Jackie Giordano as Jose Pharos and Paule Giner in 1979's Boucles Rhythmiques, lossless limited time

 

The kind of funky library music that just makes me and probably so many others out there weep with its wonderfully exciting and original sounds and rhythms, it was left off the Giordano collection (which was by no means complete) way back when because it was hidden under the moniker Jose Pharos, a two-off for this alias I guess.  The record's listed here.

The overall library sound of Cap Horn, with the synthesizer swirls, the pumping patterns, the electric piano bashing out chords, plus vibes installed above for the melodic sound, is just so so masterful:

The same goes for the remarkable sound, so wah-wah warm and uplifting, along with that clever chromatic modulation within the verse section, of San Antonio:

Admittedly, the track does go on for a little bit too long for some reason.

The other album of Jose Pharos and from the same year is this one, called Obsession, Catastrophes. Oddly enough it seems uninspired and mostly quite simplistic in comparison as if it were made up of leftover material that was never developed fully, added to which there is some experimental drony electronic material, for example each track usually only has from two to a handful of chords, usually sustained and usually unadorned with extra instruments, whether electric or not.

To this day and probably forever my favourite from him is the miraculously original and progressively written Paysages I.

Joachim Sherylee and Jacky Giordano albums, by request

There's a ton of music here to go through, or perhaps to slog through, and in no way could I describe myself as an expert on library records, there are many out there of course who know far more than me.  All I can really do is present some of my favourite tracks from these albums and hope you haven't heard some of these before.  Here's his probably incomplete discography.  Many albums as usual are hidden under aliases, such as the requested Joachim Sherylee ones.

I suppose 1974's Challenger is the best known from him, but I didn't think it was the best, though the track called See Off shows his compositional abilities in the dreamiest of moods:





An earlier album called Rhythmes et Melodies, perhaps his first release (?) from 1973, I thought was simply average, disappointingly lacking anything too strong to cling to.  It's not included below.

For funk fans though the years 1975 to 1978 were his golden age, with just a never ending series of dynamic and interesting beats topped by that beautiful fuzzy organ plus guitar sound.  Not so much progressive composition, but 1977's Music Report just knocked me out, reminding me most of the famous April Orchestra album by Puccio Roelens: dynamic and well-written 70s funk instrumentals.  What could go wrong?  The gorgeous title track of Music Report:





Well, what went wrong is that electronic music in the late 70s beat up the funkosphere, so that following the 2 organ albums, Giordano jumped on the 'simple electronic' bandwagon of Jean-Michel Jarre where musical simplicity and atrocious repetition in the style of Etudes for Children was valued.  I include here the later albums Electronic, Sequences, and Paysages 2.  Here and there though the great composer could still shine brightly with a beautifully written complex track like Wind of Sun:





Unfortunately most of that album (Electronic) was written by Benoit Hutin, who is noticeably inferior.

I want to save some last words for my favourite Giordano album which is Paysages 1. This is cowritten with someone unknown to me called Paul Baile who went on to make the third in the series (anyone know if it's worth pursuing?)

It presents a completely different style of music, the A.R. Luciani / Milan Pilar school of melded pop - classical composition, but with the utmost delicacy and just exemplary composing acumen and imagination.  Is it the combination of the two that worked so well?  Distinct to the remainder of the Giordano oeuvre the instrumentation involves harp, flute and other chamber instruments.  Thus Glistening Dream is representative:





How to explain?
So the search for the most beautiful music carries on.


PS
I forgot this excellent one: