An Italian jazz saxophonist and flautist travels halfway around the world in the 1950s and 1960s and performs with musicians such as Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Milt Jackson and Frank Sinatra. Mainly, though, Giancarlo Barigozzi works his arse off as a session musician and records a whole series of library music albums in the 1970s. One of them haunts collectors and sample hunters in their wet dreams: Woman’s Colours. Now that the album is being reissued for the first time in more than 50 years, it becomes clear that its status as a holy grail is justified.
The Barigozzi Group, with guitarist Sergio Farina and pianist Oscar Rocchi, do not make things as easy for themselves on the album as the subtitle suggests: »Pop Jazz – Pianoforte Elettronico Wurlitzer«. The electric pianos do play a leading role in the sound of Woman’s Colours, but the triangle of jazz-funk, fusion and Lalo Schifrin film music has more to offer: fuzz guitars and flute solos, bossa rhythms and funky basslines. Above all, though, Woman’s Colours is not a library album that tries, by hook or by crook, to illuminate an overarching theme from as many different musical angles as possible. It is a rare-groove cream piece cast in one piece.
