Saro Liotta
L'Attesa

I complete my tribute to the great guitarist from Palermo with the review of his debut work, conceived in the first half of the '70s once he realized his life's path wasn't to continue capturing his image on film as had already happened in: "Sotto il segno dello Scorpione" and "Orgonauti, evviva!", and finally brought to light in 1975 although published only the following year.

For "L'Attesa" Saro Liotta enlisted the collaboration of Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos and the Turin bassist Mario Scotti, both of whom appear in various collaborations with the most famous artists and singers of at least three decades between the end of the millennium and the beginning of the current one. Musicians of sure talent who unfortunately have long since passed away prematurely; nevertheless, Saro composes all the music and let’s say plays a prominent role in every track.

It's not easy to frame "L'Attesa", an entirely instrumental album, in a specific genre such is the musical variety of the tracks it contains. For example, the opening "Naná" is not only an evident homage to the travel companion and his country of origin, but ends up being essentially an ethnic movement, while the following "Siciliana" is a poem that very closely resembles (borderline plagiarism...) a renowned classical music piece of unknown 19th-century authorship: "Giochi Proibiti" which you have certainly all heard in the interpretation of Narciso Yepes as the soundtrack to the eponymous 1952 film, surely known to our dear Saro, who finally expresses his in "Buscaci" where his qualities as an outstanding composer and performer of the acoustic guitar fully emerge. The first side of the vinyl closes with a meditative piece titled: "L'Hotel dei Cavalieri" which, despite the title, is one of the author's battle horses since he has presented it again in each subsequent collection and perhaps recalls the famous Milan hotel where he stayed during those booming years. Then follows, just to not miss anything and consistently with what was anticipated about the variety of genres: "Blues per un mattino d'estate".

The second side also starts lively with a pleasant march in honor of the "Re che arriva" and ends up resembling a Western ballad. Just to stay in the New World, it then moves on to "Omaggio a Baden-Powell" who is not an American musician, but the general founder of the scouting movement in which it's easy to think young Liotta was enlisted. The subsequent tracks are also very pleasant, confirming the qualities and the specific genre of the author which would later be expanded in the masterpiece: "La Seduzione", set to release in a couple of years; among these, I'll just highlight the finale: "Incontro" with the bold use of berimbau (Naná) and sitar (Liotta), just to remind us that our hero followed the trend of the time of taking a "trip" to India where he evidently learned the art from master Apurba Choudury.

It should be noted, finally, how the sound quality of the production is excellent and I emphasize this considering the scarcity of means Saro had at his disposal, as I easily deduce from the fact that the instruments, truthfully not many and certainly excluding the acoustic guitar, were loaned to the musicians by a certain Paul Kler.............This makes me think that the vinyl I hold might be one of the relatively few produced and very few survived, so I will keep it tight considering the substantial judgment I attribute to it, which is quite influenced (to its detriment) by what I have already attributed, previously, to "La Seduzione".