THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,500) Piero Umiliani — “Bob And Hellen”
Get ready for an “overload” of joyful and exuberant “coolness” (OakHillAcademy, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j9ruA_skKro&pp=ygUnUGllcm8gVW1pbGlhbmkg4oCUIOKAnEJvYiBBbmQgSGVsbGVu4oC) from “one of the unsung heroes of soundtrack music”. (Efrén del Valle Peñamil, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/piero-umiliani-mn0000240758#biography) Italy’s Piero Umiliani “[i]ncorporat[ed] styles like jazz, easy listening/lounge, rock, funk, and bossa nova to a genre largely dominated by orchestral scores . . . penn[ing] some of the most outstanding film music from the ’60s and ’70s with over 150 titles under his belt.” (Efrén del Valle Peñamil again)
Richie Unterberger writes that:
Piero Umiliani isn’t nearly as well known as Ennio Morricone or Nino Rota, in part because the films he scored haven’t been widely seen outside Italy. But he was also an Italian soundtrack composer who was prolific during the ’60s and ’70s . . . . Umiliani’s . . . [scores are characterized by] unpredictable, imaginative eclecticism. . . . favor[ing] the playful, whimsical side more than Morricone and some other high-profile Italian film composers do. There’s a collision of elements that most listeners would think rare to find used in combination with each other, like go-go jazz, cheesy organ, dreamy European easy listening music, and bits of pieces from mariachi, twangy rock guitar, spy themes, chirpy (sometimes downright goofy) incidental vocals, and what would later come to be known as space age bachelor pad grooves. . . . [I]t’s consistently entertaining and grin-provoking . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/album/pieros-pleasure-the-touch-of-piero-umiliani-mw0000476885
Umiliani’s website tells us of his life (courtesy of Google Translate):
Piero Umiliani was born in Florence . . . [in] 1926. . . . At sixteen, he began [working] for the daily newspaper Il Nuovo Giornale di Firenze, an experience that brought him satisfaction but also some trouble when in an article he praised American jazz music, which at the time was opposed and defined at best as “negroid”. Maestro Pippo Barzizza, who in those years broadcast American hits on Radio Firenze, passing them off as Italian songs with invented titles, read the article and wanted to compliment the author, obviously in great secrecy. [At t]he appointment . . . a very excited Piero would listen to Maestro Barzizza conduct “Il Ruggito della Tigre” which was none other than the famous “Tiger Rag” . . . . [His] career as a reporter was abruptly interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. . . . [He] preferred to tune in to Switzerland whose national radio dedicated half an hour every evening to Duke Ellington. The passion was born, but getting those records . . . was almost impossible, to the point that many shopkeepers would chase away the kids who dared to ask for “that rubbish”. In 1944, with the arrival of the Allies, he found work as an improvising pianist in a club frequented by Americans . . . . Having graduated in law in 1948 from the University of Florence . . . to respect his parents’ wishes . . . he enrolled at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory where he graduated in Counterpoint and Fugue in 1952. . . . His closeness to the Americans and the discovery of their music made a decisive contribution to his training as a jazz pianist and in 1951 he moved to Milan several times to record two albums . . . the first in bebop style ever recorded in Italy. . . . In 1954 Piero and other jazzist friends left for Norway where they played for over six months in the clubs of Oslo. The Masseglias jazz band . . . gains a certain notoriety . . . . [He] returned to Florence . . . and then moved to Rome, encouraged also by Claudio Gambarelli, the first publisher to print pieces of his compositions for jazz bands. The capital of Italy (…and of Italian cinema) welcomed him in the best way. The brothers Paolo and Emilio Taviani entrusted him with the music for their documentary Pittori in Città, the first experience of music for images for the musician. . . . In 1958 the director Mario Monicelli contacted him for the composition of the soundtrack of the film I Soliti Ignoti. . . . the first Italian soundtrack entirely in jazz. The film was nominated for an Oscar in the foreign language film section and . . . a new era began for Umiliani and for the world of soundtracks. The red thread between jazz, cinema and the Florentine maestro continues with titles such as L’Audace Colpo dei Solti Ignoti (1958), where Chet Baker ‘s trumpet bursts in[,] with Smog (1962) again with Baker and the great vocalist Helen Merrill, Una Bella Grinta with Gato Barbieri ‘s sax and Accattone by Pier Paolo Pasolini. . . . Umiliani’s versatility leads him to confront all musical styles working with great directors for films of all genres. Thus came the music for Il Vigile (1958) by Luigi Zampa with Alberto Sordi, A Cavallo della Tigre (1962) by Luigi Comencini with Nino Manfredi, La Celestina PR by Carlo Lizzani in 1964. In that same year Umiliani, who had just won the critics’ award for best Italian jazz album with Piccola Suite Americana, founded the Omicron record label with which he produced the first three . . . in a long series of soundtracks . . . intended for use as background music for radio and television productions. . . . Between the end of the 60s and throughout the 70s Umiliani worked on films that are now cult films such as 5 Bambole per la Luna d’Agosto . . . La Ragazza dalla Pelle di Luna . . . and Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso . . . for which Umiliani composed the famous “Mah Nà Mah Nà”, up to La Pupa del Gangster with the excellent couple Marcello Mastroianni and Sofia Loren . . . . Since the time of his first recording successes the maestro began to work for radio and television. . . . [H]e hosted the programs Moderato Swing (1961) and Fuori l’Orchestra (1963) which brought jazz into all Italian homes . . . . And it was television that made Umiliani climb the charts all over the world when “Mah Nà Mah Nà” became the theme song for the famous . . . Muppets Show in 1969 . . . by Jim Henson.
Wikipedia includes an excerpt from Umiliani’s diary (courtesy of Google Translate):
In the 1940s I lived in Florence. One day I saw a record in a little shop called Hot & Bothered published by a New York label. In Italy, at the time, nobody knew who Duke Ellington was and listening to that kind of music was forbidden, illegal, to the point that if you were discovered you could even end up in jail! The war broke out and I remember that every time I played Mood Indigo on the piano I told myself that it was the most beautiful piece of music ever written. Such a sweet melody, so different from everything I had listened to and played until then… When, finally, the American troops arrived in Florence they brought the V-discs. That’s how I discovered the rhythm and the sound of this music.
Oh, Umiliani wrote “Bob and Hellen” (and the rest of the soundtrack) for the apparently forgettable (except for the music) 1969 Italian/German private detective film La Morte Bussa Due Volte/Blonde Köder für den Mörder/Death Knocks Twice. Janiojala explains:
In it, a wealthy businessman, Francesco Villaverde, who suffers from mental issues, strangles Mrs. Ferretti, the beautiful wife of another businessman, on a beach after they make love. The murder is witnessed by two criminals who then blackmail Francesco’s wife to get some property they desire from her. Two private eyes try to prove that Francesco murdered the woman on the beach, so they use a young blonde (the daughter of one of the detectives) to pose as bait for Francesco to kill. An obscure soundtrack to an obscure Italian-German crime thriller from just the end of the decade. (And not a very critically lauded thriller either). . . . [T]he album itself . . . do[es] everything right. . . . It’s a soundtrack that I am just endlessly enthralled by, without-fail every time that I put it on.
Here is version #2 from the soundtrack (instrumental):
Here is version #3:
Here is version #4 (instrumental):
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