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Versione 3
Rating: The gaze lost in the thousands of bubbles of orange soda just poured into the glass, chasing each other to the top. Through the glass, you can also see Uncle Antonio, appearing completely Fanta-yellow. Add to this his hip-length jacket, with velvet lapels and a floral bow tie, and it’s not much of a sight. In the '80s, fashion takes a sabbatical, or rather, a decade-long break, and weddings are "parrot-like" meetings. My aunts with perms like Joey Tempest and quarterback shoulder pads aren't exempt from the original parade of 'good taste,' the multicolor freak-show.
So, as I was saying, I'm sitting with my gaze inside the glass while waiting for the first course, and that organ accompanies my time and that of my relatives. When there’s no dancing, the Hammond is always the protagonist. It seems it was born specifically to kill the silence during wedding receptions.
Clear. Definitive. I would also coin the genre: "Wedding-Hammond-Style."
In my dad's Fiat 127, the Stereo8 plays... um, Santo & Johnny, Tony Santagata, Fausto Papetti, but something that remotely sounds like that, you couldn’t find even if you paid for it. It seems to have spores that are born and die during the celebrations, within the walls of reception halls. Then it’s nothing more, until the next wedding.
Or so I thought.
One fine day, my friend Fabio invites me to his house for a 'smoke' of Multifilter, stolen from his father's pack, and as soon as I enter the house, I’m captured by a very familiar sound coming from the living room. Suddenly enlightened, before even greeting him, I instinctively blurt out: "Are your parents eating?" Of course not, damn it, it's ten in the morning!
"Of course not, damn it, it's ten in the morning!" my friend echoes my thought.
Goodbye "Wedding-Hammond-Style."
Okay, exaggeration aside, at that moment I learned that certain sounds can be assimilated away from meals, without any side effects or contraindications.
"The Hammond of awareness" or "The Hammond of disillusionment" is represented by a cover of seagulls on the seaside (damn it, seagulls on the sea eat, you want to see that underneath it all there's a connection?!) and a sky that doesn't predict rain on the horizon.
Serene. Clear.
Like the twelve tunes played by Earl Grant on the gleaming organ. They flow like a stream, slow but abundant. Unhurried.
Serene. Clear.
Like the gaze of my friend's parents, absorbed in listening, gently carried away on that sea, on those waves, in the comfortable tone variations between the different instrumental pieces, in the sun that, rising towards the blue, peeked around the windowsill, hidden among the geraniums to catch a snatch of a note, a pinch of the joy from the easy-listening of the ebony-skinned master.
"Stormy Weather", "Bewitched", "I'm In The Mood For Love", "Ebb Tide" reigning in the album's title; and then "Evening Rain", "Dreamy"... a fantastic dozen pearls of American popular music filtered through the meshes of the Hammond combined with the Leslie speaker. Indeed, time and research have revealed to me that this very particular sound is born only from the blend of these two infernal machines!
Some time ago, I found the record again at a flea market. It was in a basket between an old Perrier tray and some issues of "Il Corriere dei Piccoli." Despite being shabby and yellowed by time, I immediately recognized that froth of waves under the festive seagulls silhouetted among the clouds and the blue.
I bought it without hesitation. Shortly after, I got hungry.
Tracklist
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