Area (band)

Area (Area - International POPular Group) was an Italian jazz rock band that was initially active in the 1970s and has existed with interruptions to the present day.

history

Beginnings

The first line-up of the as yet nameless group met in 1971. The musical experiences of the band members came from jazz , electronic music and the avant-garde . As an underground band, they relied on appearances, which, however, often took place in traditional dance halls and not infrequently ended in tumult, as they were accused by the audience and organizers that their music was not suitable for dancing.

From the phrase "Increases the area ( Area ) of consciousness" by Allen Ginsberg finally borrowed its name.

The Demetrio Stratos years 1973–1979

In 1973 the first album was released with the provocative title Arbeit Macht Frei , the scornful gate label of National Socialist concentration camps . The musicians on the debut album were Demetrio Stratos (vocals), Giulio Capiozzo (drums), Victor Edouard Busnello (saxophone and flute), Leandro Gaetano (piano), Johnny Lambizzi (guitar), Patrick Djivas (bass) and Patrizio Fariselli (keyboards) . Shortly thereafter, Lambizzi left the band and was replaced by Paolo Tofani. Area played concerts at the Paris Biennale and went on a tour of Chile .

In 1974 Eddie Busnello and Patrick Djivas also left the band. While the bassist role was newly filled with Ares Tavolazzi , the saxophonist position remained vacant, which gave the band a more rock-oriented sound. In the same year the album Caution Radiation Area was released , which was followed by a self-organized tour of Italy . They dedicated the song Lobotomia to Ulrike Meinhof , which at the Pop Festival in Bern “created hysterical scenes among the audience, not only because of its aggressiveness, but also because of the interpretive technique”.

In 1975 the albums Crac! and the live album Are (A) zione and a year later the concept album Maledetti , which was performed with Steve Lacy at a concert in Milan . The popularity of the band (especially among politically left-wing youth) was supported by the independent radio stations that were extremely popular in Italy at the time and that gave Area a lot of attention and a lot of airplay . On April 29th and 30th, 1976, the band gave a big concert under the title Anto / Logicamento , the name of their next album in 1977. At this point, Paolo Tofani left the group, who, like Patrizio Fariselli and singer Demetrio Stratos , released a solo album.

Up to this point, all of the band's albums had been released by the small record label Cramps , which belonged to the bustling Fluxus fan Gianni Sassi, who was at times an unofficial member of the band, as he was responsible for many of the art activities in which Area was involved . In 1978 the group switched to the Ascolto label , which belonged to the Compagnia Generale del Disco and on which their 1978 album Gli Dei Se Ne Vanno, Gli Arrabbiati Restano! appeared, the last album with Demetrio Stratos , who left Area to be able to “devote himself entirely to his vocal experiments”. Finally, a live album of concerts by the band from 1976 was released on Cramps in 1979.

On June 13, 1979, Demetrio Stratos died of heart failure in a New York hospital while waiting for a bone marrow transplant . He was 34 years old.

The years after Demetrio Stratos 1980–1986

Tic & Tac , their sixth studio album, was released in 1980. Area then, in collaboration with Theater Nuova Scena and director Memè Perlini Gli Uccelli (" The Birds "), published a classic Greek comedy by Aristophanes . Gli Uccelli was performed over a hundred times by 1981. At this point, Larry Nocella joined the band.

1982 edited the band, again together with Nuova Scena, Tristano e Isotta (" Tristan und Isolde ") and performed it as a performance with dance and music under the choreography of Amedeo Amodio . In 1983 Area finally broke up because the musicians wanted to pursue their own musical projects from now on. In 1986 drummer Giulio Capiozzo tried to build on the success of the original band with the Area II project and also released two studio albums with various session musicians.

The first reunion: 1993-2000

In 1993 Patrizio Fariselli, Giulio Capiozzo and Ares Tavolazzi resurrected the band as a live project. After Ares Tavolazzi left the group soon, he was replaced by Paolo Dalla Porta and Pietro Condorelli.

With Chernobyl 7991 , in which the saxophonist Stefano Bedetti was also involved, the seventh and final studio album of the band was released in 1997.

In 1998 Marco Micheli replaced Dalla Porta and Angela Baggi joined the band. Area toured until 1999 before the band split up. Capiozzo died in 2000.

The second reunion: 2009

Patrizio Fariselli, Ares Tavolazzi and Paolo Tofani, Capiozzo's son Christian on drums and Mauro Pagani as singer played a concert in Siena on August 25, 2009 as part of the "La Città Aromatica", a festival launched in memory of Demetrio Stratos . On another occasion, Fariselli, Tavolazzi and Tofani as well as UT Gandhi (Umberto Trombetta) on drums in the San Lazzaro di Savena Theater in Bologna as part of the "StratosFerico: Omaggio a Demetrio Stratos" at the end of January 2010, also in honor of Demetrio Stratos. On May 2nd, 2010 Fariselli, Tofani and Tavolazzi came together again to perform at the New York Brecht Forum , accompanied by drummers Walter Paoli and Mauro Pagani.

A reunion tour with Fariselli, Tavolazzi, Tofani, drummer Walter Paoli and as a guest Mauro Pagani , who were repeatedly joined by guests such as singer Maria Pia De Vito , finally started on September 21, 2010 in Milan at the Blue Note Club ,

In November 2012 Area released a live double CD entitled Live 2012 . In 2015 the band gave a concert at Fabbrica54 in Piacenza, where Annie Barbazza was a guest .

reception

Area had tried from the beginning to make its own music, free of foreign schemes. That was not easy in Italy because the Italian music market had also been inundated by Anglo-American productions since the late 1950s . The Italian music editor Claudio de Rocco wrote in 1980: "Area and PFM ( Premiata Forneria Marconi ), on the other hand, proposed music that was firmly rooted in Italian culture". Her debut album Arbeit Macht Frei was received very badly by critics in Italy, but for de Rocco it was “the beginning of a radical music that on the one hand rejected imported neo-romantic music and on the other hand gave impetus to the way new music was made gives."

Area built a steady following through constant touring through Italy. Concerts were not just concerts, they were more like a confrontation with the audience. During Italy's cultural boom in the mid- 1970s , live events of all kinds were more popular than ever. Area understood perfectly how to reconcile the feeling of community that goes with it, but also the longing for personal development of each individual, whether listener or musician. Mainly because they faced their own contradictions as well as those of cultural and political developments. This gave them the necessary credibility, while other groups took refuge in fairy tale worlds. De Rocco: “It was precisely the contact with the audience and their emotions that formed the basic score in Area's music”.

In the mid- 1970s , Area developed more and more into an artist troupe, “in which every single musician (penetrated) into the various fields of music: the intellectual points of reference are refined, contemporary music and the anti-conformist movements in literature are studied of the 19th century ”(de Rocco). For de Rocco, the Auto / Logicamente album was the result of these “musical investigations”.

Discography

Area's albums were all only available as imports in Germany in the 1970s . It was not until the beginning of the new century that they were first released on CD in Germany.

Albums

• 1973: Arbeit Macht Frei (LP, Cramps)
• 1974: Caution Radiation Area (LP, Cramps)
• 1975: Crac! (LP, Cramps)
• 1975: Are (A) zione (LP, Cramps)
• 1976: Maledetti (Maudits) (LP, Cramps)
• 1978: 1978 Gli Dei Se Ne Vanno, Gli Arrabbiati Restano! (LP, Ascolto)
• 1979: Event '76 (Live in Milan, October 26, 1976) (LP, Cramps)
• 1980: Tic & Tac (LP, Ascolto)
• 1996: Concerto Teatro Uomo (Live in Milan, April 29-30, 1976) (2CD, Cramps)
• 1996: Parigi-Lisbona (Live in Paris and Lisbon, 1976) (CD, Cramps)
• 1997: Chernobyl 7991 (CD, Nikto)
• 2004: Live in Torino 1977 (2CD, Akarma)
• 2012: Live 2012 (2CD, Up Art)

Singles

• 1973: L'Abbattimento Dello Zeppelin / Arbeit Macht Frei (7 ", Cramps)
• 1974: L'Internazionale / Citazione Da George L. Jackson (7 ", Cramps)

Compilations

• 1977: Anto / Logicamente (LP, Cramps)
• 1980: Area '70 (LP, Cramps)
• 1996: Gioia e Rivoluzione (CD, Cramps)
• 2013: Area (3CD, Cramps)

Box sets

• 2002: Live Concerts (with the albums "Concerto Teatro Uomo" and "Parigi-Lisbona") (3CDs, Akarma)
• 2002: Revolution (with the albums "Arbeit Macht Frei", "Caution Radiation Area", "Crac!" And "Are (A) zione") (4CD, Akarma)
• 2013: The Essential Box Set Collection (with the albums "Arbeit Macht Frei", "Caution Radiation Area", "Crac!", "Are (A) zione", "Maledetti (Maudits)" and "Event 76") (6CD , Cramps)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Claudio de Rocco, in Rock Session 4, rororo, September 1980, page 364
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Archived copy ( memento of the original dated December 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ https://www.antonellapavese.com/2006/10/the-life-and-times-of-demetrio-stratos/
4. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20090525101114/http://www.cinellicolombini.it/En/eventi%20territorio.php
5. ↑ http://guide.supereva.it/musica_progressive/interventi/2010/01/reunion-degli-area-per-due-concerti-a-san-lazzaro
6. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20110725182340/http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=11632&reset=1
7. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from December 22, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ Claudio de Rocco was an Italian music editor who worked in Florence at Contro, one of the independent ("democratic", as de Rocco called them) broadcasters that were founded throughout Italy in the mid-1970s. For Rock Session 4 he wrote an article about Area in 1980 for the "Lexicon of Outsiders" section. De Rocco was considered an expert on Italian prog rock at the time.
9. ^ Richard Young, "From cantautori to posse: Sociopolitical Discourse, Engagement and Antagonism in the Italian Music scene from the 60s to the 90s", 2002. Access via: doi: 10.1163 / 9789004334120_002