Migliori Amici & Co. is New York City based prog rock project featuring members of Jefferson Starship, Renaissance, Colosseum and heavier rocking outfits like Ross The Boss and Paul Dianno’s Killers.
The collaborative mix released ‘Glasgow Reel’, the first single take from an upcoming EP, Best Of Friends, a few weeks back, and now formally issue a video for it that you can view here at RAMzine. What’s more it has already won awards at World Film Carnival – Singapore, Tagore Intl Film Festival and Druk International Film Festival.
Directed by drummer Michael Sciotto and produced by Sciotto and Ray DeTone. Michael said: “’Since ‘Glasgow Reel’ is more or less a traditional Celtic dance song, I wanted to capture that Scottish folk vibe while interspersing it with the prog rock musicians we featured on this track.
“The original Tam Linn story, written in the 1500s, which inspired the composition, was steeped in mythical and magical imagery, which gave me the idea to include the grand and expansive visuals of Scotland. It was a lot fun editing the musical performance footage together with the traditional dancers, castles and mystical scenes. I particularly enjoyed the angel that appears from time to time in the video.”
DeTone concured, “I especially love the owl’s eye! It looks right through me.”
Sciotto added: “Having Mark Clarke, with his prog rock roots, on bass was a big plus and of course, our good friend Ralph Merigliano, is always a first choice for keyboard wizardry.
‘Glasgow Reel’ is actually a cover version of the Davey Arthur penned song song as performed by Irish folk band The Fureys back in 1977, and also popularly known as ‘Tam Linn’. Migliori Amici & Co.’s version, arranged by Ray DeTone and Michael Sciotto, kicks their instrumental version into overdrive.
DeTone, who has worked with the likes of Drive, She Said, Paul Dianno’s Killers and Japanese artists such as Niya Sasaki, Yutaka Imaizumi and Himuro reached out to his friend and former Jefferson Starship and From the Fire drummer, Sciotto, and the duo decided to turn tragedy into an opportunity during the COVID-19 shutdown.
As noted above, they enlisted the talents of some of their closest friends, including Mark Clarke (Colosseum, Billy Squier), Nicky Moroch (Elton John, David Bowie), Adam Holzman (Miles Davis, Steve Wilson), Alex Salzman (Ace Frehley), the late David J Keyes (Renaissance, Willy DeVille), Dave Trupia (Marty Balin), and Ralph Merigliano (Ross The Boss) in order to put together Best Of Friends.
“We were all stuck at home, a situation we had never really been put in before, “recalled DeTone. “We decided to create a piece of art rather than just sit around bored.”
The six song EP, Best Of Friends has been described as “an instrumental prog tour de force of melodic musicianship, performed by only the best … of friends?” “Migliori amici is Italian for best of friends,” said DeTone. “So, it was an obvious choice for the title of the record.”
‘Glasgow Reel’ can be purchased on iTunes and streamed on Spotify. The video for the song can be seen featured here at RAMzine.
