Giancarlo Barigozzi and Franco Bonfanti separate and together with others (Oscar Rochi, Fabio Fabor)

Giancarlo Barigozzi:

Italian jazz saxophonist, flutist, clarinetist, composer and sound engineer.
Has played with: Franco Cerri, Gianni Basso, Gil Cuppini, Giorgio Gaslini, Tony Scott, Milt Jackson, Percy Heath, Jack Teagarden, Frank Sinatra and many others.
Born: March 4th, 1930 in Cologna Ferrarese, Ferrara, Italy.
Died: June 28, 2008

Franco Bonfanti:

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By far the masterpiece is the combined album of sails on the sea, the bottom one, which came out in 1977.  It's shocking how masterfully progressive and inventive all the music is from beginning to end, equally shocking how generically disappointing the remainder (8 others) of the albums are.  Even the cover is beautiful.  I guess that's just the way it is, and the way it's gonna be, when it comes to this genre of library music. As we all already knew.

Note the involvement of Oscar Rocchi, a huge favourite (his masterpiece of course was Magic Keys), and Fabor on some of these albums.  Barigozzi + Fabor's Synthetronics is possibly the most popular and most re-requested post ever on this blog.  Go figure.

I really can't say enough about Vele Sul Mare though.  The extreme beauty of Porto da Lavigna, one of many extremely beautiful tracks on here:

Back with more (unrequested) Gino D'Eliso in Santi ed Eroi (1979)

I'm sure we can all agree it's an incredible cover, very much a part of those times.  As a child then, and now,  I remember how comics had a huge heyday in the seventies, particularly in Europe.

In this 1979 release, he has almost completely ditched the orchestral arrangements and delicacy that made the first Mare album so delightful and the second a little more missing in action.  As a result I don't think I'll dare to get the next in the series, which came in 1983 and was called Cattivi Pensieri.  (Note the obligatory haircut every male was required to get on New Years Day, 1980.  The hair was allowed to grow longer over the course of the decade, but only in the back, not the sides or front.)

A track that does recall the prior two LPs is Tu Che Non Cambi Mai:





At the end, Abbey-Road-like, there is a 'secret track' with sped-up (chipmunk) vocals.
Not even as worth hearing as Paul McCartney's "Her Majesty."

By request, Remo Rau Project's Voyage to the Stars: A Tone Poem (Switzerland, 1985)

Remo Rau:

Swiss jazz pianist and vibraphonist, born 19 July 1927 in Yokohama, Japan, died 3 February 1987 in Zürich, Switzerland.

Blurb on the back:

The Swiss composer and musician Remo Rau was born in Yokohama, Japan.  He acquired his musical training at a private school there.  A Russian emigrant couple from Leningrad, Lydia and Josef Shapiro, both skilled musicians, were his tutors.  He also sang in the choir of the nearby Anglican Church.  In 1942 after he and his family returned to Switzerland, he continued his musical studies and began to play jazz and has been active in the field since. In 1959 he took part in the National Jazz Festival at Zurich and won first prize performing on vibraphone.  In 1983 he was nominated composer of the year by the cultural committee of the dept. of education of Canton Zurich and was commissioned to write a larger jazz composition.  Besides jazz Remo Rau has written music in the contemporary, classical direction, and among his works are 3 full operas and at present he is working on a 4th.  He describes Voyage to the Stars as follows:  
"This compoisition is a combination of several styles in contemporary music, including the romantic.
I have always dreamt of being able to travel through space and this music expresses this intense  longing... I am immensely grateful to all who made this rcording possible."

There is quite a mix of the contemporary jazz, modern angular classical, and occasionally bits of electronic with the synths and keys usually playing oddly dissonant chords and passages, unlike the drony one-chord-wonder we are accustomed to in the electronic sphere.  So as a whole it's quite interesting, albeit occasionally out there enough to sound almost fully improvised.  On the other hand it flows together quite smoothly making it difficult to discern the different tracks of sections.

Information here, note the presence of Art Lande on keys and Heinz Lieb on percussion.
An oddity too is that some of the tracks were recorded live, indicated they were totally composed--I think.  There were thus three keyboardists on some tracks.

The one called Gliding through space gives an idea of the curious mix of synths, jazz percussion, and classical composing:

Jazz Sextet Boska Petrovic: With Pain I was Born, 1976

A pretty good title for a misanthrope, here's the title track to give you a taste:




A great little unknown fusion record from former Yugo.  This is the only release from this particular formation.

Regarding the leader:

B: 18. February 1935. Bjelovar, Croatia
D: 10. January 2011. Zagreb, Croatia
Croatian jazz musician (vibraphone player), composer, arranger and producer, leader of several jazz bands including 'Zagrebački Jazz Kvartet', 'Zagrebački Jazz Kvintet', 'B.P. Convention', 'B.P. Convention Big Band', 'B.P. Club All Stars' and 'Boško Petrović Trio'. Boško was one of the most important jazz composers in Croatia. Founder of Jazzette Records.

Note that violinist Csaba Deseo is also on here.

Library composer Daniela Casa (7 albums)

Mentioned earlier in relation to the beginning of the pandemic in Italy with the foresightful library title Societa Malata, which I enjoyed greatly, I decided to seek out more from this artist with the discogs bio:

Daniela Casa (Roma, February 6, 1944 - † Roma, 28 July 1986) was an Italian singer and songwriter, wife of artist Remigio Ducros and mother of singer Valentina Ducros.

While the Italian wiki page is wonderfully translated:

Daughter of a motorboat builder, Daniela Casa graduated from the art school. During the school period he studied singing and guitar with the teacher Claudio De Angelis.

It was discovered in 1963 and put under contract by Fonit , a label that made it participate in the same year in the Grand Prix , a program combined with the New Year's Lottery , in the Lazio team , in which it presents its own version of Senza fine , the famous song by Gino Paoli .

The following year he took part in Un disco per estate 1964 with Beati voi , a song written by Marco Luberti for the text and Luberti with Enrico Simonetti for the music. However, the song does not arrive in the final. In 1965 he arrives at the Piper Club in Rome where he forms the duo Dany & Gepy with Giampiero Scalamogna , specializing in the reproposition of covers of soul and rhythm & blues singers.

In the following years he devoted himself to composition, while continuing to record, and achieved success with Regularly , recorded by Mina , and Tell me what you are still waiting for , which Dominga brings to Un disco for the summer of 1970 .

In 1971 he recorded Uomo , a song that became the theme song for the television program Storie di donne . In the seventies he also recorded some albums of instrumental, experimental, electronic and easy listening music.

I guess it's worth mentioning it's rare to see a female library composer, the only other one that comes to mind is the beautiful French artist called Laurence Vanay (Jacqueline Thibault), who was married of course to progmaster Laurent Thibault.

Societa Malata's Ignoto:





It's interesting too that despite the commercial biography as written above she had a true predilection for more modern classical, composed, sometimes experimental or abstract or atonal music, which adds a lot of interest here.  You can see that in the track called Sovrapposizione Di Immagini from Arte Moderne:




Clearly a remarkable composer.

I included in 2 packages the albums Le Sport (very little from her there), Idee 1 (same),  Societa Malada, Art Moderne, America Giovane No. 2, Vernissage 2, and the compilation which was also called Sovrapposizione Di Immagini.