News Article

By Hope Glennon
The Improper Hamptonian ©2004
Reprinted with permisssion.

Posted: Feb. 5, 2004

Just over a week ago I got a call from my editor, "I've got a story for you. You'll love it" he said.

With very few details given, he was right. I was hooked and found myself in Port Jefferson to meet my story, Alzo Fronte.

Pre-interview, the only details I had to ponder went as follows: Alzo presently owns an antique shop featuring custom shaker and farmhouse furnishing but has been a musician his entire life. A rather well-versed musician in fact: he went to Julliard, gigged in the village, cut a few albums, the whole bit.

But this was all long ago and no one knew. Or so he thought. Until one day in May 2002, when Alzo got a call from one of his craftsmen.

"I found your album. You haven't changed a bit!"

"What are you looking at," Alzo asked.

"I'm looking at your CD."

"That's impossible. There were no CD's then. They hadn't been invented!"

True, there were no CD's in 1968, but this release was from Japan, dated 1996.

As a teenager Alzo played in a band called The Insanities, known for its Latin groove and mystic flare. Producer Jeff Barry chose a few singles for his own label, Steed. Hippies flocked but just prior to the Steed release, Jeff Barry disappeared and was never heard from again. The Insanities folded, but Alzo and his partner Udine stayed together, formed their own group and named it after themselves.

A gig at The Bitter End got them a record deal with Mercury. The album wasn't properly distributed, but they did tour a bit and even opened for The Association. As far as they knew the album never made it.

Udine and Alzo split and Alzo got a job in the mailroom of the Ampex Tape Recorder Corporation. The year was 1970. On a normal delivery to a record department he didn't know existed, Alzo was stopped by Topper Schroeder, in from Mercury (Chicago).

"Hey, aren't you Alzo? What are you doing? I love your music!"

"I'm working in the mailroom."

Schroeder wound up getting Alzo a deal for one album with carte blanche to pick his producer, musicians, and anyone he wanted. Being a huge fan of jazz, he wanted keyboardist Bob Dorough. Dorough brought in all his great jazz player friends and Alzo brought in the Conga player Emile Lattimer, of Ritchie Havens and Nina Simone fame.

But just as their single That's Alright I Don't Mind started hitting the charts, Ampex folded, the record's rotation was discontinued and Alzo was unemployed.

Eight months later he got a call from a former Ampex employee who informed him that Clive Davis was interested in his music and wanted to buy his album (we'll call it Alzo I) and release it on Columbia records. This former employee turned out to be Steve Paley, Clive's right hand man.

His mission: to wine, dine and sign. He succeeded, almost. As Alzo says, "When somebody big is into you, you go from unemployed mailboy to hot item." And just like that, Bell Records was also interested and willing to meet or outbid Clive's offer.

Attorneys entered the scene. Clive upped his offer…then Bell…then Clive. The money got seductive. "I sensed that Clive could make a monster out of me, but I was afraid of what else would go along with it. The people at Bell seemed more human."

Bell assigned Alzo to re-release the album from Ampex and start a whole new album with them, featuring his beloved band members. They finished the album, some singles were released, and Alzo even made it to Texas for a promotional tour. But before long, Bell folded.

"And guess why," Alzo just about shrieks, "because Clive bought the label!"

"Wouldn't you come with it?" I innocently ask.

"Not if you say no to him, and I just had."

It's 1973, the album is finished but never gets packaged or pressed. Alzo starts knocking on doors of record companies to see if there are any contacts left. The oil shortage of the 70's is in full swing having a direct, devastating effect on the vinyl industry. Anyone left that he might have known is getting demoted, laid off, or fired. He's out of people, out of a dream, and out of gas.

Meanwhile, a Peruvian rock band puts an album out called Telegraph Avenue, covering the Alzo and Udine song Something Going, word for word and note for note, but with no writer's credit whatsoever. Later, Jose Feliciano would also cover some songs from Alzo I but they were never released.

In 1976 Topper Schroeder (at RCA) gets The Main Ingredient to cover Looks Like Rain on their Euphrates River album. Alzo actually got royalties for it, but his passion for the pursuit of the dream was exhausted. Alzo Fronte had by then a vested interest in antiques, restoration and the art of caning, and was into opening a store with wife.

Until a year and a half ago.

"So I type in my name on the Internet, never thought to do that, and sure enough, there I am all over the place! There was a Chicago site selling Alzo & Udine! So I order it! Then I start e-mailing these sites in Japan where these guys are holding my album like it's gold! Then I see it, Polydor Mercury, Release Date: 1996. So this was released 6 years ago in Japan and I know nothing about it? What's going on?"

Alzo prayed for an English response from the Japanese guys, and got one, "You're alive! We've been looking for you for years!" Soon enough, Alzo put up a web-site (www.alzomusic.com) and people from all over the world were contacting him.

The salutations were incredible: "Wow! Mystery solved!" "Like Mozart, Miles, Dylan-classics never go away. Welcome back Alzo! You're a classic." "I have been searching for your music for 20 years and tonight I just found your website. I wrote you in 1973 and you responded. I still have the pink stationary letter and your autographed photo. Your music and lyrics have always been my favorite."

From one of his fans Alzo learned that many more people were searching for him, including Yashiro Nagato, an independent record producer. Alzo e-mailed Yashiro his phone number and within 5 minutes the phone rang. "He was breathless, he couldn't believe he was speaking to me." Yashiro knew everything Alzo has ever done and wanted to release it all. In February of 2003 Yashiro came to visit Alzo. At the airport, they embraced speechless. Alzo described him as, "Ageless, my long lost brother. He brought along with him a taped radio show devoted entirely to me! It felt as though he brought me back my life."

The past year and a half has been for Alzo Fronte an exasperating, but successful, effort to regain the rights to his work.

The following triumphs, I am thus pleased to impart:

· Alzo I was re-released in Japan on Dec. 17, 2003 and within two days 2,500 copies were sold.

· Alzo I has been nominated as a Re-issue of the Year.

· A publishing proposal from Fuji Pacific, as well as one from Korea, to release Alzo I under one of their labels.

· January 21st, the day before this interview, Alzo received a contract granting him ten years of worldwide rights, non-exclusive.