Listen to ‘Ciao Italia’ by Bruno Nicolai (Edi-Pan, Italy, 1976).

Everyone likes a bit of Italian library music from time to time, and I’m no exception. Trouble is, it’s often silly money, and then you need to pay the Italian postman to boot. Happily, this particular record was offered to the entire world on ebay but nobody wanted it except me, so it cost a fiver (and I only had to pay that lovely English postie). At such a low price I was expecting a load of old rubbish, but as you will hear in the sound clip, it’s a satisfying hotch-potch of spikey jazz, cheap sounding electronic drum patterns, funky riffs that suddenly wander off down ‘jaunty street’, fuzzy guitar pop/rock instrumentals and sunny bossa. Not to mention the wonderful spoken word interludes that serve as postcards home throughout the record. There is also a smooth vocal number sung by Fred Bongusto. (I wish ‘Bongusto’ was my surname).

‘Ciao Italia’ was released on Bruno Nicolai’s own library label, Edi-Pan, but it appears to be an original soundtrack to a film of the same name that I know nothing about.

Ciao, for now.

Listen to three tunes from the OST to ‘Breezy’ (MCA, 1973, USA) composed by Michel Legrand.

If you are even only slightly diverted by film soundtracks you will be aware of Legrand, a towering figure in jazz and cinematic music for many decades. However, if you find yourself in the camp that doesn’t know its Pinocchio from its Piccioni, then Michel Legrand (or ‘The Big Michael’ as he is known round here), is the composer of ‘The Windmills Of Your Mind’ and ‘The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg’. So, now you know.

His score to this 1973 Clint Eastwood directed movie about an older man finding solace through the love of a nubile young hippy chick (yawn), isn’t an OST one sees around too often, so when it appeared on a very, very long list of soundtrack records being auctioned on ebay a few months back, I picked it out, along with a few other cherries.

To be honest, it doesn’t set the world on fire, which is most likely why it has never  aroused much attention. However, it does have a, dare I say it, breezy, pastoral appeal, which makes for particularly successful, lazy summer listening, experienced at its best on the Shelby Flint sung title song (Flint was once cited by Joni Mitchell as the singer that she most wanted to sound like during the embryonic stage of her career). And of course, it also has a wonderful, long Legrand trademark big band jazz number, subtly fuzzed guitar, dancing electric bass,  horns a-blazing and the man himself at the piano.