* 500 copies. 180 gr. Red vinyl, 50th anniversary edition *  First album from the one of the best Italian jazz-rock band (formed in Rome in 71), and the first of a few masterpieces in a row, all of them being distinctive from one another. Perigeo has their sound somewhere between Free Jazz, Soft Machine, Nucleus and Miles Davis' Bitches Brew period.  Rising on spacey noises, the sublime Posto Di Non Dove starts to grab you with a quiet electric piano over a Floyd-like organ and Tommaso’s superb scatting vocals. Halfway through, the song changes abruptly with a strong repetitive descending riff on bass and guitar, while D’Andrea’s piano is reminiscent of Keith Tippet, while Tommaso’s singing takes on another lovely direction. The lengthy Grandangolo is a track filled with dissonant bits accompanying a pedestrian bass, before the track settles into a groove with Fasoli’s doubled or tripled sax gives a bit of a brass rock chorus. Around the half of the track, the need to go higher is felt and the group increased the tempo a bit. The short and tense Aspettando was with is a relatively common track.

The lengthy title track opening the flipside starting on a bowed contrabass and Tippett-like piano are leading the tune to unsuspected peak somewhere not too far from Alice Coltrane, while Sidney’s guitar finally gets a few lines, but the track returns to Tommasso’s superb bass and D’Andrea’s awesome piano, until it fades out. The aptly-titled short Un Respiro is Tommasso’s vocals over quiet sax fills. 36th Parallel closes out by giving some exposition to Fasoli’s sax lines and Biriaco’s drums first, then Tommasso’s bass, going dissonant again,

Quite an outstanding debut album, Azimut failed to attract much attention to itself, something the group’s second album “Abbiamo….” would, as well as its Genealogia successor. It must be noted that in Azimut, the band might have well had been a quartet for young Tony Sidney’s guitar is more than discreet and apart a few loud moments, it’s almost inexistent. But in either case, this will not stop Azimut to be a highly recommended debut album that all fans of Nucleus and Tippett must own.