Francesco De Masi - Alla Scoperta Dell'Africa

At a time when the world was not yet represented on a short geographical map, as can be seen on various websites, there was a strong need, in both film and television, to tell the story of distant and inaccessible lands. Hence the various mondomovies, many with an African theme, mainly under the banner of cruel sensationalism and/or morbid exoticism. It was in this context that ALLA SCOPERTA DELL'AFRICA was made, a documentary series of seven one-hour episodes broadcast on Italian television (RAI) in the mid-1960s.
In this field, director Folco Quilici is a leading name in terms of quality and quantity: from 1956 to 2004, he produced some thirty compelling documentary stories. And when it came to music, he often benefited from the talent of Francesco De Masi, who penned Dagli Appennini alle Ande (1959), Ty-Koyo e il suo pescecane (1962) and India (1966-68). So it was only natural that he should choose the maestro.
To musically support this search for the ethnic, cultural and historical identity of a continent that had just completed the process of colonial emancipation, De Masi used a fine and unusual blend of « primitive » timbres and jazz climates. Unusual but with a rigorous historical basis, if you remember the African origins of jazz and the marimba...
From the very first sequence, the tone is epic-adventurous, reminiscent of De Masi's typical movements of those years, particularly in certain westerns - so much so that one could speak of an « African western ». On the same basis, a jazz-like sound comes to life with a very loose phrasing of the trumpets that recalls a piece suspended between the ancient and the modern, the exotic and the European.