have always been "rule breakers" for Veruno!

In 2012 the band was the first (and unique until now) "not last headliner" to be forced by the audience to come back on stage for the encore!

Lazuli were called on Thursday night to come on Friday night from France and play on Saturday. Only PURE FRIENDS act like them! And Lazuli are Veruno Prog and Temporelli's great friends!

OK. Let's come back to the Music.

As usual the band were introduced on stage with verve and sympathy by Octavia Brown, who this year showed a new kind of Fairy wings, enlightened in blue light! Very beautiful!

(Photo by Enrico Rolandi)

I think that the worst attitude of nowadays Prog is the lack of personality.

Since there's still a growing interest around this kind of music, there are lots of bands which grow up as mushrooms, but unfortunately they all play "as someone else", not as themselves.

In several cases, when often I find it boring to my ears and musical taste, I use to say they play adopting a "low level wilsonism", or in other cases they are a "Genesis pale simulacrum" (or Pink Floyd, or others) or more, they play "uselessly complicated", as if they thought about a song, found it was 4/4 and forced it to 7/8 or another odd tempo.

This is NOT the case for UNIVERSAL TOTEM ORCHESTRA, one of the great examples of a great band born in Italy.

UTO are almost unique with their powerful rhythm section, the great guitar and sax openings, the brilliant voice of the singer Ana Torres Fraile. 

UTO music is not easy or immediate, since it merges jazz, classic/lyrical and rock motifs, but it's fascinating, enriched with stratified interweaving of instruments, that only great musicians can create and play live on stage!
Someone uses to link them with Zehul, but I find their rhythm section, their harmonizations and their musical structures are more complex and effective than Zehul.
Maybe they should have deserved a better position in the line up than the Festival opening...

If you love something different, not too easy but fascinating, you should taste UTO music!

This is NOT the case for LAZULI, one of the greatest LIVE bands in the prog neighbourhood! 
LAZULI shock the audience with their power, with the desperate sound of Leode (yes, it always seems to cry!) played by Claude Leonetti, with their impressive wall of sound!
Even before Dominc Leonetti (their parents are from Abruzzo-Italy) starts to sing, you can feel something that brings France in your mind.

The magic of LAZULI music is that if you listen to their albums, comfortably sat on your sofa, you cannot reach the emotions that shock you when the band is on stage! 

This NOT the case for IL BACIO DELLA MEDUSA, where you can feel a taste of Italy in every music passage, where Eva Morelli's saxes and flutes are not a backside instrument, but an important part of the sound of the band, where
Simone Cecchini's histrionic voice is powerful and roaring and the other musicians are greatly proficient and talented. You may listen to something jazzy, especially in sax lines, or dark prog in the way of northern Europe bands, but the happy choice is to search for melody and passionate lyrics as in the beautiful "Discesa agli inferi di un giovane amante".

The true happy choice, for the audience, was to be down the stage during their performance!

I have to admit I was a bit skeptical on BALLETTO DI BRONZO performance, maybe because I was thinking that it may sound as a bit dated music.

OK. I was really very wrong! 

Gianni Leone's skill has reached its high recreating a new and modern rhythm section and giving to music coming from the seventies an updated dress! 

Happy to notice I was in error!

Leone, as in the usual way of musicians from Naples (Osanna, for example), also offers a great theatrical show on stage, wearing dresses and masks, always speaking and mocking to the audience! Really great!

What could I say on ACQUA FRAGILE if not that Bernardo Lanzetti is still one of the best singers we have in Italy?

Still now his voice is powerful, well modulated and rich with emphasis.

I have noticed a great work on vocals harmonies, sometimes very surprising!

Musically is not my cup of tea, but the audience was on fire. Good!

In the end I was really shocked by the audience at the ARENA performance!

I truly was not aware they have such a huge number of fans in Italy!

I have to be honest with you: in the past I had a little love affair with ARENA, but it rapidly vanished when my NewProg idiosyncrasy grew fast...

But during their performance I've found myself singing their old songs, and it's been as meeting an old friend: never heard and seen anymore for a long time, but with the sensation you have talked with him the day before! Goosebumps!




I have also to say that I've found CANTINA SOCIALE, the band that played on the first two days at the Auditorium, very delightful!
While OVERTURE seemed to me too classical and down with energy and dynamics.

"The Rest will flow" sang Steven Wilson in his Porcupine Tree days...

In the rest of performances I didn't find something really interesting.
Obviously they are all good bands and you know it's just a matter of taste, but CARAVAN played a playlist too easy-listening, and I found amusing to listen some tracks from In the Land of Grey and Pink with the beautiful 'Nine Feet Underground' among them.
FLOR DE LOTO are very talented, sometimes it seemed to me to listen to something like Inti Illimani heavy rock... but that's all.
VERBAL DELIRIUM I preferred the very first part of their performance, where I heard something coming from Greece, than it slipped in something too generic, not interesting to me.
ALAN SIMON'S EXCALIBUR, since it was prepared in a very little time, didn't seem at their best. But I also have to say that this kind of experiments rarely gain my attention. They always sound too pompous and uninspired!
ARCADELT are too Genesis-clone to gain my attention.
At the end IRON BUTTERFLY... they share with Vanilla Fudge (Seen in the preceding edition) the same amount of Prog attitude. Both bands made a single psychedelic song more  than the rest of their rock blues songs ('In a Gadda Da Vida' and 'Some Velvet Morning' respectively) and after 50 years we assume they can be among Prog bands...

As always at Veroodstock, Music is important for two things: one is to listen to bands you already know and to approach new bands otherwise you would never even know  their existence (for example last year I found Universe by the Ear and Smalltape very interesting); the second is that you always find old and new friends to share moments with: having fun, walking, talking, smiling, kissing and hugging apparently without any reason (but the true reason is we all are happy to be together once again!), drinking and eating until deep night!

it's always traumatic when it all ends and you're forced to come back to everyday life!

Veruno is Magic!

I cannot promise to you (once again) to be more prolific on this blog, but please, don't forget it!
I have some interesting things to say, but it's hard to find enough time to write them down!

See you next time!
Hopefully BEFORE 2Days Prog+1 12th edition...

Most RAGING (to me) sentences of Music Usufructuaries

Hi to those who read me! 

Be careful!
Don't be too grateful to me for this new post in such a little time from the latest!
You may be one of those who usually scream out one of the sentences below!

As you know, quite often (I would prefer to say ALWAYS) I talk and chat about Music in several ways: Facebook (mainly), this blog (hopefully), Messenger (often), phone calls, Whatsapp, face to face conversations, dreams and slumbers, etc.

Well, sometimes it happens to me to slip into several sentences that I find shallow and disturbing to my ears (not necessarily to all ears!) for one or more reason.

Let's take a look at those sentences and to my explanation of my feelings!

1. Orchestration of rock music makes it better

In his famous (for those who usually read this blog) book The Music Instinct Philip Ball says (sorry, but I have the Italian Version, so I have to translate it back in English) (cfr. Italian version p. 273):

The most questionable aspect of orchestral versions in Rock music doesn't find place in the implicit paternalistic attitude, according to that it would represent <<true music>>, neither to the fact that rudimental harmonization of rock music is not suitable to a polyphonic orchestration. The matter is that Rock without its Rock specific timbre is like a vegan ice cream. It's useless to try to prepare food without its main ingredient. Following this way you could play 'Purple Haze' on a xylophone. Timbre is definitely the most intrinsic music property.

Well... I am deeply in accord with Mr. Ball!
Rock music without Rock pulsation almost becomes nothing!
If you don't think so, try to play Deep Purple 'Burn' intro with a xylophone or a violin and you'll realize what I'm trying to say!
Today I'm feeling a good boy, otherwise I would have chosen 'Fireball' intro!





But I add more to Ball's opinion: The whole thing sounds to me as a repentance.
When a rock musician comes out with an orchestral version of his own music, it sounds to me as he would say: "This is the good version, the other was made when I was out of money".
Why? Why add strings, brasses and so on to a song born with keyboards, guitar, bass and drums, that in the worse way would be removed? 

As another example more prog oriented, when I listen to a song like the following Porcupine Tree 'Even Less' I can't imagine the intro (apart the child smiling), but also the whole song, made by different musical instruments than those used there.





Where would you find the guitar sharpening effect, where the pounding effect of Maitland's drumming in an orchestral version? Nowhere!

Different is my approach to musical compositions born in a classical manner, as Concerto for Rock Band and Orchestra by Deep Purple or some Frank Zappa or Stewart Copeland work. I respect those brave works, but I have to be honest with you, my friends... I very hardly go and listen to them!
And more: rock operas born with orchestral inserts, played without orchestra become poor! So, if you realize you cannot bring an orchestra with you in the clubs where you usually play your music, it would be better to think different!

There are lots of Progressive Rock songs inspired by Classical music, especially in Genesis, King Crimson  and Gentle Giant early discographies, but in those compositions canons, fugues, madrigals and baroque choirs are generally used on a rock groove or intention, as you may realize by listening the following, astonishing beautiful 'Islands' by King Crimson




Or 'On Reflection' by Gentle Giant, where the voices play a great part, repeated in the second part of the song by instruments!



At the end of the game I say a little prayer to musicians: When a song is GREAT in its Rock version, please (If you could see me now... I am kneeled!) AVOID TO MAKE AN ORCHESTRAL VERSION! It will always sound as a pompous, arrogant version, impoverished in its evocative power, due to... guess what? Rock power, structure and composition!

I have to confess to you that I have almost the same feeling on several acoustic versions of rock songs.
Please notice... not acoustic songs, but acoustic versions of rock songs. In fact, in the famous album 4 Way Street I prefer the first part (LP 1), where Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young play originally written acoustic songs, to the electric second part.

2. Cover/tribute are a great way to renew Prog Classics

It's useless to come back on this item: if you want to listen to Prog Classics in the version you like, you only have to put a CD in the player or an LP on the turntable, wear your headphones and pump up the volume!
Every different way is a poor verisimilitude, referred to the original one.

If you are interested in my opinion on this argument, you will find something more extended in the link below:

http://proglessons.blogspot.com/2015/08/covertribute-bandswhy-not-because.html

3. If only nowadays there would be bands (or artists) as xxx

It's merely another way to say "In my times music was better".
Philip Ball (cfr. The Music Instinct) says this sentence finds place since Counter Reformation Age!
And obviously it's a false sentence, since it's frequently uttered by lazy listeners or people who are not really interested in music any more, but never will admit it!

If you turn around and listen, you will find a lot of very good and innovative music, mainly in jazz-oriented musicians as the two magical ladies Hiromi Uehara and Esperanza Spalding  (cfr. http://proglessons.blogspot.com/2016/10/something-about-new-music-horizons.html), but also in Snarky Puppy (the funkiest big band in the world), Marbin (with balkanic influences), The Aristocrats, Special Providence (both with metal influences), but also in more prog-oriented music as Yugen, Not A Good Sign, Il Tempio delle Clessidre, Slivovitz (All great Italian bands), Pain of Salvation, Camembert, Discipline, Motorpsycho, Riverside (better not the 2015 Album, IMHO) and many many others.

Just to let you understand what I'm trying to say, here we have some examples!


'Heaven from Pennies' - Esperanza Spalding




Unfortunately on the Youtube the first song of this incredible album, 'Swimming towards the black dot' is missing, otherwise I would have chosen it since is more innovative and surprising. The above song is very intense and goosebumping!



'Grown Folks' - Snarky Puppy



Great groove and fantastic musicians! Their LIVE performances are very enthralling! You cannot avoid to dance and jump!


'Louisville Stomp' - The Aristocrats




Greatly talented musicians who can play and be funny in the same time!
Every gig is amusing and different, because they always improvise on stage.



Now, let's go on the prog side!



'Angel of Broken Things' - Pain Of Salvation

Intense, destabilizing music. Great vocalism and please, pay attention to the incredible guitar solo!


'Fecondee par un extra-terrestre' - Camembert

A little strange Canterbury attitude, sometimes Zappa-ish, great young band from France! They have two albums out and this song is from the second one.


'The Body Yearns' - Discipline



Great american band strongly influenced by Van Der Graaf Generator.
This is taken from their latest work.

ITALIAN ONES!


'Cloudscape' - Yugen

Yugen (Milan based) are generally difficult to approach, but once you're in, you feel they're great!
I think the above is one of the best examples of modern Chamber Music in the last ten years.


'Open Window' - Not A Good Sign



NAGS (Milan based) are composed by great musicians. This song, taken from the second of their three albums, is dramatic, anxious and I always imagine someone who enters in a room with an open window, he is full of desperation, thinks to jump, then tries to change his mind remembering the good past things, but when he realizes that they are very few with the respect to the bad ones, he finally jumps out! 


'Onirica Possessione' - Il Tempio Delle Clessidre




ITDC (Genoa based) are greatly RPI influenced. Or better, they are the prosecution of RPI tradition, IMHO. All of their music is full of refined instrumental layering which gives power and sumptuous attitude.
This song is taken from the second of their three albums. It's intense, well sung and performed. Please notice how intense are the choir at the very end of this beautiful song!


'Mani in Faccia' - Slivovitz




Slivovitz (Naples based) are more jazz-oriented and their music is full of Mediterranean influences. Most of the song titles (and the rare lyrics) are ironic and mixed up with Neapolitan language. All young great musicians!


4. Their (His) music evolved in time

Quite often, when a fan can't admit the latest work of his favourite band or artist sounds too easy and predictable, generally adopts the magical formula above mentioned.

Who could say that Invisible Touch is an evolution of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway? Surely not the dear departed Kevin Gilbert!





(OK! It's a cover and by posting it, seems I'm in contradiction with the point 2, but it's so funny and explicative!)

You must remember that "fan" stays for "fa-na-tic". Never trust them, they are deaf, dumb and blind, worse than Tommy!

I have nothing against those who simplify their way of composing music to reach more audience, apart that happens that I'm not interested in this kind of change. I have something against those who don't want to admit it!

When the musical phrase becomes narrow, the repetitions more frequent, the search of something new is abandoned and the style becomes a bit foolish, it sounds to me as an involution, not an evolution. But maybe it's a problem of mine (and other thousands of music lovers!)...

Even the sentence "OK, but easy music made by him (or them) it's greater than by others" (if you only knew how many great musicians are behind easy listening songs!) sounds to my ears as "I can't admit I'm a bit disappointed" or "I must convince myself that this work is good".


Not my style. Even in the case of new works of my favourite musicians, I always listen before, judge and eventually buy them. It's a matter of respect to Music!


5. The Show was full of lights and visual contributions, the singer (or other musician) was cool, the musicians were pleasant!

When someone, coming back from a gig, gives me this kind of comment I always ask if he (or she) liked also the music they played, that should be the main reason to go and listen to! 

Sometimes (not always, don't put in my mouth words I never uttered) the more are powerful the lights and the visual contributions, the poorer is the music proposed. You know you have to catch the audience in some way!

Or better, I compare the visual contributions in music to make-up in a girl: sometimes it gives a false idea of true beauty, but when beauty is real behind make-up, you will notice it in any case. 

So if You would say: "What a beautiful lipstick she has"  instead of "what beautiful lips she has", the make up has played the greatest part. 

You know what I mean...

 

6. Better they play covers than their own music I don't like  

The most of my friends know what is my approach to covers: I use to play a lot of songs by Kansas, Gentle Giant, Spock's Beard, Brand X, Porcupine Tree, Genesis, King Crimson and so on after the study routines behind my  drumkit. It's challenging and very satisfying to realize you can play such difficult songs!
Moreover I always play it in my style, using the original chops and rhythm patterns  where I find I like them and a change would be a mistake.
But I always do it for myself. No one will ever listen how I perform them, good or bad they are!

So... it's important to play covers, because you realize your improvements through it and also you can notice some songs are easier than you have thought before approaching them!

But when you go out in front of an audience, I think it's better to propose your own music, good or bad to the audience it may be. No one should discourage it!
It's only in this way that Music can evolve in the future and give to us new shivers and emotions!

We wouldn't have the great Music we have, if no one had tried to subvert the preceding rules! And this comes only by daring to create new sounds, new harmonies, new melodies and so on!

An advice to young musicians (old ones are too anchored to old cliches): don't trust to those who say "all is already written". It isn't true. What still has to be written may be written by you!

I always dream that in some cellar, under a block of flats, there is a young gifted band who is creating The Music Of The Future. I hope I will still be here and quite open minded to enjoy it!

Phew! I reached the end of this post!
Unless it will come to my mind some other "raging sentence"!

Even if you know I always use to be ironic and irreverent, I know after this post I may lose some of my Facebook contacts, but never mind!
I always think that when it occurs for this kind of reason, it already lasted too long... hasn't it?

Thank you so much to those who reached the end of this huge post!
However it's full of good music, that someone could find unknown.
In this case I reached my goal to let you know something new!

Bye Bye until the next post!

2Days Prog+1 – 10th Edition.Veroodstock confirms the magic!

Hi to those who read me!

Those, for better or for worse, who thought this blog was dead and buried were wrong! 

Even if I'm not posting anything since September 2017 (I have lots of items to talk you with, but time and tiredness are tyrants!), the number of monthly visitors is widely satisfactory. For this I would like to thank all visitors, from Russia (without love, but never say never!) to America and Japan!

But let's talk about the on topic item: the 10th edition of 2Days Prog+1 Festival in Veruno, by now well known in the whole world, confirmed its magic!

Just to confirm it, let me say that I met some people who came to attend to a single day that, after breathing Veroodstock atmosphere, have chosen to sleep in their car to enjoy the rest of the festival! Great, isn't it?

As ever the Festival management has been very clever (with Octavia, Alberto and Daina running continuously from the main stage to Auditorium and vice versa.. and you now the hill is not so gentle!): all musicians felt very comfortably, food and drinks were always on tap, even after headliners performances, merchandising was rich and varied (but I think next year the space reserved to them should be larger, because they are increasing), the police (not the band!) continually controlled that all was going in the right way and all of us, organizers, exposers and audience, were happy to meet again after one year, as it would be the chance to re-unite the family around the Christmas table!

Even this year the audience was very copious and coming from different places in the world. The maximum was reached with the Banco del Mutuo Soccorso performance, but also on Sunday, with Vanilla Fudge there were lots of people.   

All the young band who played, even in the Auditorium or on the main stage, were quite good: Isproject (helped by Cellar Noise components for the Live performance), Mindspeak (quite good but a bit expectable) from the Auditorium. Kyros (quite good, progmetal/alternative oriented) and the surprising Smalltape, with their (not only) jazzy influences, on the main stage.

My exhortation to young bands is always the same: dare, dare, dare! Move over the prog style, use longer musical phrases, join the experiences and the influences... we all passionate listeners are waiting for real new music which can break the old rules to give us satisfaction!

 The ordeal of Festival opening was given to Panther & C. from Genoa, with their sound ranging from Jethro Tull to Camel. They reached the difficult goal of catching the audience attention, while they were still entering Piazzetta della Musica (is its real name, as you can see!) and waving and kissing to each other!

Among the bands which came in succession on the main stage I found very interesting The Universe By Ear, with their particular sound, sometimes echoing King Crimson,especially in some structures, choirs and in the heavy riffs.

In my opinion the best main stage performance was Banco's, where only Vittorio Nocenzi stays as genuine member. But I must confess I risk not to be objective due to the immense love and affection I have for this band!

(http://proglessons.blogspot.com/2011/06/il-banco-del-mutuo-soccorso.html)

The singer Tony D'Alessio, though showing a vocal extension a bit less wide than Di Giacomo's one, has shown good personality and great power... if only he would remember when it's time to start singing!

"Uomo non so, se io somiglio a te" (Man, I don't know if I look like you), lacks of meaning without "Uomo non so" (Man, I don't know)! 

Magic Pie was very good. they played songs from their four albums (I only know Motions of Desire, their first one, which I like), while less interesting to my taste were Von Hertzen Brothers, too easy for me, and Ranestrane (because of my well known idiosyncrasy towards Neoprog).

Good performance from the historical french band Ange and their incredible frontman Christian Decamps, especially at the very beginning and at the end (with the great "Capitaine Coeur de Miel"), while it was a bit too easy in the middle, where took place songs from the last works.

Amon Dull II were not as "trance inductive" as I remeber in my youth, maybe it's a matter of age, but their performance was good and Renate is great! 

Great groove and Mark Stein's fascinating voice, even if they are not really a prog band, from the Vanilla Fudge, of which maybe only "Some Velvet Morning", whose execution exalted the audience, has a resemblance with 100% prog style! 

But I have to confess that the most emotional moment of the whole 3 days festival hasn't come from a band, neither from prog songs, but from the piano solo Gianni Nocenzi performance at the Auditorium on Saturday!

I wasn't the only one who moved to tears while he was playing!
A giant musician and artist who deserves, as ever, all my respect and affection, also for the sincerity he showed to the audience.

After the last performance is always nostalgic to thank the management, wave and kiss each other, because we know we have to come back to everyday life, waiting for the next edition!

2Days Prog+1 (or Veruno Prog, as we nickname it with affection) is a rare beautiful jewel, an happy oasis, but it's important that musicians, exposers and also the audience conform to management rules, which are not tantrums. If the agreement with the musicians is, for example, that the first two bands have to play for 50 minutes and the last two headliners for 90 minutes, no one should violate it. If anyone isn't headliner he cannot assume the right to be. It's a matter of respect!
Moreover, time and duration are in accord with local administration which could apply a fee in case of violation, causing the loss of all the gains due to the efforts by organization and sponsors.

It comes natural to ask why on the first day they ended at one 'o clock in the night, even starting at 6,15 pm, while in the next 2 days the end was reached in perfect time, starting at 6,15 pm as well: egoism, arrogance and lack of respect we would like never take place in Veruno Prog ecosystem!

Last positive note: they enlarged the portion of "grill meat with fried potatoes"! Quite good for the next future!  

Thank you to all of you and hope to be more frequent with my posts!

 

 

Something about New Music Horizons - Hiromi and Esperanza

Hi to those who read me. 

I can see that even if I'm not as frequent as in the past (in no one of my activities, sadly!) there are lots of contacts on this blog!
This probably means that you're interested in good music or in amusing stuff, or both of them!

This time I'm not going to talk about proggeries. Or better... not in its common way.

I'm going to talk about something really new coming from two sweet and beautiful ladies, one from Japan - Shizuoka, the other from USA - Oregon. They both are genius in their instrumental and musical knowledge and composition.

If the first is following her own path of instinctive innovation since 13 years ago, playing her piano and synth in her own incredible way, the second one has recently broken the comfortable conventional jazz rules in which she was involved since the very first start (however greatly pleasant and exciting, having played with all the greatest living jazz players on the scene) to explode in something new, very surprising, innovative, catchy, rocky, broadway-ish and jazzy at the same time, enriched with a huge quantity of feeling, while singing and playing bass with great talent and power, as ever in her fast carrier (she's only 32).

I hate when someone says "There's nothing really new to listen to" or "In my times music was better".

It's pretty FALSE. As I tried to explain in other posts, it's just a matter of how you approach the music: if you try to make it always with the same passion, curiosity and will to discover something which makes you shiver... maybe you'll find it! 

For those who cannot reach  this goal maybe the right sentence should be: "I'm not really interested in something new because music isn't my passion anymore and I prefer to remain anchored to my old, comfortable, well known cliches".

But the worst sentence is "The latest xxx album isn't that good, but better than lots of new stuff around". This means: "I'm a xxx blind fan, I MUST appreciate everything he/she does and I HAVE to justify it to the world, neglecting or underestimating the good music around"

These are blind and poor listeners, generally not really emotionally involved in music (anymore?).

They often prefer an uninspired cover or tribute band to something new, because it's always easier to follow and appreciate something you already know in a nostalgic way, than to approach something new.

In his book The Music Insinct Philip Ball says (more or less... I've read an Italian translation): "The distracted listener prefers something he already knows, the passionate one needs something before unheard".

But let's give space to Music (what a great kind of it!), with the powerful, extremely talented and graceful Hiromi Uehara!

If I remember well this is one of the first videos I've seen.
It was in a couple of links my brother sent to me to let me know about her.
The first comment was "not so bad!", but then immediately I was totally captured by her music, her energy and her close, almost physical contact with her piano! I suddenly fell in love with Hiromi, this feeling carries on and renews every time I listen to some new stuff or go to see her to a concert.

Please notice how she leads the other musicians with her incredible sweet glances and little smiles over the piano, and pay attention to her great technical knowledge, while she continuously follows the bass pattern with her left hand and works variations with the right one! Astonishing and crazy!


This video is dated 2005 but we can already find something new born.
Hiromi mixes up all her musical preferences, from Liszt to King Crimson, passing to jazz, which is however the main character, but giving enhancement more to drums than to bass.
She shifts the musical power from the usual bass-piano pair, normally used in jazz trios, to the drums-piano one, never heard before in this way.

Hiromi is not only  a great composer, but also an incredible improviser, as it's shown in the following video in duet with Chick Corea, who has been her first mentor, after having seen what she was able to do on piano in a Yamaha piano shop in Tokyo.





Here you can see that she catches informations on how to go on from the master, looking with great attention to him and matching his glances. Can't you see how great is her work, also with the respect to Chick's one?
And it's beautiful to see her smiles when she realizes she's guided by him to do something maybe unknown one second before!


But let's go back to her beautiful compositions and the path she's following.
What she started about 13 years ago, you can find more enhanced in the latest work Spark, as you can listen in this magnificent piece of high Music.




The greatness of this piece of music is that we can notice the mood changing several times in the very start, but the central part, with that melancholic mood is really greatly emotional.

Here, as often in Hiromi's music, the drummer Simon Phillips is the second soloist, while Anthony Jackson's bass work is mainly the framework of the track.

I've seen Hiromi LIVE several times, with different drummers and bass players, and every time is a new exciting, involving and satisfying experience. She moves on the stage in deep contact with her piano, almost as they are merged together!
Even if the other instrumentalists are great and talented performers with years of experience, your attention will be caught by 'Her Sweetness and Power' Hiromi, that's for sure!

If you have knowldege of an Hiromi Trio Project gig in your neighbourhood don't miss it! You will thank me for this advice, as many other friends of mine before!


Now take a look (and both ears) at the following video...






Or to the next one:



What a grace in her voice, how talkative and elegant is her presence on stage, what greatness in her hands and fingers!
Esperanza Spalding is a multi-instrumentalist, being able to play violin, guitar and piano. She is a contrabass virtuoso and a lovely jazz singer.
Her melodic and high tuned voice matches with her bass playing and no one can win!
Pay attention on how easy is to her to sing going up and down through the musical scales, while she's playing complicated patterns on the contrabass!

Until the end of 2015 she's been in her comfortable shoes of what she studied and loved at Berklee.
She flyed between the jazz standards and her own jazz-bossa compositions, good to exalt her warm, virtuoso and inspired vocalism. And made us happy!

But something new and explosive was growing in her heart and mind...




Have you heard how powerful is the killer attack in this song?
The dissonant electric distorted guitar chords and the powerful electric bass pattern are the carpet on which Esperanza's great voice sings about her hidden personality (Emily) finally exploded!
No more classic and elegant outfit, no more hair leonine mane but dreadlocks, no more contrabass in her hands (not always)!
Please notice how she sings up and down the beat, making the pair tempo odd and vice versa!
And pay attention to the choir (three women and a tall man who participate to her Broadway-ish gigs as actors and singers)... It's not a simple one: the lines and harmonizations are different from a usual choir and somehow special and previously unheard!
I have the feeling that she thought about the choir contribution, making them the substitutes of keyboards or piano, as you can argue in the following:




If you mentally substitute the "oh-oh" with a piano chord you'll have similar contribution to the song, but less innovative and pleasantly impressive.
Can you hear the drums pattern how far is from a jazz one, though you can't say this isn't a easy jazz song? The key is in her magnificent vocals and bass lines!

Esperanza's late music is mainly soft, graceful, but also rich of power and passion. But not only... please notice the first lines of the following lyrics:

"We could change the whole story of love
 Same old play I'm getting tired of
 No more acting these predictable roles
 Just us living
 Unconditional love"

Don't you think it's the same thing we all hope when we start a new relationship?
Heart bumping fast when, after her first words the song starts so intense, powerful and sweet at the same time!
...and that unusual bass & drums patterns that seems to sigh at every line, what a great sensation of short breath at every sigh! Highly inspired song!


Please don't trust those who say that musical theory and technical improvement aren't any necessary to play good music.
These skills are fundamental to transform what the artist has in his heart and mind in the best way he can, and we can feel it...This is the magic of Music!
Obviously there is some exception, almost as if someone has nothing but technical knowledge, his music will be only a sequence of exercises to demonstrate how high is his skill, but without feeling and emotion... and this sadly happens quite often, as you know.

But Hiromi and Esperanza are not the case, as you may notice from what you have heard in this post.


The Music you tasted in this post is not far away from the Progressive area, in its actual meaning of "something which takes basis from the past but it's in progression towards the future", even if in different ways and directions. The most of prog musicians and listeners seem to have lost this important meaning.
Luckily there are musicians like Hiromi and Esperanza who strongly believe in it, work on it, giving to their passionate fans incredible moments of astonishing music, without Dilemma... with Unconditional Love!

Together on stage?
It would be to me a dream fulfilled, but I don't think it can be realized.
They are two great front-women and they cannot share the stage (strongly because they're women!).
It would be as they would be forced to make love with the same beloved and possessed man at the same time... impossible!

Enjoy their music, go and see their incredible gigs and don't forget to occasionally take a look at this blog!

Hope we'll get soon in contact again!

Veroodstock (Veruno 2 Days Prog + 1 2016 edition) - three lovely, enchanting, free and musicfriendful days!

Hi to those who read me!

Yeah, I know I'm not as frequent as I'd like to be on this blog, but many things happen, as you know...

Here after you can find the posts about the preceding editions I commented:

http://proglessons.blogspot.it/2014/09/veroodstock-ovvero-il-festival-prog-piu.html

http://proglessons.blogspot.it/2015/09/veruno-is-always-veroodstock-2-days.html

So Veruno Prog has reached its 8th edition.

As you can argue from the shot on the left, taken with my cell phone during the Uriah Heep concert, Veruno Prog is growing fast (about 5000 heads banging!), and maybe in the next future, hopefully for the 10th edition, they will need more space and different organization for food and drink needs, since on friday night collapsed!

By the way... we are only in it for Music!  

And at Veruno 2Days Prog + 1 you can listen to something very near to the best one! And as ever... it's all FOR FREE!

You only need to take a look at the complete lineup on the right.

First of all I have to say that the progressive (hey!... the right word in the right position!) opening to progfusion, started with Area last year, is bearing its fruits.

To my opinion, among the best performances there are Special Providence and Soft Machine Legacy, even the first are surely up to date, with their metal influences, with the respect to the second ones, more jazz and Canterbury (if not them...who?) oriented.

But this edition has given to its wide audience a lot of good vibrations, as I'll try to say after in this post.

Also this year the bands were presented by the always smiling and sunny Octavia Brown, but maybe for the narrow times between the bands and the other duties in which she was involved, I had the feeling she couldn't express with her own spontaneity as in the past edition.
But don't worry... good job and nice presence, after all!

DAY 1

As in the past I noticed for FEM, once more I have to say that the band which opens such a Festival, always has more shivers than the others, for a great number of factors: they play at 18.30 with still the sunlight beating on the stage, the first day lots of people come late in the evening because of work, something always has to be tuned up, the excitement to find friends you don't see since last year takes advantage on the stage performance, and so on.

Ubi Maior (Italy), with their histrionic singer/violin/trumpet Mario Moi, the great work on keyboards of Gabriele Manzini and the talented guitar player Marcella Arganese (who I had to calm and shake before the performance) seemed to be the best choice.

The crowd, before distributed all along the location in search for friends, CD, LP and other merchandise, slowly has approached the stage, caught by their music. 

I have to say, I heard UM many times before, in other locations in Milan neighbourhoods, but never I noticed such a power in their music. 

At the moment it seemed to me their best performance I ever heard!

Veruno has its fascination, its mystical microclimate, and everyone gives his best on stage... and also the powerful equipments have their importance!

Here is an example of their music.

Special Providence (Hungary), as before mentioned, are something new in Veruno Festival, with their sound mixing fusion and metal, above all.
I first met SP at Casa di Alex and I was as impressed by their music (and their virtuoso drummer Adam Markò) that I bought all their albums.
They enchanted the audience with their complex rhythm patterns on which captivating melodies lay on, sometimes almost danceable, as the last performed at Veruno, 'Lazy Boy'.

Pleace notice that in their discography there's a lot of good music, especially from their second and third albums, to my opinion the two best releases until now.

Mystery (Canada) are in newprog stream and since I developed a strange idiosyncracy for this kind of music, I can only say that the audience was enthusiastic and moved by their music, but I found the way to go to have dinner.

Unfortunately the crowd was so great that I didn't have dinner until the next end of Uriah Heep performance!

Here after you'll find a beautiful song by this band.

Uriah Heep (England) were the first headliner of this edition. 

I have their Very 'eavy Very 'umble LP and I've always filed them as hardrockers, not progrockers.

But what does it matter? Their exploding energy made us jump and headbang for the whole performance! How amusing!

DAY 2

To my feelings this has been the weakest day. 

Nemo was one of my proposals to Alberto Temporelli (fulfilled! Thank you Alberto!), and I enjoyed them so much, I already knew about Airbag's devotion to Pink Floyd music by listening some songs from the Youtube, and I was curious about Saga, never heard before to know them LIVE directly, but I felt not as impressed as I thought I could have been, apart the greatness of their frontman.

Cheeto's Magazine (Spain) I lost their performance to go to pick up a friend at Borgomanero rail station. The audience was divided in "crazy but good" and "crazy and stop", but the craziness was saved!

They stayed also after their performance dressed in their strange coloured costumes, smiling, laughing and signing their autographs on the bottoms of who was according to!



From what I listened in this video, they maybe wouldn't have been my cup of tea...

Nemo (France) Is a band which, in my opinion, is grown CD by CD, reaching its highest with double Le Ver dans le fruit (2013) and the latest double Coma (2015). The dark atmospheres are typically french, and the guitar work reaches high levels. As an example I post a beautiful song, not performed at Veruno's Festival (but I talked about it with Jean Pierre Louveton after their performance), containing one of the most impressive (to me) guitar solos of the last five years.

However they didn't reach the goal to create the same atmospheres you can find in their albums.
Funny the end of their performance, with the stage assistant thumbing up to say "ok", and JP answering with a thumb up saying "one more?" and started to play! Amusing to us but not for the musicians, who were disappointed to be forced to end up the song!

Encores are permitted in Veruno only for the headliners, since the stage shift between bands has to be very fast!

Hope Jean Pierre was not as angry as it seemed in a subsequent post on Facebook! Don't mind! Things can happen! Your performance was great!

 
Airbag (Norway) are a carbon copy of Pink Floyd, with a little different and more powerful rhythm section (you don't need too much to be more powerful than Nick Mason...). It sounded me not interesting, too well known and sickly, so I decided to go to dinner...in this case successful! 

However I have to notice that a great number of people was satisfied by the performance and by the gilmourish guitar solos.

As Philip Ball says in his book 'The Music Instinct': "If you ask to music nothing more than what you already know, that's your loss"

 
Saga (USA) Once more I have to say that I intentionally didn't heard anything of this band before, to listen them LIVE.

I can't say why I felt so uninspired after two or three songs. Maybe I expected something different from a pompous easy-yes-ish, Toto-like band. 

Maybe I expected something like Echolyn or Umphrey's Mc Gee or many other bands that in USA perform good prog music.




No problem... the wide open place was almost full of happy people that enjoyed the music, danced and sung with Michael Sadler and this is what matters!

Veruno to me is important also in this way!

DAY 3

Maybe the best in terms of good vibrations, confirmations and surprises!

Syndone (Italy) They are acknowledged as one of the best prog bands in Italy. 

Their unusual lineup, with three keyboards, a vibraphone and no electric guitar,  is greatly supported by the powerful rhythm section formed by Maurino Dellacqua (bass) and Martino Malacrida (drums), one of the most talented young drummers in Italy.

Their frontman Riccardo Ruggeri has a powerful and delicate voice at the same time and generates deep melodic emotions on the harmonic strucures created by the founder/main composer Nick Comoglio.

Syndone music is not readily for all, but when you're in is great and satisfying!

Frequency Drift (Germany) I heard something on CD and found them quite good. The electronic Harp played by Nerissa Schwarz gives to their music a particular sound. Unfortunately they were forced to play without their singer Nadja Jaye, so the performance was a little poor and influenced by the forced guitar work by Michael Bauer, sometimes out of tune.

Pay a good attention to the above track, and you will realize that Veruno performance has been a pale example of their beautiful music.
I have to notice that they were the only band which spent a word for the Amatrice earthquake victims, and this is a signal of their sensitivity.

Anekdoten (Sweden) One of the most awaited bands in this edition, which I know from their CD Vemod, From Within and the latest beautiful Until All the Ghosts are Gone.
Sadly to me they've been the deepest delusion: the singing was poor, even if it was from the guitar or the bass player and frequently off-tune, the guitar was sometimes off-timing and this, in my opinion, compromised the whole performance.





I never heard them LIVE before, but some people said their singing has always been their weakest point.
No problem. Now I know it's better to listen to their great music from studio CD than LIVE.

Soft Machine Legacy (England) They've been the best way to end this exciting festival edition.
I have to admit I wasn't sure they could catch me, so I said to my friend: "OK, we are going to listen a couple of songs and than we'll go home."





I was wrong... starting from the very first tune I realized we'd stayed until the end of the along acclaimed encore!
Their music is formed by incredible soft and magnetic melodies on a magic carpet of rich rhythm section. Theo Travis (sax) and John Etheridge (guitar) mixed together the Canterbury style with a special soft jazz (which is actually already present in Canterbury style), with great solos and interplays, ending up in a fascinating and captivating mood, greatly satisfying. Really GREAT and touching performance, really great and talented musicians!

So, if the great bands acted their best (apart someone, as before mentioned), giving us the expected good vibrations, I have to say that, for the first time with such a powerful impact, the young bands from Auditorium have surprised the audience so high.
El Tubo Elastico (Spain) and Eveline's Dust (Italy) proposed quite good music and have reached good satisfaction in merchandise.
But the most beautiful thing is that they both fraternised with those crazy boys of Cheeto's Magazine and at the ED's encore, a melange of prog songs by Wilson, PFM, and so on, the other two young bands danced and jumped down the stage in front of them, to join together at the end. GREAT!









Once more I have to say... If you are going to attend Veruno Prog for the first time, surely you're not prepared at what you will find: Enchanting location and surroundings, powerful equipments, friendship, freedom, wellness, astonishing, unexpected and crazy situations, owed to the exciting atmosphere you breathe. It's a fantastic, unique moment of life and everyone at the end says: "I'll be here next year!"

And all is continuously supported by good music in the best way you can listen to!

Already waiting for the 9th edition!

http://www.contagiorni.it/contatori/id/162056/

The White Dove Has Flown Away

Hi to those who read me.

No. Don't fear my blog is going to be the Prog Rock Artists obituary. It's not my style and attitude.

Maybe you have noticed I hardly talked about ELP in all these years, though sometimes I posted some of their music stuff on Facebook.

How it's been possible to neglect such great prog icons?

And why only now, after Keith Emerson's self-shot, I'm going to do it?

Will to be clicked? Will to be read?

I repeat... it's not my style, otherwise I didn't wait for so long to publish this post, isn't it?

Let me first give you evidence on how I came in contact with ELP.

When I was very young (about 12 years... sigh! A huge amount of years ago!), almost every afternoon I used to go to some of my friends who lived near home, to stay with them, play football and (obviously) listen to some music.

We often were in our older friend's home because his father had the best stereo deck among us. So we used to bring our LP or 45rpm to listen on it and discuss about them together.

Giancarlo was also a proficient piano player, so we eventually asked to him to play for us. 

At that time there was a cultural/political in-depth  TV Show named "Stasera G7" or something like this, whose ending musical theme started with a filtered snare roll, followed by a snare/bass drum attack and the entering of the other instruments: bass and electronic keyboards...

The father of our friend was as captured by it that went up and down to the music shops to find it, but he wasn't successful.
So he decided to ask directly to someone to RAI and knew the name of the song and of the band, but the 45rpm was not available, so he bought the LP.

Once Giancarlo put it on the turntable and the magic began...

This was my first time with His Greatness Keith Emerson, and I have to thank Giancarlo's father for his obstinacy!

The fun fact is that when I asked to listen the rest of the album my friends were a little bored, because they didn't like it, so I asked to my friend to copy it on a MC to listen it on my own.

After the first listening, I was astonished by noticing that 'Tank' (and 'Lucky Man') weren't the best track in it! 

Then came the opus Tarkus, Trilogy (their best to my opinion), and the powerful Brain Salad Surgery...

I remember at that time BSS was considered "too cold and technical" by the most, and even by me. I re-evalueted it several years ago, especially comparing it to some nowadays steel-cold prog-metal (who shouted: "Dream Theater"?).

So, why I never talked about this great band?

To be honest I always felt a hate/love feeling towards them.

There are moments I need to listen to them, but sometimes I don't stand their music. I cannot explain why, but it's this way in my mind.
However I always esteemed Keith Emerson as a great keyboardist and composer.

You should pay attention to tracks like the following:

This is a complete rock-opera: passes to different moods and dynamics and it's composed in the aim of a classical piece of music.

The piano moment, with that incredible left-hand ostinato is among the best things we can find in progrock (in fact it inspired, among the others, a similar passage in Kansas 'Song For America')

Or to this one...




One of their best song ever...


Or their magnum opus epic track:

In their whole production you can find something timeless, eternal. Something which is still considered as basics for musical compositions, inspiration for old and new keyboardists.

It's not strange that the most keyboardists I know on Facebook identify Keith Emerson as their unreachable Master.

Someone said: "Keith Emerson stays to the keyboards as Jimi Hendrix stays to electric guitar"... and he's not far away from the truth.

Now that Keith has decided to pass away, because of his degenerating hillness, I feel so guilty and cold, and so I decided to write down this post.

One thing I'm sure: If Keith should see from wherever he's now, the respect, love and affection we have showed in these days after his departure, he surely would mind to come back... and we all should be happy to see his smile another time.

Thank you to His Greatness "best keyboard player in the world", thank you to the always smiling face graceful artist. Thank you Keith...

Fly with Vly

Hi to those who read me.

This is almost a complain post, since I have proposed the new band Vly to various prog sites, but they unexpectedly are neglecting the proposal, while I can see they indulge to post things chewed many times only to gain visibility.
 

I've written this review in Italian and English language.

You are approaching the second one!

Vly is a recently formed, internationally-based and extremely diverse collective.

Amongst the quintet’s ranks, several members of the outfit have previously spent time in Crippled Black Phoenix, one from Änglagård, and all currently hold rank in Diet Kong, Typical Reptiles, Karl Demata Band, Il Tempio Delle Clessidre, Bernie Torme’, Shark Island, White Willow and Necromonkey.

Vly began as strangers sending 1’s and 0’s across the Atlantic Ocean.

British-based guitarist Karl Demata had a vague idea and a few demos, when a friend put him in touch with New York singer/artist Keith Gladysz. Keith began working on the demos, adding a more melodic, dream-like and decidedly indie sensibility.

“It was a new way to work”, says Gladysz “We managed to make an album without ever meeting. There was no gauge or reference point except for the music. It was a total shot in the dark.”

The components of this astonishing new band are:

Keith Gladysz (Diet Kong, Typical Reptiles) – vocals

Karl Demata (ex-Crippled Black Phoenix, Karl Demata Band) – guitars, synths, programming

Elisa Montaldo (Il Tempio Delle Clessidre) – keyboards, synths and backing vocals

Chris Heilmann (ex-Crippled Black Phoenix, Bernie Torme’, Shark Island) – bass

Mattias Olsson (ex-Änglagård. White Willow, Necromonkey) – drums, keyboards

Their first new album I / [TIME] is from Laser's Edge and it is out since 18/09/15.

The sound of Vly hits elements of progressive rock, classic rock, folk, early-Floydian psychedelia, intimate pop melodies, massive walls of epic guitar riffage, post-classical, post-rock and electronic music.

When you listen to Vly music you can find that their vocalism is early pinkfloydish (and so Porcupine Tree as well) oriented, but it's laid down on a magic carpet made of beautiful sounds, unusual harmonics and captivating melodic lines.

Mattias Olsson demonstrates (if someone needed it) that you don't have to show extremely complicated patterns and fills to be a great drummer. While his patterns seem not so difficult, but really effective to grant the right support and power to the music, he plays fills you hardly could listen from another drummer, fully enriched with taste and class.

Elisa Montaldo renews her greatness through her choice of sounds and effects, her inspired backing vocals. She seems to abandon her usual virtuosity to give space to a hearted and rich of sensitivity research of touching registers, dreamy settings and proficient playing.

Karl Demata's guitar moments are enriched with feelings, and solos seem always to be a diamond mounted in the musical structure.

Moreover, all the instrumentalists try their best to make the work homogeneous, well balanced and of undoubted taste.

Though the whole album is high level, my preferred song are the opener 'Circles' and the following 'Time', then the energetic 'Out of the Maze', the hypnotic (really a topic name!) 'Hypnotic', the piano pearl 'Time Remembered', the dramatic 'Message in the Water', down to the last 'Time Forgotten'

Those who approach to this album looking for Änglagård solemnity, or CBP acidity or also the healthy and opulent ITDC RPI, should rapidly change direction.

Even if you can reveal here and there some resemblance with Crippled Black Phoenix (obvious and inevitable), the Vly sound character, certainly due to the different influences of the components, is softer and more melancholic, more oriented to introspection and charming atmospheres.

Even the artwork, totally lacking of musicians photographs, is oriented to let the listener concentrate only on the dreamy atmospheres, the catchy melodies, the introspective lyrics, more than on the images.

At the end of the game, what we usually ask to the Music is to be thrilled when we listen to it. All the rest is an extension.
I always fear the worst when friends come back from a music event and say "Great show!"... I'd prefer they'd say: "Great Music... and good show!"

Intense and charming album.. A must to have... and to listen resting in low light or darkness.

 

We're already waiting for you LIVE in Italy!