“The true revelation of the year in the field of Italian music. Five Italian boys, some of whom with a wealth of experience (the flutist Elio D’Anna played with The Showmen), at the festival of Viareggio they are considered five soloists with clear ideas, especially with their personal unitary. The use of the flute is “dramatic” and haunting in a way that cannot help but be reminiscent of the master of all flute players of the past two years, Ian Anderson. Five men who wanted, in part with a taste for the theatrical and for choreography, in part to fit into that atmosphere of “totality” that the art of today imposes, to create a visual as well as aural theatre through their performances.”

Enzo Caffarelli, 1971

One of the most distinctive bands of the original RPI scene, Osanna were hot stuff back in the Seventies. With their painted faces (harking back to the city’s traditional mask of Pulcinella) and wild, energetic sound, they blended British-style heavy rock with influences coming from the venerable musical tradition of their hometown. It has even been intimated that Peter Gabriel took his cue from Osanna for his stage make-up when the two bands toured Italy together. Like so many of their fellow 

Neapolitans, the five members of the band had music in their blood – not the tasteful, restrained kind practiced by northern Italians PFM, though, but rather a full-throttle blend of passion, energy and chops.

Italy hatched one of the most prolific schools of progressive-rock. 

Italy had no major rock tradition. The progressive school was an unintended consequence of two phenomena: a boom of classically-trained musicians and the 1968 student riots. In 1969, Italy was awash in young erudite musicians who wanted to chan

ge the world. They identified with the ideology of the hippies, but retained the language of Bach. Progressive-rock was born out of this contradiction. (…) A sub-genre of Italian prog-rock was Italian jazz-rock, well represented by albums such as Osanna‘s jazz-rock nightmare Palepoli (1973)…

Piero Scaruffi 2003, The history of Rock Musicù