Premiata Forneria Marconi - 10 Anni Live, 1971-1981 (1996)

Dice Alberto: si alguno creía que ya había escuchado todo de PFM calculo que esto es la frutilla del postre, una resopilación de sus mejores temas. Hoy empezamos el día con una maravilla. Únicamente lo encontrarán en el blog cabezón, como muchas otras cosas.

Artista: Premiata Forneria Marconi

Álbum: 10 Anni Live, 1971-1981
Año: 1996
Género: Progresivo italiano
Nacionalidad: Italia

Lista de Temas:
CD 1 1971-1972 L'inizio tour italiano
1. 21th century schizoid man (4:39)
2. My God (6:24)
3. Picture of the city (4:39)
4. Bollate guitar jam (5:43)
5. Bollate keyboard jam (7:20)
6. Bouree (3:17)
7. Bouree jam (3:59)
8. La carrozza di Hans (9:26)
9. Dove...quando... (4:23)
CD 2 1973-1974 L'esperienza americana "the world became the world" tour
1. Four holes in the ground (7:26)
2. Is my face on straight (8:41)
3. Cleveland keyboard jam (5:39)
4. Mr. 9 till 5 (5:35)
5. Alta Loma 5 till 9 (11:09)
6. JC violin jam (2:49)
7. Classic violin solo (3:38)
8. William Tell overture (2:08)
9. La carrozza di Hans (6:12)
10. Central Park drum solo (8:37)
11. Impressioni di Settembre (1:01)
12. Poseidon (1:54)
CD 3 1975-1976 In giro per il mondo "Chocolate Kings" tour
1. Four holes in the ground (6:40)
2. Spanish jam (7:55)
3. Pascolo siderale jam (4:41)
4. Mediterranea jam (4:50)
5. Acustic guitar solo (3:00)
6. Paper charms (9:30)
7. La grande fuga (7:09)
8. Chocolate kings (5:01)
9. WB violin jam (5:02)
10. Violin classic solo (2:33)
11. William Tell overture (2:17)
12. Celebration (6:59)
13. Drum solo (4:51)
14. Impressioni di Settembre (0:53)
15. Poseidon (2:07)
1977-1978 Contaminazioni "jet lag" tour, "passpartù" tour
1980-1981 Verso un nuovo rock "performance" tour
1. Out of the roundabout (8:21)
2. Left-handed theory (4:26)
3. Dove...quando... (4:59)
4. Jet lag (10:36)
5. Greek reflection (2:29)
6. Traveller (5:46)
7. Violin suite (4:03)
8. Violin dance (1:41)
9. Violin west dance (1:09)
10. Celebration (5:03)
11. Passpartù (7:56)
12. Suonare suonare (4:28)
13. Maestro della voce (7:17)
14. Chi ha paura della notte ? (6:42)

Alineación:
CD 1:
- Franz Di Cioccio / drums & vocals
- Franco Mussida / acoustic guitar, electric guitar & vocals
- Mauro Pagani / flute, violin & vocals
- Giorgio Piazza / bass & vocals
- Flavio Premoli / Hammond
CD 2:
- Jan Patrick Djivas / bass
- Franz Di Cioccio / drums & vocals
- Franco Mussida / electric guitar, acoustic guitar & vocals
- Mauro Pagani / flute, violin & vocals
- Flavio Premoli / Hammond organ, piano, Mellotron, Moog & vocals
CD 3:
- Jan Patrick Djivas / bass
- Franz Di Cioccio / drums & vocals
- Bernardo Lanzetti / rhythmic guitar & vocals
- Franco Mussida / electric guitar, acoustic guitar & vocals
- Mauro Pagani / flute, violin & vocals
- Flavio Premoli / Hammond organ, piano, Mellotron, Moog & vocals
CD 4:
- Gregory Bloch / violin
- Jan Patrick Djivas / fretless bass
- Franz Di Cioccio / drums & vocals
- Bernardo Lanzetti / rhythmic guitar & vocals
- Franco Mussida / electric guitar, acoustic guitar & vocals

Esto lo tenía pendiente de publicar como tantas otras ocsas que no hago tiempo de reseñar ni de presentar como se debe... se piden colaboradores para ayudarme a armar alguna que otra reseña, eso siempre falta. Imaginen de cosas como ésta que se están perdiendo.

Vamos con el comentario que vale que es el del Mago Alberto, que es quien nos trae estos discos:

Premiata, a estar alturas, cuando ya están veteranos y vienen de vuelta de todo, no creo que se les pueda cuestionar mucho todas sus producciones, por eso su público, sus fans, los incondicionales de la banda, sabrán valorar este posteo, puesto que es lo más completo que van a encontrar por la net, y nos habla de una recopilación de tomas de sus grandes canciones y de un período de 8 años, girando por el mundo, son cuatro discos y las tomas son todas fieles a los registros técnicos de la +epoca y fieles a la estructura de como fueron hechas, por lo tanto si alguno creía que ya había escuchado todo de PFM calculo que esto es la frutilla del postre, encima en el apogeo de la década setentosa. Los cabezones "posta" apenas vean de que se trata van a linkearse esto de primera, a los indecisos, si no aprovechan de toque los links, no vengan dentro de un mes a pedirlos de nuevo, porque eso no va a suceder, o sea, si dormiste ... alpiste.
Si "lo bueno breve es dos veces bueno" como mencione en otras oportunidades, recomiendo sobremanera estos trabajos. Combo de principio de año en la Escuelita de Moe, 4 x 1, no se olviden este año de la cartulina, y de terminar de una buena vez la composicion tema "La Vaca".

Alberto

Y vamos con algunos comentarios en inglés, no todos muy contentos con éste registro a decir verdad...

The first disk starts with a true surprise: very convincing versions of "21st Century Schizoid Man", "My God", "Picture of a City" and "Bourree". The ultimate prog-boy's wet dream! Mauro Pagani's voice at moments does remind one of an early Ian Anderson, albeit with a strange accent. What on earth could he mean with: "Ze bladi surseringlun/intsanes iwistori/requests your urgri presence"? But let's not spend too much time making fun of Italian accents. Too much of that is going on already. I find it brave to start such a box with more than 30 minutes of Crimson and Tull covers. It gives a nice (and sympathetic) insight in the musical origins of the band.
The strange thing is, that they weren't at all inexperienced, starting musicians. PFM's predecessor I Quelli recorded singles as far back as 1965! By 1971 they were true virtuosi. In places they actually add value to the classic Tull- and Crimson-songs! It's a pity, though, that consequently there isn't too much room on the disk for PFM-originals. With only 50 minutes this disk is by far the shortest of the set. It ends with "La Carozza Di Hans" and "Dove***Quando" from their first LP, "Storia di un Minuto". For much more material of their first period, you'll have to get the CD "Bobo Club 2000 - 1972" (Prehistoric Label, PR 02), but the sound quality of that CD is far inferior to this Japanese box.
The second disk is bound to be the least interesting, because much of the material from that time has been released as the live-album "Cook". Still,PFM was one of those bands that never mechanically played what they once recorded in the studio. They have always principally been an improvising group. "We try to give more as possible", as one of them states on disk 2. Bass-player Giorgio Piazza had been replaced by Pat Djivas, who was an excellent (improvisational) jazz-rock-bassist with cult-band Area, and that surely shows. By 1974, PFM no longer was a "symphonic" rockband. Older songs recieved a face-lift, and became more jazzy. Most people who are into PFM object slightly to this trend, but personally, I love their interpretation of "jazz-rock". All this means, that disk 2 is certainly not a rip-off of "Cook". Apart from the obvious things (the violin-solo evolving into Rossini's "William Tell Overture", it contains at least one gem: an incredibly funky version of "La Carrozza di Hans", the best I have ever heard.
Disk 3 shows the further development of PFM towards a more rocky, jazzy sound. Franco Mussida's guitar becomes more and more dominant. He has a variety of styles, sometimes playing in the vein of Steve Howe, then again sounding distinctly like Frank Zappa. This disk is virtually one big improvisation, with well known themes passing by. These last two disks contain recordings exclusively from Italy, so the interaction between group and audience is in Italian. That sounds much nicer then their English experience. The group has had many lead-singers, and on the last two disks of this box, it is Bernardo Lanzetti from Acqua Fragile. He has a voice with which many fans have their problems. I once heard him described as "Peter Gabriel with laryngitis". But since most of PFM's music is instrumental, it doesn't really matter.
Disk 3 is of the "Chocolate Kings"-tour, and contains some very strong versions of the already quite energetic songs of that album. Also another violin solo with Rossini. Not a very strong version, in my opinion, and the disk would've been better off without it. It isn't long, though. "Celebration" and the standard finale (drum-solo, "Impressioni di Settembre" and "Poseidon" finish this disk.
Disk 4 - Towards the end of the seventies, when Mauro Pagani had left to pursue his solo-career, Franco Mussida clearly became the frontman of PFM. His guitar-playing dominates the first half of this disk, where "Jet Lag" is played almost in its entirety, culminating in the wonderful "traveler", with its hypnotic theme. Due to Pagani's absence, we hear no more flutes, but the violin-parts have been ably taken up by Gregory Bloch, who freaks out on the second part of disk 4. A little less subtle, perhaps, than Pagani, his more electrical style of playing fits in really well with the rest of the band.
My final conclusion:
This box is an absolute must, not just for PFM-completists, but for everyone interested in clever, complex symphonic or progressive rock. The sound quality is excellent. Together with "Performance" (1982) you have an complete idea of how PFM sounded during their hey-days. The price is a bit of a drag, but I'ld say: go for it. It's well worth it.

Robert Eksteen

A couple of weeks ago I could place my hands on the last CD of this collection, because the store owner sold the 4 disks individually, it took me almost 6 months to complete the box set and to be honest I don't know if it was worth the effort and the price paid.
A real box set ot collection IMO must combine studio classics, rare B-sides or radio sessions, and some live performances, but in this case it's only a compilation of 10 years of live concerts.
The individual songs are excellent, taken from the best PFM era 1971 - 1981 we can listen many classic masterpieces by a band who were always strong on stage, but on the other hand, the production sucks, some of the CD's have bootleg quality and many tracks are repeated 2 or even 3 times which could be acceptable if we were talking about different versions in English and Italian, but tracks as "La Carroza di Hans" are sung only in Italian and "William Tell Overture" is a short instrumental repeated almost exactly in three CD's, it's really a waste of money to have almost identical versions.
The sound is almost in an excellent bootleg quality, but this is not enough for such an ambitious project as a 4 CD Live Anthology.
The best CD IMHO is N° 2 "L'Experienza Americana", recorded in New York and Cleveland in 1973-1974 from "The World Became the World Tour", album in which can be appreciated the effort that the band had to do in order to be accepted in USA, daring to play "La Carroza di Hans" in Italian, something not very common in the early 70's and of course the excellent version of "Four Holes in the Ground".
It's great to have the complete 4 disks set for a compulsive collector like myself, but I'm not sure many fans are willing to expend 100 hard earned bucks in a box that doesn't represent a clear perspective of the band because it's limited to live concerts.
Very hard to rate because the music is outstanding, but would be better for the band to break the box and sell the CD's separated or make a two CD compilation, so I'll give 3 stars even when I don't recommend this set to everybody.
If you are a PFM newbie, stay away from this box and buy the first three classics before anything (Storia di un Minuto, Per un Amico and Photos of Ghosts), then if you really like the band you can go with later albums like "Chocolate Kings", Jet Lag"or "Passpartú", if this is not enough for you, only then buy this collection ideal for die hard fans and obsessive collectors.

Iván Melgar

Not worth the money, or the wading through all the "jams", and putting up with the questionable sound quality. I think I could distill all of this material down to one good disc. I haven't heard the recent live stuff ( I noticed that the Japan shows album from a couple of years ago had tracks that were never done live back in the 70's) . Maybe that is the way to go.

soundsweird

The present box set deserves another half star at least, in spite of its weak production...well, first of all it doesn't include true unpublished songs live on stage, because They have focused their choice around some jam sessions, during their best concerts within 10 years of fertile activity, all over the world .such an improvisational stuff has been sometimes replaced by pleasant songs and this fact has been criticized: of course their simple tunes make the box set more accessible...therefore, by reminding you of the early period, in which PFM opened the concerts of Gentle Giant supporting them in a splendid way, I point out the importance of their cover songs and in particular "21st century schizoid man" by King Crimson or "Bourrèe" by Jethro Tull, because here the interplay (especially between Maurizio Pagani and Mussida), supported by Premoli on bass guitar, was fantastic!! Then the immortal "La Carrozza di Hans" (still nowadays played live by PFM), without forgetting the other ever-green song of classical music, entitled "Dove. quando", are always important must-have!! Even though often They paid their tribute to the old Genesis or King Crimson, it's not so important.as a matter of fact CD #2 has been recorded in the USA in the early seventies, including a lot of excellent solos such as that one of "Four Holes in the ground", which reminds us of the best performances from a few English "heroes" of prog music. but also the other jam sessions included into CD #3, recorded in the other countries and always starting with the same track, are such a perfect Italian reply to the famous "Albion land", which generated a lot of immortal progressive rock stuff. At the end all the remaining tracks (regarding of their performances since 1975 and later) included into CD #4, in spite of containing minor episodes, such as that one inside "Jet lag",were characterized by the presence of a remarkable musician with his excellent violin, Mr Bloch, and for me that's quite interesting anyway.instead I don't like the last three tunes, coming from " Performance" (dated 1982), witnessing their inevitable decline, but it's a minor question, because almost all the best material has been collected here!!

Lorenzo

Great box including the best period of PFM. Terrific covers of King Crimson and Jethro Tull in the CD#1, showing what an influence these bands were for PFM, but unfortunately the sound quality is poor. The other 3 cds have better but far from stunning sound quality. There are some songs with 2 versions, but contrary to other reviewer I enjoyed the subtle differences and the long jams. Excellent live performances of all musicians. Almost all material is good, except the last song in cd#4 (Chi ha paura della notte), an uninspired and excessively poppy mainstream song, completely distinct from the other 50 tracks! I appreciated the "fusion" material from JET LAG and PASSPARTU albums (CD#4), which I never had heard of, clearly influenced by the outstanding Weather Report. Despite the abusive price and other minor points, it is surely a must for true fans of European prog and particularly PFM

Jose Carlos

Espero que les guste el regalito que les traemos hoy... y algunas otras cosas que nos faltan publicar. No le pierdan el hilo ni la pista al blog cabezón, y si los M&M Boys nos tiuran abajo el blog, recuérdenmos con cariño...