Perigeo
La valle dei templi

LA RECENSIONE

One fine day (or perhaps a beautiful night) the double bassist Giovanni Tommaso gathered around him musicians of proven quality and with a purely jazz background to form the "Perigeo"*, a jazz rock group often associated by some critics with Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew" and the Canterbury scene, especially the "Soft Machine". The five members (Di Tommaso on double bass, Franco D'Andrea on piano, Tony Sydney on guitar, Bruno Biriaco on drums, and Claudio Fasoli on sax) composed several albums, some not completely instrumental, including "Azimuth", "Genealogia", "Abbiamo tutti un blues da piangere", culminating in this "La valle dei templi", probably the most fusion-oriented Perigeo record, that is, the fusion of funky, jazz, and rock genres (and correct me if I'm wrong). 

More lively and less monotonous than Perigeo's previous records, also thanks to Tony Esposito's rhythmic section, "La valle dei templi" is perhaps the most commercially inclined**. The album is entirely instrumental yet dynamic, as one can deduce right from the start with the explosion of notes that characterizes the opening seconds of "Tamale"***. Indeed, from this very first track, you can glimpse the burst of energy and life this work exudes, where much space is left to the individual musicians' improvisation. The title track, on the other hand, is introduced by a mysterious and spectral musical theme that suits the cover well and is a masterpiece that fully immerses you in the atmosphere of this work. The following "Looping" ideally continues "La valle dei templi", although the musicians' focus slightly shifts from the sax and electric piano to the drums and bass.

Come on, there's no point in boring you with this disguised track-by-track analysis. I'm not a music expert; I'm just a humble listener and aficionado of this art. Of Perigeo, I only know the records preceding this one (except for "Live at Montreux"), I know they've been influenced by Soft Machine and that they recorded this album after playing as the opening act for Weather Report. 

However, I dare outright to recommend this album to both casual and regular readers of this webpage. Get it and enjoy it, it's certainly not a difficult album to listen to, but it can also appeal to more sophisticated and refined ears. 

The titles of this work seem to have been carefully chosen and, in my opinion, are very evocative. My suggestion is this: quietly and especially calmly contemplate the brief track "Pensieri", rest and fall asleep to the sweetness of compositions like "Cantilena", enjoy the opening guitar arpeggio and the piano solos in "Un cerchio giallo", the wah-wah guitar in "Periplo" and "Mistero della Firefly", immerse yourself and surrender to that light darkness sensation that "2000 e due notti" might give you... In short, let yourselves be swept away by the emotions this album offers you. 

Do not miss anything, not even the brief interlude between "Periplo" and the expressive "Alba di un mondo" ("Eucalyptus").

 Finally, here's the tracklist:

1. Tamale (4:32)
2. La valle dei templi(6:15)
3. Looping (3:06)
4. Mistero della firefly(6:00)
5. Pensieri (2:15)
6. Periplo (5:05)
7. Eucalyptus (0:57)
8. Alba di un mondo (3:53)
9. Cantilena(3:57)
10. 2000 e due notti (5:36)
11. Un cerchio giallo (4:31)

Best regards,

Christian 

* The perigee indicates the closest point of a spatial orbit to the center of a planet. With this clarification, I don't intend to insult either my intelligence or yours, but sometimes things are taken for granted or some notions are forgotten. Our memory is, fortunately and unfortunately, limited.

** I don't know "Non è poi così lontano", so you can always prove me wrong. 

*** Tamale, a city in Ghana.