Monday 18 March 2024

Tomasz Stanko: Balladyna, Music 81, Lady Go

 





From discogs:

Tomasz Stańko (born July 11, 1942 in Rzeszów; died July 29, 2018 in Warsaw) was a Polish trumpeter, composer and improviser, associated with free jazz and avant-garde music.

In the early days (seventies) he did a lot of free jazz / improvised which of course holds no interest to me at all, apologies to those who do enjoy this. Later there is more composed music, very much jazz based, but occasionally with wonderful chamber compostion.

From Balladyna (1976), The First Song:



Title track of Lady Go:




Friday 15 March 2024

The first Heavy Metal Sextet, 1983



Admittedly this one is better (less jazzy, more fusiony) than the previously posted one from 1984 which came out the next year. Consider the opening track alone:



There's a bunch of really odd and dissonant riffs in there, and unfortunately and oddly enough the atrociously overplayed standard My Funny Valentine by Rodgers and Hart makes an unexpected and altogether party-crashing appearance too.  But on the whole well worth the hearing and listening to.

Please enjoy this and many thanks to my contacts and friends who find these lost gems I would otherwise have never heard.

Information again here.



Wednesday 13 March 2024

Trierweiler and Beier, Two Decades (1983)



 

Information for this release here. You can see their other album is quite similar.

Basically it's an interesting mix of trombone (Trierweiler) and various keyboards (Chris Beier) with differential sounds but usually quite laidback and ambient with both of the two contributing compositions. There are vibes, synthesizers playing havoc in the background, digital keys, muted trombone improvs.  Usually the actual composition, such as it is, achieves an atonal or at least dramatically complex sound with dissonant and shifty chords, as on Dark Lady: though I understand not many have a taste for this style, you can learn to enjoy the result.  There is one track that reuses some jazz cliches and tropes but luckily it's minimal.  In terms of past posts, it's most like the Apocalypse Twilight of van't Hof from long ago in feel, and equally spacey:



Definitely worth the price of admission here ($20 for used LP) and several listens to boot.



Monday 11 March 2024

Back to Monica Tornell with 1977's Bush Lady, by request



 

I guess this album which came after the hirsute Don't Give a Damn one from 1975, continues in the vein of harder, rawer, more rocky songs with none of the folk that appeared earlier and that in fact reappeared in the next 1978 album posted already earlier.  Of note this one was produced by Northern fusion musician (actually, North Carolina born) Stephen Frankevich (or sometimes Franckevich) who plays percussion, trumpets, and writes some material, both songs and lyrics.  (The next one used Jason Lindh as producer which gave it a folkier aspect of course.)

For us Stephen Frankevich is notable for the fact he played on Soffgruppen and Sundance, both wonderful one-off Scandinavian fusion albums. I posted the former here recently and the latter can be done if requested. It's also a wonderful slice of smooth and breezy fusion, with female vocals to grace it.

On this record there are quite a few cover versions and odds and ends, there is a string quartet interlude from Frankevich  which makes it somewhat regrettable that he didn't do more arranging duties though it also stands out as completely out of character on an otherwise basic rock album. 

However his composition called Snowcold Day is perhaps the best track:




It also gives you a sense of how grating her rock singing style can be when she attempts to be rough and loud like Janis Joplin--sorry to those who are fans.

Another good track, by the same songwriter, though the harmony vocals near the end are somewhat clunky in arrangement, Say Yes:




It's an album that could have been much better had it matured a bit more or maybe, had it been in the hands of a stellar producer, because it does have potential. At any rate I would say it's the best album from her by a long shot, being not so enamored of her early folkier days.


Friday 8 March 2024

Eberson in 1977's Blow Out [Flac limited time only]






That soundtrack-like or movie poster back cover is really something, isn't it?

I guess this album really belongs with the other Moose Loose ones, it's pretty much a continuation of the same wonderful fusionary style. Here you can see the same people reappearing for sure with the inimitable team of Hakon Graf on keys and Eberson on guitars. It's so intense they sound like an orchestra.

Alive Again



Electric Bird