SANDRO BRUGNOLINI: "Fantabulous" - Top Italian OST on Four Flies - LP + 7' - NEW

$

65

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Artist: SANDRO BRUGNOLINI

Title: Fantabulous                                                                                  

Label: Four Flies Records

Country: Italy

Year: 2015

Format: LP + 7' Single

Condition, Cover/Record: M/M (Sealed Copy / NEW!)

Review: “Rome, August 9th 1967. 9 o’clock, FonoRoma Session”. The recording for the soundtrack of Fantabulous, a film by Sergio Spina, my journalist friend, started in the height of summer and went on morning to evening for three days in a row, totaling at least five sessions; two more were necessary at the beginning of September for the final mix. I’ve reconstructed the dates by leafing through an old diary where I noted down all my appointments. At that time FonoRoma was the place for Italian soundtracks, the most prestigious. It was an incredible feeling being able to record in those rooms. Along the corridors you bumped into all the top craftsmen. Trovajoli, who had the session before ours, stayed behind once to listen to us out of curiosity. I remember the first time I stepped across the threshold of the studio, the Orchestra greeted me with a “Buongiorno Maestro,” and, just like in the comedy films, I turned around thinking there was someone important behind me. I wasn’t used to it.

Spina at the time was working in news, taking note of what was going on with the cultural unrest. He wanted to make a modern, pop movie that poked fun at the 007 and Superhero genres, with a nod to the language of comics. He was also a great lover of jazz, he adored the trailblazing work of the Modern Jazz Gang, and maybe it was for this reason he asked me to take care of the soundtrack. In this case, however, he didn’t want something quite so pure… He already had lyrics in mind for a couple of songs he wanted to put in the film, protest songs, in which in an ironic way he had a go at Europe and attacked the President of the United States Lyndon Johnson.

We’d talked about the most suitable voice for the lyrics as colleagues, as I was a professional journalist at the daily “Il Popolo”, and I thought immediately Giampiero Graziano, known better as Gepy, with whom I had recently recorded a few R&B tracks for the publisher Claudio Consorti, would be the best choice. For this important musical venture I again chose those types of textures which at the time were very much in vogue and basically I really liked because, at least in a harmonically less-refined way, they came from afro-american and jazz music. Gepy and his band were perfect for that sound, so much so that we decided to use his group - bass, drums, guitar, sax, as well as two charming singers from the USA, real Detroit and Tamla Motown - as the basic combo for the entire recording of the soundtrack. Those two musical motifs would then make up the crux of the soundtrack that, anyway, would be accomplished by a professional orchestra, many of whose members played regularly at Rai. The trumpet soloists, for example, belonged to Cicci Santucci, mainstay of my Modern Jazz Gang, but there were other incredible players, like for example (I cite some, but the memories after almost fifty years, may get confused and I apologize for any errors or omissions) Angelo Baroncini, Maurizio Majorana, Silvano Chimenti, Antonello Vannucchi, Roberto Podio, Carlo Metallo, Tonino Ferrelli.

I had an unspoken agreement with Luigi Malatesta, rare talent of a musician and soundtrack composer for the cinema, to become co-writer of the music with me. I would take care mainly of the jazz pieces, he the classical ones, as would happen a little later with Gungala, for example. But even on Fantabulous, where there was no trace of classical music, Malatesta became crucial because he acted in his old role of orchestra director: My experience in that area ended with the Modern Jazz Gang, I didn’t exactly feel cut out to conduct an orchestra of professionals… Malatesta also got in touch with Alessandroni, at that time his neighbor, and asked him to lend a hand for a couple of sessions with his Cantori Moderni. We had to perform a few phonemes I‘d written with the onomatopoeic language of comics in mind - bang, bam, flip, gosh - but which came principally from jazz music culture, starting let’s say from Armstrong until the phrasing of the bebop era, above all with Dizzy Gillespie - spirliudoo, uriukkù. That was the most interesting and stimulating thing for me of course. I wasn’t totally convinced by the finished article, despite the impeccable performances, but the sessions available to us had finished and we had to make do with what we had. For that reason in the mixing session we put a lot of reverb on the vocals, maybe even too much because we ended up with a kind of dreamy mishmash in which the words, actually more those scat-jazz phonemes, lost their vital essence.

I gave the tracks some interesting titles: Cup, Op, Sal echo the pop spirit and comic-book element of the film and describe the relevant situations. Cup is the cupola, or dome, where the simil-Spectre commanded by Adolfo Celi gathers. Op stands for operation, the brain-changing of the protagonist (but Op is also Op Art....I’ve always liked playing with words). Sal is salita (going up). Vol is volo (flight) and so on… Spina was really happy that the language of comics found its way onto the soundtrack score.

Fantabulous was a great experience, and it’s a shame that the soundtrack has remained unknown to this day, practically “unreleased.” At the time I tried to convince the publisher, Aberbach, and the record company, Beat, to print some LPs, at least to circulate the record around Rai. But the label chose not to risk too much, being relatively young, and issued a limited run of very few copies (without any cover, in order to save money on the design). That’s why this record today basically can’t be found (compared with the 7” with two tracks performed by Gepy, which had undoubtedly a wider release). I’m really happy that, from today, this omission has been rectified thanks to the reprint you have in your hand, and I hope that Fantabulous can finally meet a wider listening public.

SANDRO BRUGNOLINI

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