Gazebo (AKA Paul Mazzolini) wrote and recorded most of the album with songwriter and producer Pierluigi Giombini, whose work on “Chopin” and Ryan Paris’ “Dolce Vita” (which Gazebo co-wrote and later recorded) made him as much a member of Italo Disco royalty as his collaborators.
The record has a pronounced cosmopolitan vibe to it. In the mid-80s, people with heavily populated passports and who spent a fair amount of time in classy hotel bars were likely able to recite an obscure verse from one of the non-singles without much fanfare.
When you consider Mazzolini’s upbringing, the record makes sense. He was born in 1960s Beirut, Lebanon, to a mother who was a singer and an Italian diplomat father, according to his bio.
“According to legend, he learned to play the guitar [at age] 10 to impress a German girl in his class,” his bio says. “As a rather cosmopolitan teenager, Gazebo began a career in a variety of jazz, rock, and punk bands before signing with Baby Records.”
Back in Italy, Mazzolini met up with a DJ named Paolo Micioni, with whom he’d create “Masterpiece,” the first Gazebo single. Its 12-inch version ended up becoming popular on dance floors across Europe and Asia.
Gazebo’s self-titled record is a stunning debut from an artist who, like many of his fellow Italo Disco folk in recent decades, has managed to have been both a successful mega-star and an underrated and relatively unknown songwriter and performer.
This is an album that represents a finely tailored style designed for important occasions thrown for those with beautiful persuasions. The production is clean and well-crafted. The arrangements are interesting, complex, and often catchy.
- AARON VEHLING - vehlinggo.com
