Le Orme were another of those bands coming from the beat era that had the most
convincing musical evolution in the 70's. They were formed in Marghera
(nearVenice) in1966 but their debut came in 1967 with the single Fiori e colori,
recorded by the original four-piece line-up.
The band had a successful single with Senti l'estate che torna and recorded their first album Ad Gloriam at the end of 1968, releasing it the following year.
Housed
in a psychy sleeve the album is still regarded as one of the best in the Italian
beat, with the music having a slight psychedelic touch in songs like Io non
so restare solo, Fumo, Milano 1968.
In 1970 the band signed a contract with Philips, that
released their subsequent 10 albums in ten years. The old label Car Juke Box
released L'Aurora, a compilation of their singles tracks that's also very
rare now.
First album with Philips, and their first as a trio was Collage, with Aldo Tagliapietra having switched from guitar to bass and the band having now a keyboards based sound like foreign groups such as ELP. They had also made a trip to London to follow the current music evolution. A very good album, Collage contains some of their best tracks ever like Sguardo verso il cielo and Cemento armato.
With a great live following the band released a new
album in 1972, Uomo di pezza, with a distinctive fantasy gatefold cover.
The album was very successful, as the single taken from it, Gioco di bimba,
that many of their fans disliked being too melodic. In the same year the band
left the open-air festival circuit and began individual tours, with important
guests such as Peter Hammill.
1973 saw the release of an ambitious concept album, Felona
e Sorona, based on the story of these two planets. A beautiful album,
containing a long suite, it also gave the band high placements in the LP and
singles charts (with the single Felona in this case). The sound was more
original, with the keyboards of Pagliuca being the leading instrument and the
delicate original voice of Tagliapietra giving a distinctive touch.
Le Orme made
their first English tour that year, and Felona e Sorona was also translated in
English and released by Charisma in the UK, but with little success.
Coming back to Italy, they were the most popular live group at the time, and decided to release a live album, In concerto in 1974. This was the first live album by an Italian rock band and a very successful one, though the recording quality was far from today's standards. The album also included an unreleased track, the side-long Truck of fire.
Contrappunti, released the same year, was a
lower level effort in comparison with the previous works, with long instrumental
parts (three of the seven tracks were instrumental) and producer Gian Piero
Reverberi mentioned in the cover notes as a band member on piano.
Probably in search of a new sound the band enroled a
fourth member, guitarist extraordinaire Tolo Marton (from
Raptus), for their next album Smogmagica.
And the album, recorded in Los Angeles, has in fact a different sound,
with less predominance left to keyboards and the guitar in evidence, with spacey tracks
like Laserium Floyd (with obvious Pink Floyd influences) or Laurel
Canyon. The album was not entirely convincing, and newcomer Marton soon left the
band, replaced by another guitarist, Germano Serafin.
With the new member they released next album Verità
nascoste in 1976, a very good one and probably their last good album for
many years. A hit single was also taken from it with Regina al Troubadour,
and the album, despite some melodic songs has some very good moments like Insieme
al concerto and Vedi Amsterdam.
Like Felona & Sorona this album was also recorded in an English-sung
version for foreign markets, but Secret truths was never released, though
it exists in bootleg form.
From 1977 the band entered its worst period, releasing albums like Storia o leggenda and Florian having a stronger classical influences and on a lower level than their previous works.
This lasted until 1982, when the group broke up for the first time.
Aldo Tagliapietra released a rock-oriented solo album in 1984, then the band
temporarily reunited
in 1986 for a single, but only in 1990 they returned together, again with Philips
for a pop album.
A new split came, with Toni Pagliuca beginning a solo career and the other two members (Tagliapietra and Dei Rossi) reforming the band, this time with two keyboardists, Michele Bon and Francesco Sartori. The revived group began touring again, and made its debut with Amico di ieri, a CD issued in 1997 containing remakes of tracks from their whole repertoire. Later in the same year they released a very good brand new album, Il fiume, closer to their early 70's sound. The album had a good success and the band was also invited to the Los Angeles Progfest in May 1997.
Many other important foreign
dates followed in these years.
In 2001 another nice album, Elementi, housed in a nice cover by Paul Whitehead (of Genesis fame) featured last recruit, keyboardist/violinist Andrea Bassato, their sound consistently enriched by the unusual sampled guitar sounds by Michele Bon, played on a self-made keyboard, and it seemed that Le Orme had definitely found a second youth.
The third chapter in this trilogy of revamped prog works came in 2004, entitled
L'infinito, on the same level as the previous ones, the group
having now a slightly different sound than in the past, more based on piano and guitar,
but the quality of their works is still very high, just like their live
set.
2004 also saw new live appearances by Toni
Pagliuca, who played with ethno-prog band Malaavia from Naples in many
dates, adding to that band's live set some old classics by Le Orme. In the same
year Pagliuca released two interesting CD's, both only issued in limited
pressing and now hard to find, Demos a Marghera, including studio
recordings from 2003 and 2004, and the live Re-Collage (as its name
suggests, based on the classic Collage album) with help from Van Der
Graaf' Generator's sax player David Jackson and Massimo Donà Quintet.
At the beginning of 2008 Andrea Bassato left Le Orme, that remained in activity as a trio, with Tagliapietra, Dei Rossi and Bon. In the same year the group released, first in limited edition reserved to the Fan Club members and later in official form, a 2CD+1DVD box set taken from their live appearance at the Nearfest, in Pennsylvania, in 2005.
In November 2009 Aldo Tagliapietra announced his retirement from Le Orme after 40 years. The other musicians, Michi dei Rossi and Michele Bon, still using the name Le Orme, decided to go on with bass and guitar player Fabio Trentini and with help from Jimmy Spitaleri (the singer of Metamorfosi) in concert.
This line-up released an official bootleg, recorded live in 2010 and only sold by their Fan Club, entitled Progfiles - Live in Rome and embarked in a long tour to promote the album La via della seta.
The group led by Michi dei Rossi released in 2016 a double album called Felona e Sorona 2016, containing the full remake of the historical 1973 album in both Italian and English version.
The band had a successful single with Senti l'estate che torna and recorded their first album Ad Gloriam at the end of 1968, releasing it the following year.
First album with Philips, and their first as a trio was Collage, with Aldo Tagliapietra having switched from guitar to bass and the band having now a keyboards based sound like foreign groups such as ELP. They had also made a trip to London to follow the current music evolution. A very good album, Collage contains some of their best tracks ever like Sguardo verso il cielo and Cemento armato.
Coming back to Italy, they were the most popular live group at the time, and decided to release a live album, In concerto in 1974. This was the first live album by an Italian rock band and a very successful one, though the recording quality was far from today's standards. The album also included an unreleased track, the side-long Truck of fire.
From 1977 the band entered its worst period, releasing albums like Storia o leggenda and Florian having a stronger classical influences and on a lower level than their previous works.
A new split came, with Toni Pagliuca beginning a solo career and the other two members (Tagliapietra and Dei Rossi) reforming the band, this time with two keyboardists, Michele Bon and Francesco Sartori. The revived group began touring again, and made its debut with Amico di ieri, a CD issued in 1997 containing remakes of tracks from their whole repertoire. Later in the same year they released a very good brand new album, Il fiume, closer to their early 70's sound. The album had a good success and the band was also invited to the Los Angeles Progfest in May 1997.
In 2001 another nice album, Elementi, housed in a nice cover by Paul Whitehead (of Genesis fame) featured last recruit, keyboardist/violinist Andrea Bassato, their sound consistently enriched by the unusual sampled guitar sounds by Michele Bon, played on a self-made keyboard, and it seemed that Le Orme had definitely found a second youth.
At the beginning of 2008 Andrea Bassato left Le Orme, that remained in activity as a trio, with Tagliapietra, Dei Rossi and Bon. In the same year the group released, first in limited edition reserved to the Fan Club members and later in official form, a 2CD+1DVD box set taken from their live appearance at the Nearfest, in Pennsylvania, in 2005.
In November 2009 Aldo Tagliapietra announced his retirement from Le Orme after 40 years. The other musicians, Michi dei Rossi and Michele Bon, still using the name Le Orme, decided to go on with bass and guitar player Fabio Trentini and with help from Jimmy Spitaleri (the singer of Metamorfosi) in concert.
This line-up released an official bootleg, recorded live in 2010 and only sold by their Fan Club, entitled Progfiles - Live in Rome and embarked in a long tour to promote the album La via della seta.
The group led by Michi dei Rossi released in 2016 a double album called Felona e Sorona 2016, containing the full remake of the historical 1973 album in both Italian and English version.
