Jumbo - Progressive Not Suitable for Minors

The progressive saga of Jumbo begins with that of its leader, Alvaro Fella. In the mid-Sixties, the bassist with the raspy voice played in Gianni Pettenati's band, the man who would later go down in history as the "standard-bearer" of "Bandiera Gialla". It was on this very occasion that Fella was noticed by record executive Silvio Crippa, which led him into the orbit of Mogol and Battisti, who signed him to their label, Numero Uno. His first output was nothing too original, consisting of two solo 7-inch singles released under the name "Jumbo", recorded with Lucio Battisti's session musicians; the real opportunity, however, came when Crippa left that old label to join Philips, bringing Alvaro Fella along with him and promising him greater artistic freedom. With this newfound autonomy, to record his first album the musician decided to call up his old friends, with whom he would go on to form the band that, by synecdoche, would take the very name of his recording alter-ego: Jumbo. And so, around the charismatic figure of singer and multi-instrumentalist Alvaro Fella, gathered Daniele Bianchini (guitar), Dario Guidotti (flute, harmonica, guitars), Sergio Conte (keyboards), Vito Balzano (drums) and Alberto Agazzi (bass), who would soon be replaced by Aldo Gargano. All of them were versatile figures, whose eclectic spirit translated into a progressive rock far removed from the conventions of the Italian scene, blending in touches of folk and blues sensibility, under the banner of Fella's controversial lyrics, which found very few equals in Italy at the time (Biglietto per l'Inferno, Museo Rosenbach and the early Juri Camisasca) — and even looking beyond our borders, it's hard to find truly fitting comparisons.

As the summer of 1971 draws to a close, the band is putting the finishing touches on their debut album, Jumbo, which for reasons never fully explained – perhaps due to the label executives' skepticism – is not released until April 1972, by which point the second LP is already being assembled. The debut album has a predominantly acoustic sound that bears little to no resemblance to their later work. Nonetheless, Jumbo is a well-produced record, poised between folk and blues; right from the opening track, "Oggi sarò là", it's clear we're already edging close to Yardbirds territory. The tracklist does, however, contain a timid twist toward prog in the flutes of "Ho visto piangere" and "Che senso ha", which also offer a first bittersweet taste of Fella's acid-tongued lyrics (“Chinati davanti ad un potente/ saper piegar la schiena è conveniente/ l’educazione che senso ha?”).

Right around the time the first album is released, the second one, DNA, also sees the light of day, recorded in a single week and first pressed in 5,000 copies in October 1972. The album comes out just a few months after the debut, showing remarkable artistic maturity, matched by a prolific run of live shows that culminated in an appearance at the well-known "Festival della Musica d'Avanguardia e delle Nuove Tendenze".

The album kicks off with the electrifying "Suite per il Signor K.", a composition with Kafkaesque undertones split into three parts, running over 20 minutes in total. The first section, "Sta accadendo qualcosa dentro me", opens with piano, acoustic guitar and flute setting up a mysterious atmosphere, with heavy electric guitar riffs flashing like lightning bolts to announce an imminent change, a stirring that's about to shake the ordinary life of an everyman ("Ho avuto la voce e non posso gridare/ ho avuto il pensiero e non posso più pensare/ ma dentro qualcosa mi uccide ogni giorno/ mi fa stare male, se solo guardo intorno/ sta accadendo qualcosa dentro me").

After a distorted electric guitar comes in alongside an intricate rhythmic passage, we're dragged into the great regret of the second part, "Ed ora corri", the best of the three movements, recalling the more eccentric sections of Jethro Tull ("Non ti curavi del bene e del male/ eri occupato a salire le scale"). When a long instrumental passage fades out, "Dio è" (a reworking from their first album) takes over to close out this triptych on a more classical note, bringing together piano, flute, acoustic and electric guitar, while Alvaro Fella builds toward a solemn crescendo that leads to a new, bitter realization: "Ho detto preghiere imparate a memoria/ ho pianto e ho odiato la smania di storia/ ho speso notti intere a cercare un perché, ma poi ho capito che/ Dio è l'amore che ho per la mia donna/ Dio è l'amore che ho per la gente/ Dio è l'amore che si dà per niente". It's a very different kind of suite from the lavish ones crafted by Premiata Forneria Marconi, for instance, but it holds together thanks to the musicians' skill in channeling the lyrics' visceral emotions through the instrumentation.

The second side opens with "Miss Rand": it starts off with a highly compelling riff, while the central section develops through contrast with a ragtime-style piano, before returning to the opening theme at a slower, more dramatic pace. The house is on fire, and "with the house, Miss Rand burned down too"; the reference is to Ayn Rand, a Russian-born American writer and philosopher who championed a movement called "objectivism", arguing that every man should exist for himself, exploring reality with the only tool at his disposal: reason.

The decadent “È brutto sentirsi vecchi” then shows the toll that time takes on the human body and psyche, with Fella's voice either unsettling or delighting the listener, but never leaving us indifferent as it drags us into his bleak, aged vision: “È brutto sentire il bisogno di piangere/ se gli anni che hai sono così pochi/ non avere la forza nemmeno di amare/ solo di stare da solo con te/ Non fidarti nemmeno dell’amico più caro/ non avere il coraggio di pensare a domani“.

The musical psychoanalysis of Mister K.'s behavior is brought to a close in "Hai visto…", confusingly christened, until an Emerson-esque organ takes over, restoring order out of chaos. Shortly after, Fella's voice finally returns to the fray, interrupted only by lightning-fast guitar solos and wild organ-and-flute duets, to recite his final lament: "Hai visto il mondo strisciare sullo sterco/ hai visto i tuoi fratelli chiedere perdono/ hai visto la luce gridare condanna/ hai visto… più niente".

DNA is a combination of heavy molecules of progressive and blues-rock, not even sparing a few obscure classical references. It's worth borrowing Bianchini's own words, who described the purpose of Jumbo's music as being to "freely tell what everyone already knows but no one says out of convenience, hypocrisy, exploitation. To denounce, condemn and reject all of that".

In 1973 it's finally time for the third LP, which brings drummer Tullio Granatello into the Jumbo fold, greatly boosting the band's rhythmic expressiveness. Forbidden to Minors Under 18? is born this way, with that question mark tacked on at the end, as if to ask why certain subjects were still off-limits in Italy. On the cover, we find a wary little girl wanting to snoop around her parents' bedroom, in much the same way an entire nation would like to peer beyond the fake truths being fed to it by television. Jumbo answer that question with eight songs tackling some of the most uncomfortable topics of a hypocritical, moralistic society; here, then, homosexuality, masturbation, marginalization, alcoholism, drug addiction, prostitution and religion are addressed without filters, never hidden behind haughty wording or fake allegories. Fella's lyrics paint a crueler, more real Italy, one that also quietly voices its own questions, only to have them answered solely by old-guard conformists, thereby blocking any form of generational dialogue.

The opening can only be in media res, and "Specchio" starts off by immediately putting the listener in a deeply uncomfortable position: “Avevo sette anni quella volta che in colonia bagnai il letto/ mi fecero percorrere il lungo corridoio che portava alle docce tirandomi per le orecchie/ schernito da tutti/ ero nudo”. Opened with this image of startling nakedness, the track then continues in an even more uneasy fashion, right up to its raw finale ("Continuo a masturbarmi e son sicuro non avrò mai un figlio"). Yet Alvaro Fella's voice, throughout this awkward confession, remains strong and convinced, making it one of the most credible voices on the Italian progressive scene.

Daniele Bianchini's guitar lets out a dirty tone, uncomfortably mirroring Alvaro Fella's dragging delivery, while Dario Guidotti and Sergio Conte, on winds and percussion, round out a picture of claustrophobic ineptitude. Drawing on a simple letter to the editor that Fella had read in a newspaper, sent in by a young man with clear existential troubles, Jumbo invite the listener to reflect on topics that were then taboo, such as homosexuality and masturbation, and they do so with the empathetic power of a first-person account.

Having looked in the mirror, the verdict can only be the inadequacy voiced in "Come vorrei essere uguale a te". The themes of loneliness and marginalization are sublimated into music through the echo of a piano, which then gives way to acoustic and electric guitar, over the steady new rhythm driven by newcomer Tullio Granatello. Against this harsh backdrop, Alvaro Fella sings in an increasingly dusty, worn timbre, right up to the explosion of resignation in the finale ("C'è tanta amarezza nel mio cuore").

The brief "Il ritorno del signor K" (a sequel to the track from DNA) is followed by the grim "Via larga", a violent tale of love and prostitution with a brutal ending, once again based on real-life events. Lines like "Ogni sera in una via del centro vendevi te stessa, contrattavi il tuo corpo, come si fa al mercato rionale con la carne di maiale. Poi al mattino tornavi a casa, lui ti vuotava le tasche e se i soldi non erano sufficienti ti prendeva a ceffoni" fully convey a brutal story of violence and submission, closer to the themes of the poètes maudits or the gritty writing of Bukowski and Miller than to the progressive albums of the same era.

"Gil" seemingly lightens the mood, a jam recorded with guest keyboardists Franco Battiato and Angelo Vaggi – amid bells and synths – and percussionist Lino "Capra" Vaccina (of Aktuala): it's a rather deconstructed piece, wrapped in a psychedelic blanket built from layers of mellotron, synthesizers and ethnic percussion, aiming to turn the agony of drug addiction into music.

In "Vangelo?", if any doubts remained, we find the reason why Jumbo were banned from radio airplay. The lyrics are decidedly blunt, dealing head-on with onanism (that is, masturbation), seen at the time as a sinful practice that led to monstrous, deforming illnesses. Fella responds with sublime sarcasm: "Se tutto ciò fosse vangelo noi vivremmo in un mondo di pazzi/ se tutto ciò fosse vangelo il mondo sarebbe pieno di mostri".

Later, after the alcoholic exorcism of "40 gradi", the album reaches its conclusion, and it's an ending that's impossible to forget: "No!" is an angry manifesto against post-Fordist society, the definitive answer to that sarcastic questioning prohibition posed on the cover, with Fella singing his tirade with the force of a punch to the gut ("Diciamo no, a ipocriti e borghesi/ a chi è in mala fede/ a chi non sogna che ricchezza/ ai falsi venditori di parole"), closing the album with a laugh as cathartic as it is hysterical.

Despite a lively touring schedule, commercial success never arrives, and after releasing another single in 1975 ("Vorrei /Il Re dei re del rock'n'roll") Jumbo disband, officially putting a final word on things with the posthumous album 1983 – Violini d'autunno (1992) — bringing to a close what was, without doubt, one of the most original chapters in the Italian progressive scene.

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