More Franzetti with Geminis (1987) and Prometheus (1985)

 

Geminis info.  On this record Franzetti plays with the guitarist Ricardo Lew, whose personal artist info can be located here.  This album is incredibly full of beautiful material, I would say like The Jazz Kamerata and Galaxy Dust, and the New York LP, it's virtually golden from start to end. What a wonderful surprise.

The shockingly complex and beautiful Al Mono Vilegas:

The medley that starts off the second side is absolutely insanely beautiful to my ears, with Stravinsky elements and some of the best compositional qualities of the famed Egberto Gismonti.

The tracks not written by Franzetti which are few in number are noticeably inferior, I hate to say it.  You can see the credits on the verso scan of the LP, if you zoom in on it, unfort., not on the dedicated discogs page.

The Prometheus album in contrast is completely given over to cover songs or rather jazz standards (of the most over-played kind, like Autumn Leaves), much like the city of Pripyat after the meltdown in the Chernobyl nuclear plant was abandoned to wildlife almost 40 years ago, except the title track which is quite astonishing, a shame more like this didn't appear on this record:

Back to Carlos Franzetti with New York Toccata (1985)

 

How could I have known to fully clear out and complete his works?   For the fourth time perhaps, I return to this remarkable Argentinian composer Carlos Franzetti.

New York info here.  It opens with the astonishing Arabesque, picking up right where Galaxy Dust left off:

Note that Joe Beck (posted on this blog a few months ago) plays guitar, and Paquito D'Rivera is on alto sax.

Then if you're not sufficiently blown away by the high level of composition, comes Imagenes Antes del Amenecer (Images before dawn):

Like, wow.  I still don't know how some can so perfectly blend together classical, jazz, and everything else musical humans have devised.  This to me is utter heaven, about as far away as you could get from Taylor Swift, and her "swifties" swiftly.  As with its predecessors, there are vocal tracks sung (quite proficiently, with a mild crooning vibrato) by baritone Carlos.

As You Like It - Ages Come and Ages Go, recorded 1973-1975

 

Album info here:

Recorded in England 1973-75.

British band playing genuine Progressive Rock a la Gentle Giant, Yes, England (Garden Shed), Fantasy, Spring, Genesis. Formed by ex members of Tales of Justine and The Syndicate. RCA offered them a contract which fell through, otherwise they could have been issued on RCA Neon. Their earliest surviving studio sessions date from 1973-1975 and reveal a superbly polished band playing pastoral prog rock dominated by Hammond Organ, a lost treasure for fans of Gentle Giant and Fantasy.

I think perhaps they are overstating the case, to me it sounds a bit more protoprog along the lines of Brits Fantasy (as in Beyond the Beyond) not to be confused with Fantasia, the marvelous Finnish band posted earlier here, which anyways is spelled differently at the end.  

For ex. the chord progressions on the compositions sometimes are a little derivative, I note the "Stairway to Heaven" descending A minor pattern that I mention so often appears in one of the song.

Some representative tracks, September Song:

And Together:

So is it AI or was it a real band from back in the day 50 years ago?  Who knows anymore?