Pasta, Cannoli's & Italian Progressive Rock

Italy has been a fertile terrain for musical groups since the 1960’s. The traditional song format was slowly renewed, adding elements coming from England and the United States. These elements were rock n roll, rhythm & blues and beat.
 
It was with the success of the beat acts that brought many English acts to come to Italy. Numerous English bands came to Italy searching for fame & fortune. A handful of these musicians stayed here, giving birth to this new form of rock called “Progressive Rock”.
 
By the end of the decade a new tendency appeared with these newly called groups. These bands started creating an original image, eccentric names and self-composed tracks. With influence from King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Van Der Graaf Generator, Jethro Tull, Genesis, Yes and many other UK bands. These new acts by 1969 started using longer and more unconventional names. Often meaningless, bands such as Balletto di Bronzo, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Quelle Strane Cose Che etc…had a non-conformist look. Gone were the uniforms and “Beatle” haircuts. Musicians had long hair, shabby clothing and certain poses that were copied from their British or American counterparts. The Italian scene had a quick evolution that left behind the initial foreign influences, to develop a highly original musical alchemy. Adding elements of Mediterranean Folk, Opera, Classical and Rock, the Italians were ready to showcase their original sound that was making headway throughout Italy & Europe.
 
As 1970 came to a close, bands such as Le Orme, New Trolls, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso and Premiata Forneria Marconi had triumph and success with the release of their albums. The compositions were much more complex and music fans of progressive rock ate all of it up. Other acts like Jumbo, Balletto di Bronzo, Museo Rosenbach, Metamorfosi, and Alphatarus had solid debuts that highlighted their unique sound, cementing a very dedicated Italian scene. From 1971-1975, this was the height of their success.  
 
A sub-genre of Italian prog-rock was Italian jazz-rock, well represented by albums such as Osanna's jazz-rock nightmare Palepoli (1973), Arti & Mestieri's chamber jazz-rock workout Tilt (1974), and Perigeo's Genealogia (1974). Walter Maioli's Aktuala added ethnic flavors to jazz improvisation on their Aktuala (1973).
 
The greatest of the jazz-rock bands was Area fronted by vocalist Demetrio Stratos, one of the most original singers of his age, whose Arbeit Macht Frei (1973) merged agit-prop lyrics, jazz-rock jamming, raw electronics, Middle-eastern scales, and Stratos' psychotic warbling. While the group evolved towards the quirky free-jazz of Caution Radiation Area (1974) and Maledetti (1976), Demetrio Stratos recorded experimental albums entirely devoted to the human voice such as Metrodora (1976) and especially Cantare la Voce (1978).  
 
Another act that was successful in Italy and also had success throughout England and Europe was Goblin. Goblin specialized in soundtracks for the horror films of director Dario Argento, particularly Profondo Rosso (1975), Suspiria (1977) and Zombi (1979).  
 
By the end of the 1970's Punk creeped into the Italian scene. Gone were the days of long, complex song arrangements. Many of the above mentioned bands broke up or changed their sound for a much more streamline, conventional sound and image. New Wave and Heavy Metal took off in the 1980's and the Italian Progressive Rock scene would lay underground until a rebirth occurred during the 1990's. That's another place and another time.