An Italian Story
Despite the protestations of navel-gazing pundits, paying tribute to one's artistic forebears has been a part of music for centuries. But young Italian composer Daniele Luppi takes that sensibility into buoyant, if largely unexplored territory on this loving tribute to the musicians who toiled for Morrricone, Rota, Bacalov, and others on the Roman soundtracks of his youth. Reuniting the surviving three-quarters of the original MARC 4 ensemble (the Italian film scoring equivalent of Phil Spector's vaunted studio "Wrecking Crew") and supplementing them with the legendary Allesandro Allesandroni (whose distinctive whistling and other skills became icons via Morricone'sGood, the Bad and the Ugly,A Fistful of Dollars, and others) and guitarists Silvano Chimenti and Luciano Ciccaglioni. The title track and "Fashion Party" are evocative showcases for the revival's possibilities, their loping melodies carried by the gentle, haunting vibrato of Allesandroni's whistle. If Luppi's lounge-savvy fetish for '60s-'70s Italian cinema party scene kitsch occasionally gets the better of his judgement, tracks like the acid-trippy "Free Love Sequence," "Fetish Quartet," and "Jet Set" are delivered with a skewed bravado (liberally seasoned with twanging guitars, exotic percussion, and vintage Moog burbling) that's hard to resist.--Jerry McCulley