Carlos Franzetti Part 3, some later albums: Misunderstood OST (1984), with Stockholm Jazz Orchestra - Tango (1999), The Jazz Kamerata (2005), Duets with Eddie Gomez (2008)

 

The soundtrack music is exactly what you'd expect, orchestral theme stuff with no complexity, at least it's not the bombastic overdramatic drivel + plus jumpy simple classical silliness that we hear nowadays in current films (although there is some of that too), and the composition does show emotional range and depth, eg Father and Son:

From the Tango album, whose title alone is quite the deterrent for me, I'll sample Los Mareados for a taste of its conventional accordion sound plus standard chord progressions, of course a sickly combination for myself, perhaps not others:

Regarding the album Duets, which needless to say was disappointing for me as well (being simple jazz of the kind made in the 1950s), read the discogs note rendering it even more unappealing I believe:

2009 BMI Latin Grammy Award Winners Best Instrumental Album: “Duets” by Carlos Franzetti & Eddie Gómez.

A track called Tender Lovers:

(I think, winning a Grammy, is something that should automatically prohibit artists from appearing on this blog.)

The album from 2005 is called Jazz Kamerata. For those like me curious to know Kamerata means, according to the hallucinatory untrustworthy AI of google:

Italian word

Camerata is an Italian word that means "room" or "chamber". It can also refer to: 

A dormitory 

A comrade, especially in a right-wing group 

Musical term

A camerata is a small chamber orchestra or choir, typically with up to 60 musicians. The term is connected to the Renaissance usage of the word as a club of artists and scholars who met to discuss culture. 

Adjective

Camerate is an adjective that means "divided into chambers". For example, you might describe a shell or eye as camerate. 

Crinoid order

Camerata is also the name of the largest order of crinoids, which includes all Paleozoic species that have the lower brachial plates included in the cup.

It would be lovely if it was referring to the biological crinoid order (invertebrate sea lilies) but of course it's more likely referring to the musical term despite the change of c to k, this being music of course.

I post the track called Allison's Dance because it's the sole original composition from Franzetti on this album the remainder are from others (Miles Davis, B. Evans, Clare Fischer, W. Shorter, S. Kuhn, Metheny, Jarrett) incl. a track by the brilliant E. Toussaint (cf. Sacbe), and the lovely Elegia by my beloved Claus Ogerman. I believe that one was first written for Bill Evans and appeared on one of their amazing collaborations which I've listened to all my life starting in university, and still can't get sick of.

The delicacy of Franzetti's arrangement is shockingly beautiful on this record too, comparing quite positively to Claus,  and on top of that he plays the piano very much in Bill's (RIP) extremely tender and sparkly style. Anyways, this is the Franzetti composition from that gorgeous release (which should've won a Grammy instead!):

So a great album mostly on the basis of its arrangements, and the original track from Carlos.

Some requests next!

Fusion - Top Soul 1975, lossless limited time only

 

The track Dedos appeared on this one-off album, with information to be found here. Franzetti was not in this band.

Very influential chilean rock, fusion, jazz-fusion, folklore, jazz-funk and pop band. Formed in 1972 in Santiago, they splited up in 1975.

Members were:

- Matías Pizarro: piano (1972 – 1975).

- Enrique Luna: bass + contrabass (1972 – 1975).

- Sandro Salvati: alto saxophone (1972 – 1974).

- Lautaro Rosas: guitar (1973 – 1975).

- Pedro Greene: drums (1973 – 1974).

- David Estánovich: tenor saxophone (1975).

- Mario Lecaros: piano + electric piano (1975).

- Orlando Avendaño: drums (1974 – 1975).

- Claudio Bertoni: percussion

Others part-time members were: Víctor Rivera (organ player), Guillermo Rifo (vibraphonist), Leslie Murray (electric guitar), Ricardo Salas (flute), Santiago "Santa" Salas (percussions) and Andrés "Titi" Gana (percussions).

A pleasant all instrumental funk / fusion / poppy album (cover of You Are the Sunshine of my Life)  of which of course the decade produced an enormous surplus, along the lines of the famed Belgian Placebo.

The lovely Lamentacion, as if lamenting the gradual loss of the wonderful fusion of the decade:

Back to Carlos Franzetti in a 7" from 1974

 

This is a single recorded in 1974 with involvement from the brilliant Argentinian composer Carlos Franzetti, featured back here with his late 70s masterpieces of composition.  For me the way he combined his classical music education with fusion was just inimitable. In his discography you can see he went on to become a sought-after soundtrack composer successfully until the present day.  

Following the masterpiece Galaxy Dust (1981) however, it seems he made generic OST stuff, covers of old jazz standards, modern classical music, and eschewed the fierce 'third stream' style of music. The thing is it's hard to say since I have little familiarity with those later records and most of them seem to be out of print / unreleased digitally or to CD.

Producer / Releaser info regarding the 7":

The story behind: In 1974, after CARLOS FRANZETTI was living in Mexico and worked as the musical director of FERMATA International, he returned to Argentina. In Buenos Aires his friend MOCHIN MARAFIOTTI was recently appointed A&R at the local recording label MUSIC HALL . Marafiotti asked Carlos if he wanted to record some of his music and he answered that he had in mind a group playing LATIN JAZZ . After a couple of meetings they came out with the idea of covering the RUBEN RADA tune DEDOS recently recorded in the US by AIRTO MOREIRA along with the OPA TRIO.

Carlos contributed his own composition „Doce y Diez“ . He selected the group consisting of his friend and member of the uruguayan Band TOTEM, Ruben Rada on percussion, Ricardo Lew on guitar , Emilio Valle on bass and Osvaldo Lopez on drums covering keyboards and vocals himself . This formation recorded tracks and vocals in a three hour session and the next day the track was mixed. Music Hall released „Dedos“ and „Doce y Diez“ on a single record and after months of discrete airplay and not so good sales the project for an album was draped . A few months after that Carlos moved back to the US where he is been living since December of 1974 to the present...

Here's the Franzetti composition, Doce:

I'll find more Franzetti and be back shortly.

More Requests: Shakatak - Drivin' Hard (UK 1982), Jan Fryderyk Creative Sound - Faun (Germ 1976), George Otsuka Quintet (Japan 1971 to 1976), Vita Nova (Germ 1971), Odean Pope - Almost Like Me (USA 1982)

 

Information here:

Shakatak is an English jazz-funk band founded in 1980, Drivin' Hard is their first from 1981. It's all instrumental, surprisingly, as you'd expect some vocals on an album like this one from the early part of this commercialocene decade. However, utterly unexpectedly, a tender track called Lumiere sounds like our beloved library genius Alan Hawkshaw with its dreamy, spacey synth line, plus the ocean wave sound that rolls in like a tide halfway through:

For those curious, like myself, the composer is Bill Sharpe, discogged here.

Jan Fryderyk Creative Sound is free jazz with piano and plaintive sax (Alan Skidmore), note the presence of Trilok Gurtu and Peter Giger, seen so often here in the past.

George Otsuka Quintet made 3 albums back in the first part of the 70s. It's basic contemporary quintet jazz (ie trumpet and sax plus the usual) with little fusion for the fusion fan.

Vita Nova is an unreleased band from the early 70s, as per discogs:

An obscure international Munich band, Vita Nova were fronted by guitarist and multi-instrumental Polish born talent Eddy Marron and Hungarian keyboard player Sylvester Levay. They played a complex fusion of classical rock and fusion styles, and aptly in keeping with their name all the lyrics were in Latin. In 1971, This record was only released in a limited private edition of 500 copies.

This album is very typical of the protoprog style of kraut rock with heavy hammond, loud sound, simple chords, bombastic vocals, etc. An unusual feature of this band apart from the Latin lyrics is that it's quite heavy on the percussion, with a couple of drum solos featured. At times they were capable of composing dissonances, as in the Inventions track:

It's important to note that Eddy Marron, of notable Dzyan fame, or rather, 'fame', was in this band. I mentioned him in relation to Family of Percussion here.

Odean Pope (American saxophonist) is for the most part overimprovised free jazz with a couple of songs that cater to more funky commercial tastes, this is the first album from him. So you could say it's a little uneven.

MIA's Nono Belvis + Kike Sanzol in Que Estan Celebrando los Hombres

 

I suppose everyone is familiar with the Argentinian group MIA, catalogued in that link. The acronym is for Músicos Independientes Asociados. Evidently their seminal album Transparencias was just a perfect hallmart of progressive folk mixed with chamber composition, skillfully written and played. And the 1978 one Cornonstipicum was also incredible.  These 2, guitarist / bassist Nono Belvis and drummer / vibraphonist Kike Sanzol however were not in the original lineup and didn't show up until En Vivo from 1977.  I didn't realize they made this MIA-like album, in 1982, until recently.

The music thus is percussion-heavy acoustic folky stuff, but quite admirably composed. The dual acoustic guitarwork on the track called Blanca Presencia is absolutely heavenly in my opinion:

For some atmospheric stuff but with Nono's electric guitar pulled out of its case, Una Specie de Hueco: