The Pentangle
Pentangle

For a good Deb-Review, besides the musical "magnificence" of the Record being discussed, it is important that it is not already among the Deb-reviewed, as was the case with Paul Kantner, Grace Slick & David Freiberg's first "Baron Von Tolbooth & The Chrome Nun", included by me for the first time a few weeks ago, and now for this self-titled debut Album by Pentangle which I discuss below.

Before delving into their musical story and the grooves of this Album, with which they, exactly 50 years ago, stylistically reformulated Folk Music, let's go back a little to when Bob Dylan, Donovan, Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, etc., shaped the revival of this musical genre based on their more or less proximity to the rock, medieval, psychedelic or exotic world.

Moving towards the onset of a new decade, many styles are about to change, both in art and fashion, as everything increasingly rushes towards innovation and modernism, with rock music knowing new sounds, new instruments, new recording techniques, new sound effects, that revolutionize those expressive scenarios, which become more and more electrified and interspersed with robust jarring guitar riffs played with distortion, as if they reflected the social contrasts and anger being experienced at the time.

Despite this electrified musical world, within the English folk revival, a formidable musical ensemble will soon invent the "Pentangle," which over the years has become a cult-band not at all Jurassic, continued by the "singles" in small clubs in Great Britain and beyond, which from its beginnings goes against the "musical rage" of those days, towards splendid acoustic and semi-electrified sounds, and amalgamates sophisticated and coherent English, Scottish, and American musical traditions, with certain "dirty" sounds typical of blues, jazz, and country, inventing from scratch a progressive folk with jazzy overtones, made of refined and complex sound architectures, beautiful musical contaminations as in the case of the exciting musical eclecticism of "Pentangling," the fourth track of this debut album.

We are in June '68, at the time of the record debut of this Group, and while the Youth of the States have been flirting for a while with the revolutionary season of the "Power Flower," across the Atlantic, their native English peers, while the beat, rock, and occasionally folk are already frolicking through the English streets, are equally engaged in innovating and changing direction to the youth perspectives in large student demonstrations, where they protest utopianly against imperialism, racism, the American war in Vietnam, and many other lovely ideals still.

That was a season undeniably rich with great events and changes, not only for those "sixty-eight-student movements," but also for a series of historical-musical events that drastically changed its direction, such as the assassination of J.F. Kennedy in '68, the landing on the Moon with Apollo 11, the USSR's invasion of Czechoslovakia, with Jan Palach's suicide in the square, and the terrorist attack in Piazza Fontana in Milan in '69, ending with the breakup of the Beatles, and the overdose deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin in '70, which marked the closure of that decade, musically speaking, with such great shocks that huge figures and scenarios were bypassed quickly, in favor of new genres and new myths…

Even though already in 1963 the Scot John Renbourn had musically joined the Englishman Bert Jansch, their first true pre-Pentangle hint is from '66, when both, already friends in life and great virtuosos and passionate guitarists and multi-instrumentalists of English folklore and American blues, inventors of a unique guitar style called fingerpicking, after many successful solo works, with the Record "Bert and John" begin to share their musical fates, making us soar high in their magical world; but this is just the beginning, because shortly after in '68 the duo gives life to an "equivalent five-pointed" formation, as their name "Pentangle" indicates, which will be technically adorned as the most skilled of that genre, surpassing its competitors.

Sadly passed away in 2011 and 2015, "Bert and John," just to recall that first record of theirs together, at barely twenty-five and twenty-four years old respectively, an age still youthful and playful for many of us, but incredibly revolutionary instead for themselves, certainly did not imagine where they would have been taken, so far, by their magnificent creative gambles, when they started the Pentangle thanks also to the contribution of acoustic bassist Danny Thompson and drummer Terry Cox, two renowned English jazz musicians of the period capable of bewildering rhythmic constructions, and also vocalist Jacqui McShee, already present in Jansch's solo records, who, gifted with a delicate and extensive swing voice, will immediately become its vestal, the main distinguishing element of the Group.

Authors of a remarkable musical repertoire for the quality of the tracks, where the absence of "filler" tracks prevails, Pentangle in their short but intense life, which began in 1968 and ended with the close of the folk season in 1972, if we talk about their initial formation, released six magnificent Albums, incredibly crossing the English borders, despite the traditionally folk style, achieving enormous global success.

"Pentangle," the self-titled debut Record from 1968, containing a mix of traditional folk songs from English culture, suitably rearranged, and original tracks, stands out as my "best" Friend from so many youthful listenings, thanks to the magical enchantment of that Music, along with their subsequent ones that will also rightfully shine among the "timeless."

Able to appropriately move in different contexts, in this Album, splendid ballads alternate with instrumental renditions of traditionals, among which I like to highlight the value that runs through the jazzy "Waltz," the bluesy "Hear My Call," or finally the seductive and gradually effervescent "Pentangling," already mentioned by me earlier, in a beautiful series of tracks that will immediately decree it a great and unexpected success.

And now, at the conclusion of this, and now enjoy Music, Friends...